So, I think I had one of the best times on the trip so far in ministry the other night at the bars! Julie and I had gone the night before to say hey to our friends (we know and have awesome friendships with 4 girls at one of the bar locations that we visit every night). I had walked back on my own to the second bar to see my friend and when I got there, I knew something was different about her. Her eyes were glossy and she was unsteady on her feet. I knew that it was more than just alcohol affecting her. To make a long story short, she had been drinking whiskey that had been drugged with amphetamines, which she didn’t know until afterwards.
Julie and I paid her bar fine so she could leave for the night, and after a lot of convincing and basically holding her up and walking her to the curb, we got her in a taxi and took her home. We got to see where she lived, which was really cool, and we met her family, and saw the floor that she sleeps on every night in her sister’s house.
While we were in the cab I felt that there was a window of opportunity to pray for her. I got her permission and prayed out loud over her, just asking God to sober her long enough for me to speak truth to her.
She cried as I prayed, and after the prayer, she looked me straight in the eyes and I knew the Lord had answered my prayers. She was coherent and focused, which had definitely not been the case as we had to drag her to the taxi earlier. So, I went for it. I told her all about the Lord and how much He cherishes her and doesn’t want her to keep living like this because she is precious to Him and worth dying for. She stared into my eyes and got choked up a bit, and even nodded from time to time. I told her all the amazing qualities that I can see in her after only a month and that there is another life waiting for her if she will just trust God and step out in faith. After a few minutes, I felt the urgency lift off of me, and I knew the window of soberness was closing. Sure enough, she rested her head back and her eyes were glossy again, and she started speaking incoherently. But God got the glory in that taxi! His love for her is so fierce that nothing was going to get in the way of His heart being revealed to his lost little girl.
Anyway, I went back the next night to finish our talk, and it could not have been more fun or gone more smoothly. One of my other girls had been taken by a customer for the long weekend, so I hadn’t seen her for 4 days. I wanted to go and talk to the first girl about the Lord again, but didn’t think I would be able to if my other friend was there. As God would have it, it was just the one girl for the first hour or so, and I got to finish telling her about how special she is and about how she could leave the bars and work at the Well if she wanted to. I gave her the run down of what the girls do who leave the bars and what life is like at the Well ministry. She actually seemed interested and said she knew she needed a change.
My other friend came around that time, and they both started talking about leaving the bars and wanting to do something else for a living. I told them to just visit the Well and give it a chance. They both agreed and we made plans to go the next day! Jim, the founder of the Well, called at that exact moment to say that he was only a few blocks away, and asked if I would like him to come and meet the girls! I think I must have shouted in his ear “YES! Come right now, they’re ready!” It was such God timing…the whole night. And the thing I love is that I didn’t have to twist their arms or play car salesman to get them to consider a change. The Lord has been drawing them to Himself for far longer than I have known them. He gets all the glory because He has put in the hard yards and pursued them since they were born. I just came along at the right time to see the results!
Anyway, we had to wait about two hours for him to wrap up what he was doing to come and visit, so in the meantime, I got taken care of by about 10 Thai bar girls! Let me explain. The schedule of a bar girl is very different then work schedules in the States: they get off work at around 2:30 am, go home and sleep until about 4pm, then get up to be at work around 5 -6 pm. So, when I was there at 10:30pm, it was their lunch time! Well, I must have gained five pounds from all the food they shared with me! And some of it was not your average snack food…there were bugs and vegetables I couldn’t identify, and free sushi…so many things…and we all ate together! I remember having a moment where I stopped and looked around and realized how much I love my life. Here I am, 23 years old, sitting on a bar stool in Thailand at night with a bunch of strippers and prostitutes who are sharing their food with me and treating me like I am welcome and appreciated as a friend. We were laughing and talking like we’d known each other forever, and I never once felt like I stuck out as the one American tourist. For that night, I was accepted to a level I hadn’t gotten to before, maybe because I wasn’t with anyone else and I wasn’t just stopping by. Either way, they trusted me completely and had let me in. And I was just hanging out with my girls! Only God…I shake my head and smile and am reminded that what He has in store for me is always better than I could expect.
