My final night in the bar was hard. I did not want to be there, and I felt a lot of oppression and even more anger towards the men and the people who brought their children to the bars (I wanted so badly to ask a dad why he would bring his son or daughter into such a place like that). At one point Pam and I were going to go back to Starbucks to pray but we decided we would push past what Satan was throwing at us. Pam felt like we should go back to Soi Eric, so we did. Earlier in the evening we had gone there to say our goodbyes to our girl and she wasn’t there-we were told she wasn’t working that night. We had left with heavy and angry hearts. As we rounded the corner to go back to the street we see our girl bonding towards us with a huge smile on her face and she leapt into our arms. Her special friend was there, and we played a few last games of Jenga.
I stood on the corner of Bangla and Eric with tears in my eyes as I said good bye to my dear friend that I had made. She cried as well, and I could tell she genuinely didn’t want us to leave. I do not know if I will ever see her again, I doubt it. If I come back to Thailand I will not be coming to Phuket and even if I did, I pray that she would no longer be working at the bar. Will she come and work for SHE? I do not know, but we left her telling her she could go there any time she wanted out. Please pray that she does. It is hard leaving a friend when you know that most of the people in her life only care for her because they want to use her- I cannot imagine how she feels even if she won’t fully say that she wants out. Perhaps YWAMers and future race squads will befriend her and give her that little push that she needs to leave.
Leaving SHE and Thailand has been the hardest to leave as of yet. It’s funny, going into this month I was not looking forward to it at all. Bars just aren’t the type of places I like to hang out (and they still aren’t), but being able to just develop friendships and love on the girls was great-that is they type of ministry that I prefer. We didn’t do any in your face gospel sharing, we just were their friends. We just loved them because they are daughters of God and he loves them. It was painful knowing when they were with customers-our girl ended up not coming to Christmas because of her “special friend”, and most of last week we didn’t see her because of him either. Sharron and Mark are wonderful people, and I am amazed at their heart that they have for the people. IF you get the chance please check out their website at: www.shethailand.org and help support them if you can. They want to build a new ministry building where they can help Burmese refugees and also give the Thai girls a place to live.
I am now in Bangkok until the 2nd, and it will be a time of relaxation. It will be a time of saying good bye to this country that has been my home for the last month. I am at a point where I am tired of saying “good bye.” In the last four months I have said “good bye” to more people than I can count…to new and old friends a like.
