We arrived at the bus park for our day of outreach. The bus park is the place that all long distance buses start and end their journey. Men that are in debt leave their home for a couple years to work out of state or out of country, then come back to their families. However, because of the location where the buses return, the money rarely makes it home. The men blow all their money in cabins. Cabins are little bar restaurants where service women work. You can spot a cabin by the shutters or dirty curtains hanging in front of the door or by looking inside and instead of seeing tables, seeing private cubicles. Most of the women working in these places were taken from far away villages and told they would be working in restaurants serving food. Once they arrived and realized that they were going to be service girls, they had no choice but to stay because they had no place to go. If they refused to go with the men, they would be starved for several days until they changed their minds. Many of these girls start as young as 13-years-old.
On this specific day of outreach, we split into small groups of three and headed in different directions. We walked for about 30 minutes but didn’t find any place to go. Finally, we turned down a small alley way and that’s when we saw it — a small room with a few blue cubicles. As we walked in and saw that it was very dark and no one was around, we thought maybe we should try and find somewhere else to go. However, as we turned to leave, we saw a girl walking toward us. We asked if she worked there, and she said yes. I could see in her eyes that she was not all with us as she stammered past us falling up against the counter. She was clearly on some kind of drug. I asked if they served tea and with a look like “what are you doing here”, she said no. We were persistent; we knew that this is what God had for us and that we had to stay. So, we asked if they had Coke, and she shook her head but just stood there. We decided we would just sit down and hope for the best.
The opening to the cubicle was only about a foot and a half wide, and there was a table with two benches on either side. We were told to act like tourists so it didn’t seem so weird that we were there; however, after looking around we knew that no tourist would ever wander into a place like this. It was so dark in the cubical that we had to turn on the flashlights on our phones. We felt very uncomfortable sitting there, so we started to pray for peace and strength. We knew that in order to be the light that God had called us to be, we needed to be filled with joy and not let the darkness of this place bring us down. Finally, a lady who looked like the boss came over. She tossed a menu down and looked at us very irritatedly. We ordered our drinks and prayed that God would send one of the other girls over. Shortly, our drinks were brought over by one of the service girls. Before she had a chance to leave, we asked her if she would sit with us. We told her that we were tourists and that this was our first time in Nepal. She finally sat, but you could see how nervous and scared she was by the sweat on her face. Hesitantly, she said her name was Banita. She didn’t speak more than a couple of words of English, and because we could not communicate with her we started praying out loud for her — for wisdom on how reach her and show her that she was loved. We decided to start drawing. My teammate Rachel drew a picture of flowers and handed it to her. She pointed to the flowers and said “beautiful” then pointed to Banita and said, “You are beautiful.” She still wasn’t understanding, so we started playing tic-tac-toe to try and hold her attention. However, that only worked for a minute. Finally, the boss came over to check out what was going on, so we invited her to sit down as well. Although she still spoke little English, she spoke more than Banita so it was easier to communicate. She taught us some Nepali phrases, including “You are beautiful.” We showed them pictures of our time in Manipur, and they got very excited that we had the chance to visit that area of India.
As we sat and made friends with them you could see Banita warm up to us. The fear was soon gone. At one point, she was basically sitting in my lap without even realizing. We shared a couple Bible verses with them and wrote them down on the picture of the flowers. Even though they might not have been able to read it, we have hope that they will translate it and hold on to the truth that these verses hold. Finally, it was time for us to leave. We told Banita that we would try to come back and visit or call her. In the beginning of our meeting, she had written down her phone number for us, but now that she wasn’t frightened by us, she showed us the correct number and crossed out the old one. Although, we might not have had the chance to share the gospel with her, we had the chance to be her friend — to tell her how beautiful she was and to show her the love of Christ. We were able to say a short prayer for Banita before we left and tell her that she was beautiful in the Nepali language. She will continually be in my prayers. I pray that God will continue to send Christians her way and one day see how beautiful and loved she really is. I also pray that one day Banita will be able to leave this life that she is living. Although it was very hard to see this lifestyle and the fear in these girls faces, it was a joy to be given the opportunity to go and be the light in such a dark place.
I just want to say thank you again to all my supporters who have gotten me here. The Lord has been doing some amazing things in and through my life, and none of it would have been possible with out you. Because of your support and belief in what I am doing, I was able to make an impact on a beautiful young girl in Nepal, and one day, we will get to see what that little encounter did in her life. I am happy to announce that I am now 74% funded and only have $4,191 left to raise. Thank you so much for your support on this journey.
