We arrived in Thailand on Wednesday afternoon after a short flight from KL. We’re staying in a YWAM base run by a family from England. I have a bed to sleep on for the first time since September 10th, the night before I left home. It’s nice being with the entire squad for the month.
One thing to fill you in since my last blog: April decided to seek an opportunity back home, and flew to Georgia on Wed. as we flew to Thailand. God has opened the door for her to take a youth pastor job at a church in her hometown, so she has headed that direction. Please cover her in your prayers as she deals with transitioning back into society, and dealing with all that has to offer. Also, please keep my team covered as we sort of figure out a new identity as a five member team, and what exactly that will look like.
We are in Phuket (Poo-Ket) this month, a beautiful island with sandy beaches and amazing scenery. It’s also the capitol of Asian sex-trafficking. We will spend nights taking shifts going to the bars on Bangla Road and talking with the prostitutes, and staying back and interceding on behalf of those gone. Ryan and I, along with 3 other girls are on a team, spending Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights in town at the bars from 9-11:30. 
The process is quite simple: spend the afternoon prayer-walking the bars, and discern where God is sending you, go to that bar and order a Coke or Red Bull, and talk to the prostitutes and anyone else who God puts in your path.
Our goal is not necessarily to preach the Gospel to these girls, but to offer them a chance to come work with SHE ministry and/or take English classes.
SHE is the ministry here at the base. They give opportunities for women who want out of the sex trafficking business to come and make jewelry, candies, and cookies to sell for profit. They also offer English classes for a very cheap price. They have a 95% success rate in women leaving the ministry a Christian. Our goal therefore, becomes to get them in the door.
How do we do that? We PREPARE for battle. Each night this means beginning our time with some serious worship and prayer, before we even leave for the bars. After we’ve ordered a drink, we converse, not necessarily talking about anything spiritual, just getting to know these people. The bars all have little games you can play with the prostitutes: jackpot (a dice game), Connect Four, Jenga, and my personal favorite, the nail game (where you all try to drive a nail into a piece of wood using a pointed hammer). After about 20 minutes, you pay the bill, say your goodbyes, and go to another bar, where the process is repeated.
Eventually, once relationships and trust is formed, we will give these ladies a flyer talking about SHE ministries, and all the opportunities there, and also invite them to come to lunch at the base. This is how most of the women get involved with the ministry.
Thursday night we were able to go to 3 different bars and I was able to talk to 3 different ladies.
It’s amazing, they have on the wall upstairs here at the base, a huge diagram of all the bars, and an organizational chart with each bar on each street and the names of every woman that missionaries have talked with on the wall. Last night we got to add 3 new names to that wall.
Friday night, we were only able to meet up with New, one of the women from the night before, but man, was she excited to see us. As we were walking up, she saw us and started to wave and smile. New is 34 years old, single, has an 11 year old son, and has worked at Liza bar as a prostitute for 5 days. She told me she owned an art store in Bangkok but business was not good, so she moved to Phuket, because after all, “this is easy money.”
These women are not forced into these jobs; they are free to come and go as they wish. That doesn’t mean an omission of oppression, though. I asked all three women on Thursday, “Are you happy here?” and got 3 very sad “no’s.”
I see a huge potential in the friendship with New that’s been formed, and a potential for many more. This is a very serious manner. Because of how serious what we are doing is, and as men, how risky this can be, I am begging anyone who reads this to get on your face and pray to God for some supernatural protection and a boldness to do what we need to do to bring Heaven to these women and men of Phuket.
