I have been trying to wrap my thoughts into words about bar ministry the past two weeks. I will be posting another blog along with this one about it!
I hope and pray this blog makes you uncomfortable.
About two weeks ago my parents had the opportunity to come to the Philippines for PVT (Parent Vision Trip) for one week to do ministry with me. During that week we partnered with Wipe Every Tear. A ministry that fights for freedom.
Wipe Every Tear fights for freedom for the women in bars, getting them out, providing a bed, free schooling, an allowance, medical and dental care, funding for their children and more. So many amazing things. But they also encourage groups sent into the bars to fight for freedom of the men.
Walking Street, a street filled with approximately 250 bars, holding around 15,000 sexually trafficked women.
In the Philippines many girls are trafficked into these bars, forced to dance and meet the needs of the customer. In whatever form that may be.
These girls are trapped. Their Mamasons (basically a pimp that is a woman, often was a bar girl that is too old now) often taunt these girls saying if they leave they will die. Some of the Mamasons actually encourage the girls to leave with Wipe Every Tear, fight for freedom for their girls.
It is sick honestly. They put ping pong balls on the table for you to throw at the girls and if they catch them they get 5 pesos. If you buy a girl a drink they get money. If you buy a girl for the night it is about $80, $30 of that she gets.
Ultimately, if she gets none of the latter she makes about $4 a night.
This daughter, sister, mother, friend, fighter makes $4 a night to be stripped of her dignity. To stand on stage with little to no clothes on, cold, embarrassed, belittled.
It is heart breaking.
It is even more heart breaking walking into these bars seeing men in there stripping these girls completely with their eyes. Not even taking time to know the girls, just their bodies. Violating them in front of others. Honestly it is hard for me to put what I saw into words because that makes it even more real.
That’s the thing though. It was real. It IS real. These girls ARE someone’s daughter, sister, mother! These girls are strong. Dignified but not knowing it. Because they day in and day out get stripped of it. Being raped is normal for them. THAT IS NOT NORMAL.
Breaking that false view of normal is something Jesus tends to be the best at. He also calls us to love all. Even the rapest, the sex tourist.
How am I even supposed to love this man Jesus, how is this man worth loving?
But how am I worth loving. I am a liar. I gossip. I fall short to sin. Just. like. him. The sex tourist. The rapest. He is trapped in sin.
Hating the sin, loving the sinner. Just like Jesus. We have to look at these men as sons, brothers, a child of God. Not look at them for their sin. Our identity is not found in this world. It is found in Christ. We are called to take away that identity for others. Helping to show them that through Jesus they can be set free of sin. They can be known as a child of God, what an honor that is!
These men and women are both equally deserving of knowing they’re true identity is found in Christ. Both trapped, both have an identity in Christ, both deserve to be set free just as much as I have been and then some.
Loving others like Jesus is hard. I need His help to love these men. I need His help to walk into the bars. Let my tongue become His to use, my eyes become His to show me what to see and my ears become His to help me listen to what is important.
I want to invite you to pray for these women. and the men too.
joyfully,
Kell
