My first two weeks of being here has been hard. I came into the country very sick and the first three days we had an orientation on the cultural do’s and don’ts. There we gained insight into the life of the girls that we are working with. We also watched a documentary, Nefarious, which wrecked me. It’s a documentary about sex trafficking and if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you watch it. I’ve always heard about sex trafficking and seen the program for it on instagram and Facebook. I’ve heard speakers talk about it, but it’s a whole different feeling and experience when you see it with your own two eyes, or when you actually work beside with the women who worked in it. It makes me angry just thinking about how these women get used just as meat. It brings tears to my eyes because I have now worked along side with these women. I’ve gotten to know them. Crack jokes with them. They have become sisters to me. For the first two weeks it’s been very hard being exposed to this problem. It’s been very hard not to judge a western man with a Thai woman. You could get a sense of hopelessness here.
I went to visit my friend Diana, and her roommate Jen. Dianna has a organization called Shear Love International where they help trafficked women get out of that lifestyle. It’s hard to explain what I saw and to put them into words, but I will try my best. I don’t think I was ready to see what I saw in Pattaya and the first day there was the hardest. My friend showed me around, took me to go visit the women and allow them to practice cutting our hair. In order to get to the salon, we had to go into one of the more heavier prostitution areas in Thailand called Soy 6. They are 18 of these streets to put some perspective on it and that’s not including Walking Street or Beach Street. These are all places where you could pay a dollar to have sex with somebody. As I was walking on Soi 6 I was seeing the John’s already in the bars and brothels. Did I mention it was 10 in the morning? I couldn’t believe it. Women, half naked, already working the streets. We finally make it to the salon where I meet these two amazing people who are the students who are going to cut my friend, John’s and my hair. Let me say they did an excellent job on our hair, especially since it was their first time doing men’s hair. We said our goodbyes to these women who found hope in Jesus and you couldn’t even tell that these women have been abused because of how much spark and joy they had. We leave, but not before we visit a girl who is working in the bar who my friend was working to get out. Lady D introduces us to her. She smiles and shakes our hand, but behind that smile you could see the distress in her face. D could see it as well, so we left them to talk. As we leave, D begins to tell me the statistics about Pattaya. How there is 8 million tourists that come a year, and 85 percent of them come for paid sex. That’s 6,800,000 give or take.
You could definitely feel hopeless with those numbers, but God doesn’t want me to feel that way. He doesn’t want me to judge every white guy I see, but instead to love. It’s impossible to love if you have already judged everyone in your heart. So God loved the world! That means He loves the John’s, the lady boys, and even the pimps. God is showing me to love selflessly, he’s teaching me to have hope, to be that hope to people even when it feels like there’s none. Don’t get me wrong, Thailand is a beautiful place. They honor people and most of the people are friendly. I love it here. I just want to share with you what is happening in the world. With that being said, God has a hand here. There’s a small remnant of people who have given their lives to see trafficking end and that is encouraging to see.
