Reality – at some point or another, every one of these paragraphs was the start of this blog. I really couldn’t figure out how to start this thing because it truly isn’t an easy thing to talk about. If the title isn’t enough for you, this blog isn’t a feel good or lesson message. This is me processing the insanity I have been called to and the life I am now living.
Fiction – I know how to handle whatever God throws my way. If I have been called to something, then clearly I will be able to walk in it with little to no issues.
January of 2013 I was in Uganda, living alone with 6 women who mean the world to me. During this month, God taught me a very important lesson. I had been using other people as my processing tool. I would often go vent to someone, like a lot of people do, then go reflect on what was said and how God meant it for His glory. However, the people around me only knew I was venting to them which became burdensome and didn’t know this was a part of me growing. OOPS! Long story short, I spent a lot of time in Uganda talking to God about things I normally vented to people about. Because of the amazing community I have in America, I was able to raise extra funds above and beyond what was required for the World Race. I started questioning God as to how I could best use this money instead of giving it over to AIM for the general fund. Honestly this started as a selfish thing. God lead me to the AIM website for a different mission trip they facilitate. In order to lead one of these trips it would cost almost exactly what I had in my account. Out of all the possibilities of places to lead, the Philippines was the only one God really spoke to me about. Jason, the man, wanted to go to so many other places because they were cooler or I had been there and really liked it there. Fast forwarding to the end of June – I had been home for about three weeks and AIM held a conference for alumni World Racers. At this conference I had every intention of applying for the leadership role I thought God was calling me to because it made so much logical sense. After a four minute conversation with a man who works for AIM, God clearly spoke to me about long term missions with AIM. For peace of mind I went through the process of applying for the leadership role anyway and expectedly was denied. At which point I followed the process to join the long term missions department of AIM in the Philippines. I was mistaking human logic for Gods plan; I was called to the Philippines, but not through the specific avenue I was seeking. In September I left for Guatemala for 4 weeks of training after which I went to Georgia (state not country) for 10 days and then on October 19 my team and I flew to Manila, Philippines to start a new life.
Life in Asia
I love Asian culture and….really I just love Asia. This is the first island nation I have ever lived in. The Philippines is a tropical nation which means I sweat all the time, even in the shower (counterproductive) and I eat a lot of rice, which I don’t mind as much as I thought I would. We are here with the purpose of opening up our home as a discipleship center, reaching out to the people in our locality to build relationships and to reach out to women who are trafficked. The thing is, other than the sweating and rice, I haven’t done any of those things before. This past Monday we went to Angeles City to do outreach in the bars. It doesn’t take a language scholar to figure out what Angeles City means; City of Angels. It would be very easy to go to the street, 8 blocks long where there are 15,000 women trafficked and not see angels. Yet God is so merciful while walking through those streets and into those bars, I couldn’t help but see the daughters God had created as His little angels.
There are a lot of ideas about the sex trade business which get passed around as truth and believed by many. Videos and solicitations for organizations whom work in the sex trade industry tend to show the most graphic and explicit parts of their work because it is what reaches peoples moral standards and their wallets. I’m not knocking them for good marketing; they have a missions and a purpose which in our world is run on money therefore necessitating this type of marketing. However, so much of what is seen in these videos is actually not the normal bar life. The things these videos show are sick and disturbing because of their indecency, but in a way what happens in the majority of the bars is even more sickening because it is indecency masked with modesty. Please forgive the imagery this next part may create. The women don’t flock men in a desperate attempt to make money. The women aren’t physically aggressive at all. If you can picture an estate sale or any kind of auction really, you have a basic understanding of how these bars work. At an auction a numbered item is presented and people fight over ownership through bidding a higher price. In these bars the girls are corralled on stage and numbered. The price stays the same but people fight over ownership on a first come first serve basis by selecting a number. After a numbered girl is selected she is pointed at with a laser pointer and gets to meet her potential customer for the evening. Because the solicitation of sex is illegal by the United Nations, these are not establishments for that purpose, technically. However, in the event/expectation of this law being broken, there is a “fine” which is paid by the customer. In reality the price is the same because the fine is built in to the price of having “company” for the evening with the expectation of the customers breaking the law.
There are roughly 28 million slaves in the free world today, how ironic. About half of those 28 million people are slaves in the sex trade industry. Call it 13 million males and females of all ages being held captive by poverty and fear and forced to sell a part of their existence which was meant for something else entirely. Clearly I cannot take pictures inside the bars although I don’t think I would post those pictures anyway. Even taking pictures outside the bars is unacceptable because there are door girls who are also available for hire.
One girl called in “sick” Monday night because she heard we were coming to town and she wanted to be with us. Another girl was out walking Tuesday morning and saw us inside the church we were staying in and was so confused by white men at the church and not at the bar. How twisted has society become? Through pure curiosity she came in and had breakfast with us and we told her about what we do and gave her our information. And after breakfast we had another girl whom we met Monday night text us saying she wants to know how it works because she wants to leave the bar but is terrified, naturally. The girl who called in sick has visited the safe house and is planning on bringing 3 girls with her on the 5th so they can see what it is like too. She herself hasn’t left the bar yet but is trying to get the other girls out of the bar she works in on our behalf. Walking into the bars you get a different sense of what it actually is. During outreach we go into the bars and talk with the women; letting them know there are other options and there is a way out of this life. It isn’t evangelism and we aren’t trying to convert people. We don’t reach out to prostitutes; we try to save women from being prostituted. Our focus is to offer women and their children a better life and before anyone is accepted God is always our counsel. The safe house is very much centered on Christ and this house is a temple for the Lord but a relationship with Him is their choice. Regardless of their choice, they don’t deserve the life of a bar girl.
Currently this is the life I have been called to. I cannot help being totally ecstatic about living in the Philippines, being a disciple to people and offering a better life to women being prostituted. I have never done any of this before and have no idea why I was chosen for this. I don’t know how to reach out to people in this life or connect with people I know nothing about. Nor do I even know how to process the things I see and the evil I come into opposition with every time we go out. The most beautiful part of this is because I have no understanding of this I cannot rely on my own understanding nor can I revert to anything I have done before to serve my God in this new way. I have entered a place where my walk with the LORD must be completely different than anything I have ever done before and will have to go deeper. My God is named YAHWEH-SHALOM, The LORD is Peace. Therefore here I am.
As He leads me,
Jason
