A guy walks into a bar and satisfies the desires in his pants.
A girl walks into a bar, her products on full display, and gives away little soul pieces one customer at a time.
That’s the G-rated version of Thailand’s Red Light District.
This month I”m teaching English in a small Thai town, but with a few days in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, I wanted to see the place in which I’ve heard so much about. The place where so many human trafficking victims have found themselves.
Human trafficking. The issue I’ve educated Cambodian villagers about. The cause I’ve talked about in America with secret pride inside, wanting to boastfully display my knowledge and “passion” for. The evil that didn’t really hit the pit of my heart until I was among its presence.
Before coming to Thailand, I knew I wanted to see it. Needed to see it.
Bar ministry can do more harm than good if one doesn’t have the proper training or resources backing them, so a few others and I decided to prayer walk through this glowingly dark, red lit street of Bangkok.
I wanted to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to see, and simply reading the basic travel blogs were enough to break me. Enough to bring about the most astounding sadness, anger, nausea, tears.
“The go-go bars are lively and the working girls are hungry…Both male and female can have as much fun as men seeking more ‘adult’ nocturnal activities. For an edgier and grittier experience, Nana Plaza is close to hand too.”
“Average looking bar girls make up the bulk of prostitute numbers but there are still a fair amount of attractive ladies to pick and choose from…Prices are always negotiable but if she knows what she is worth she will charge what she’s worth.”
Sex is easily considered part of Thailand tourism. In 2015, Thailand’s sex tourism industry was valued at $6.4 billion a year in revenue. You could find this area on almost any travel blog with the “Top 10…25 Things to Do in Bangkok.” It’s part of the party scene. It’s normal. It’s fun.The working girls are hungry for it. Go take part in what Thailand has to offer.
Where was my line? The line between righteous anger and love and compassion for those inflicting evil. I grappled.
My immediate prayer was, “God, do whatever you need to do.” And while the majority of my heart behind that prayer was good, I think a small part of me was saying, “God, wipe this place if you need to.” There may have been less righteousness behind that anger, but I truly didn’t know how to contain all the emotions running through my physically aching, jittering body.
I had been preparing myself all day for the prayer walk. For the women I would see, and in terms of anger, for the men I knew I was about to see crawling the street, many of whom I knew would be westerners who looked just like me.
On the taxi ride to the Red Light District, I put in my earbuds and let the lyrics of my worship songs filter to my heart. And in the calm in that taxi, Jesus spoke the last verse of Matthew 28 over me: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
And in that moment, I found the peace and presence of Jesus I needed to step onto that street.
It was me and three of my male squad-mates. I make this distinction simply to honor how incredibly good and Godly these men are. They walked through a place of temptation and chose prayer and the display of Christ’s love to the working women and touring men there.
We walked. And for me, not much prayer took place. My eyes were overwhelmed. The nearly naked women waiting outside each bar. The lights of the bars on each side of me. The handlers coaching the girls. The wide-eyed, smiling, lusting men. The fathers with their sons. The guys with their girlfriends. The business men walking away with the women they had just purchased for the night.
Before I knew it, I was at the end of the street with no words. It took me a few minutes of staring dead into that abyss of a street before I found words to pray.
“God, why? God, how? God, what do we do?”
My stomach in knots, my head turning over, my prayer had no complete sentences. Emotions I didn’t know existed were forming inside me as I took in the atmosphere I didn’t know how to pray for.
Finally, I surrendered my emotions – my anger, my despair – and asked God what He said about this place. What he wanted for it and could see.
Purity, dwelling place. His dwelling place…
He told me to go back through and pray for each of the bars and the women in them.
So I walked back through. Prayed out loud and said each bar by name. Declared each one as his dwelling place. A place where he would break, rescue and restore the women. A place where believers with resources would go and bring hope. Where the Gospel would bring light into the darkness.
Once back at the end of the street with the guys who stayed back to pray, God reminded me of a beautiful truth: “For where two or three gather in my name, there I am with them” (Mt. 18:20).
Jesus was here. With us. In this place. And where Jesus dwells, there is power and victory.
The wild emotions after the first walk of the street were now grounding. I was able to pray with more focus. Prayed for the women and, surrendering my disgust, prayed for the men entering and exiting. As I thought about these women – trafficked, manipulated, deceived, bought – God reminded me of something I love.
I love smiling at people, especially little children. When I truly see someone and smile at them, I feel the immense presence of the Holy Spirit and know it’s a small way I can love them. And then God helped me connect the dots… To go through once. Look only at the women. Smile at them. Look at there faces. Bow with high hands (a sign of respect in southeast Asian culture). See them as little children.
So I walked up and down the crowded street once more. Ignoring the sounds of the bars and smirks of the men, I looked only at the beautifully made and whole women outside the bars.
I prayed for eye contact, and at almost each bar, I found at least one girl to smile at. I prayed they felt loved…humanized. Prayed they felt seen in a different way than the lusting looks that plague their sight.
Even when I couldn’t make eye contact, my eyes were opened to something I had missed during the previous two walks.
When you walk the street, you immediately take notice of the more flirtatious girls tapping and pulling on men. But behind that facade, I saw the brokenness. The glaze on so many faces looking out into a blank pit of nothing. Saw the the drunkenness. The drugs. The numbing needed to catalyze flirtation and energy.
These faces drove my prayers faster and fiercer.
We decided to prayer walk the perimeter and ran into a man dressed in steroids, fists clenched, pinning a women to a wall. From the looks of it, she was the retailer who somehow upset the buyer. With that instance alone, I knew it was a God-thing that three men had come to pray that night.
He rattled off some expletives at these godly men who wouldn’t move along, like so many else did, and the guy eventually walked away from the woman.
My naive, inexperienced with witnessing physical abuse self was once again rattled to the core. I took a few minutes, turned my thoughts into prayers and got a grip on myself.
This was by far the most emotionally and spiritually packed night I had experienced, and it wasn’t over.
Like comedic relief in an anxiety filled movie, God placed a group of kids in our path asking for money. I motioned eating, and they gleefully screamed, “Yes! 7/Eleven!”
We walked hand-in-hand, arms swinging, talking with the little bit of English they knew.
The phrase, “like kids in a candy store,” was a reality in that tiny 7/Eleven. They loaded up on hygiene items for them and their family, a few available toys and then went kid crazy with little princess candies, cakes, microwave meals, chips…a glorious junk food galore.
During a night of necessary heaviness, God slipped in the smiles and laughter of these little girls. And with the joy I felt sharing those simple items and the name and love of Jesus with them, I now bet that’s how Jesus felt every time he got to heal, help or feed someone.
After saying a little prayer with them, we ended our time with one more prayer at the end of the street.
Circled up, eyes closed, heads bowed, we prayed underneath those red lit lights. We declared his love over the streets. His dwelling place. His light. His victory…and so much more.
The Red Light District is just the surface, and just like any sin, human trafficking runs so much deeper.
But I hold to this truth: There is truly nothing impossible with God. No stronghold he can’t break. No hurt he can’t heal.
I also know this: We are part of his possible. We are part of breaking chains. We are part of healing.
And I’m ready to be used.
