This month we are working in a red light district in Thailand. It is spiritually heavy, and a very dark place. Filled with confused identities and broken spirits, it is a place where the enemy preys on the lost, convincing them that they are alone, helpless, and worthless.
On these streets are women and men that have believed the lie that they are not good enough, that they have no value, and as such believe that the only commodities that they have to offer are their bodies. They sell themselves to survive, some do it to support their parents and siblings in the villages where they are from, others because they have been so broken in their pasts that they believe that money is the one thing that will fix all of their problems and make them happy. Here are two such stories of women that we met on our first night out in the red light district.
Preparing to go out to the red light district is nothing to joke about, the whole day before a team sets out for the evening is spent being prayed over by the teams, who go out for prayer walks in the morning and afternoon, covering the darkness in Gods light, praying for the teams that will be stepping out that night, for the women and men that they will encounter, for discernment, for wisdom, and a whole slew of other things. Eight o'clock comes and the teams meet. The group that is going out is looking not at all like your stereotypical frumpily dressed missionary, but instead is dressed for a night out on the town, girls in skirts and dresses with makeup, and guys looking sharp in their jeans and button up shirts. We all gather to pray and worship God together for thirty minutes before setting out. One team stays behind to pray and intercede for us while we are out, gotta make sure all of our bases are covered.
We set out at 8:30, my team leader Patty and I are paired up. We start off down the street and as we pass the night vendors selling everything from pad thai and meat on skewers to beautiful ornate bedspreads, paintings and small trinkets we talk about what we prayed for, and about the people that we might encounter. We turn a corner and suddenly we are there. A strip of bars lay before us. The sounds of loud music, a pool cue striking a ball, and the beckoning voices of women fill the air as we begin to walk down the strip. Scantily clad Thai women and ladyboys sit and stand in front of the bars, calling out hellos and waving at us to come in and sit down. Patty and I are not exactly what they want as we are the wrong sex, but maybe we will sit down and buy some drinks. The smell of cigarettes and alcohol hang in the air, and we talk while walking, trying to get a sense of what bar we should choose. We make it to the end of the strip, and as we are circling around the boxing ring that lies in the center of a circle of bars three Thai girls come out of a bar and beckon us to come in and sit down. So we do. We order a coke and begin to make small talk with a girl that I will call Woo, as we continue to talk with her we learn that she is 24 years old, she is not from Chiangmai but a village outside of the city. She came here to work to support her mother and father and her 6 year old daughter, who lives with her parents. Every penny that she earns gets sent home to her family. In her free time she sits in her room and does nothing, she can't go anywhere because she can’t afford to. She shows us pictures of her daughter on her cell phone and talks about her, about how she was in an extremely bad scooter accident while pregnant with her, about the miracle that she is. It was heartbreaking, she is just a normal person, a woman with hopes and dreams that feels that the only way she can support her family is to sell herself. To her it is a noble sacrifice that she is making for the future of her daughter. She feels that the only thing that she has to offer is her body. We leave after about 25 minutes, saying goodbye and promising to return again. We can't stay too long because we want to maintain favour with the bar moms and the girls, and don't want to take away from their real work as they need the money.
We walk back up the noisy strip, looking for another bar to go into, another girl to talk to. We don’t even have to search…she finds us. A tiny little Thai girl, whose volume makes up for her size, spots us and begins jumping up and down and waving her arms in the air, yelling for us to come over and talk to her. Let's call her Lisa. Lisa is a delight, a bundle of energy, talking faster than I thought was physically possible (in English too). As it turns out she is 31, and has been working at the bar scene since she was 17 years old. She is now in charge of managing the bar she is currently at, makes a whole bunch of money, and her boss is paying for her to go to school (she is finishing her grade 12). She also works in Bangkok and runs between there and Chiang Mai on a weekly basis. She has traveled to Switzerland and Germany, and would like to travel more and go to college for travel and tourism. As the conversation goes deeper she reveals to us that she never wants to get married or have children, the thought of divorce terrifies her and she doesn’t to make a commitment like that for fear that she would be left or abused. She doesn't have to worry about anybody but herself, and if she could just make more money she would be happy. She does however get lonely, but when that happens she just fills her time with more things to do to keep her mind occupied and off of her loneliness. My heart breaks for Lisa, although she is "free" from the shackles that keep Woo and other girls in bondage, she is still living in the pain that she has experienced in her past. She is in bondage to money, thinking that if she has a little more, a little more, a little more that she will be happy. She is also desperately lonely, lonely enough that she went to great lengths to flag down a couple of North American women that were passing by her bar so that she could have someone to talk to. We finish up our evening with her giving us her card and telling us to call her soon so that we can go out to grab lunch and hang out sometime.
There are also the men…..It is hard for me to have grace sometimes, to see the predatory eyes of some men looking at the women, the emptiness in the eyes of others, and just feeling the brokenness in the air, I have to constantly remind myself that these men are God’s children too, and they are just as wounded as the rest of us. Although the street is masked as a place for people to come and party and have fun, there is an underlying feeling of desperation and despair hovering. Please pray for our teams and ministry as we continue to build relationships with the men and women of Chiang Mai, and show them the love of God.
