We made it to Thailand!! This is such an exciting month. We are staying with a ministry called SHE (Self Help and Empowerment). They have a great ministry. We work in the shop in the morning cutting fabric for the women to make purses out of. On nights that we go to the bars the team that stays back and prays goes prayer walking around the bars to prepare for the team coming that night. Then at night a few times a week we go to the bars and talk to the women who are at risk.
One team will stay back at our place and pray for the team that is at the bar talking to the women. We leave around 8:30 and get back at 1 in the morning. While we are in town at the bars time flies. It is a hard ministry to do. You want to get mad at the guys who are buying the women but you can’t help and feel bad for them. What in their life has drove them to the sin they are in? The women are wanting out of their jobs but most are too scared to leave. They have families to support and some have no way of leaving. It is such a sad reality.
The street we go to is on Patong Beach, the road is called Bangalor. The road is short but while we are walking through there you can feel a spirit of darkness covering the whole place. It can almost be overwhelming. Some of the bars are huge. They have one building that goes back for days and in it they have about 20 different small bars in it. Every single bar has women up dancing on the poles and it is so sad to see. I got to talk to one woman in the bar and she desperately wants out. She doesn’t tell her family what she really does because she is so ashamed. She has a daughter and she is afraid her daughter would be ashamed of what she does to make money. Her dream is to raise enough money to open her own shop in Bangkok. The whole time we were talking I could feel the power of the Holy Spirit over us and guarding our conversation. She calls me her sister now and I cannot wait to go back and talk to her. She and I had to stop talking because she had to get up and dance on the bar. She was not happy to have to leave our conversation. But as I left I knew I had made a new friend and I want to share Jesus with her. I know God is going to strengthen our friendship this month. I am so excited to see what else will come out of this month if that all just happened in a matter of a week. God is working wonders in this area.
