It’s month 10!!! In just a few short weeks, I will be welcoming in the holidays with my family by my side. I will be living in the correct time zone and sitting on my happy butt drinking some Dr. Pepper.
But even though I can see the end in sight, the Lord has been very clear. My Race is NOT over. In fact, He has been showing me that the best is yet to come.
This month in Thailand came as a surprise. I have a new team, a drastically different country, and a ministry that just feels like home.
I came on the Race with one wish: to work in a red light district, to love on those trapped in sex trafficking. And this month, my prayers were answered.
This month has been nothing like I would have expected and everything I ever needed all in one.
The main mission of our team is to become friends with the girls working in dance bars that comprise some of the most prominent prostitution centers of Chiang Mai.
Basically, we go in posed as tourists looking for a good time. We find a person that we believe the Lord is leading us to. We buy that person a drink which buys their time. Sometimes, being Jesus means buying a beer! Then we just talk and see where it goes.
Explained like this, it seems so simple. But it is so much heavier than that.
As you talk to this girl, you see a 40 year old American man on your left figuring out a price for services. On your right, you notice a 60 year old Australian grab a girl by the arm. You try to ignore the pain in her face.
Behind you, you hear the voice of a little 10 year old girl selling flowers. A pedophile is there trying to gain her trust. You burn with anger at what you hear. You learn that the girl is not allowed to leave the red light district until she sells her flowers, but she has trouble selling flowers because she “isn’t cute anymore.”
You fight back the rage and helplessness, you say a silent prayer while the girl in front of you touches your leg suggestively, hoping you will buy her because Americans “treat her better.”
You get dinner at a seemingly harmless restaurant, only to find out that just behind you women are being sold like vending machines. Pick a number, deposit the money, enjoy your treat.
You walk by hundreds of massage parlors offering a “happy ending.” You see the sadness in the eyes of the women. You can barely breathe from the oppression. You want to run away, to ignore the reality, but you can’t. You will never be the same.
Welcome to the sex industry in Chiang Mai. It is heavy, it is dark, it is downright evil. But oh my gosh the Lord is moving.
Just in the past week, we have talked to girls in the bars who are so eager for a friend. They see something different in us, and they cannot figure it out.
We see them as people, and not objects, and they almost don’t know what to do with it. They don’t know how to be loved.
Just last night, the Lord told our group to get a foot massage at one of the massage parlors. We got to talk to women who are often overlooked or ignored as a means to an end.
We get to be Jesus in the darkest, most evil place I have ever seen. What a ride it has been.
Please pray for our team as we continue to minister to these women. So many people turn a blind eye. Every day we see them, know them, and remember them.
This ministry is far from conventional. We aren’t passing out bibles. We aren’t preaching. Heck, we are hanging out in bars, playing pool, and buying beer. But Jesus wasn’t afraid of sin. He didn’t look away when someone came to Him dirty and broken.
That is what this month is about. Loving people in the midst of their sins and looking at them with God’s eyes. These people are lonely. They are hurting. They are crying out for a savior.
And we get to show them who He is.
