I met Chun on one of our very first nights in Phuket. She was sitting at the bar with one other girl, and she looked so unhappy. After sitting down with her, she asked me if I would like to play a game. We began to play Connect Four, and I asked her some basic questions about herself. She is from Bangkok. She is 22 years old. She had only been working at the bar for two weeks. I had met several girls by this point, but something about Chun struck me differently. Many of the other girls I had spoken with were only interested in talking to me until a potential “customer” walked by. Not Chun. I actually had a strong sense that she would be quite happy if I would play the game with her all night so she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone else.
I asked her if she liked working at the bar. Her immediate answer was NO, she did not like working there. She told me that she would like to have a boyfriend and get married. I immediately told her about the SHE center. I told her that she could go and live and work at the center, that they would train her so she could have another job, another life. As I told her, I saw a flicker of hope in her eyes. I asked her if she would like to come have lunch at the center the next day, and she said yes. I got her phone number and told her we would call her in the morning. But when we called her the next day, she said she was busy.
Though slightly discouraged, I went back to visit her that night. But this time it was a little bit different. Her bar manager had become suspicious of us, and made it almost impossible for us to talk to her. She came and sat at the bar with us, and kept telling me that Chun did not speak English (which was not true) and that she would have to translate for me. I could tell that Chun was just as frustrated as I was, so we sat and played a game and attempted to have a quiet conversation while her manager wasn’t listening. I told her that I was sad she had been unable to make lunch. “Tomorrow I will come,” she told me softly right before we left.
And she did. We went and picked her up in town. It was so fun to see her outside of the bar environment. She was just a normal 22 year old girl, wearing leggings and a cute top, talking to her mom on her cell phone. We showed her around the center, introduced her to the other Thai girls who work there. I saw the light coming back into her eyes. She knew she had a choice.
She went ahead and filled out an application for the center, but she said she wanted to think about it for a few days. I continued to go visit her at the bar. She said she wanted to come back for lunch to hang out with us. But after calling her a few days in a row, she still didn’t come. I went back to visit her again one night, and for the first time I saw her show some interest in the men walking by the bar. I started to feel really discouraged.
I continued to pray for her, but I felt myself starting to lose hope that she would come. She never came for lunch again, but I wanted to go see her on our last night of ministry to say good bye. I honestly wasn’t expecting much, but when I got there she told me that she had been sick and that was why she had not come to lunch. She then told me that she had decided to come work at SHE! She said that she did not want to work at the bar, because the men were no good for her, and she would come work at SHE in two weeks.
It was one of the most wonderful moments of the whole trip for me. I hugged her and told her that I couldn’t be happier for her. It still blows my mind to realize how simple it was to change the life path of one girl. Chun’s story is so similar to countess girls trapped in the commercial sex industry. She came to Phuket to help her family, and ended up with a life she never planned for or wanted. But as soon as she realized there was an alternative, she took it. I know there are so many other girls who would do the same if given the option.
Please join me in praying for Chun, that NOTHING would stop her from going to SHE in two weeks. Pray that she would be richly blessed in this next phase of her life, and that she would ultimately come to know the real Giver of all of these blessings.
Please also continue to pray for SHE ministries. Pray that they would be provided with everything they need to continue their ministry, and that many more women in Phuket would be given an option of a better life.
*Chun’s name has been changed, and there are no pictures for her protection. So sorry for a pictureless blog!
