Sunday night we went out to do ministry and as we were walking around we ended up in front of a bar called “Mikey’s”. After a few minutes my teammate Nina said that she was sure we needed to go in. My immediate reaction was “wait, we’re going in there now?”. Feeling very out of place we walked to a booth in the back and ordered some tea. Eventually the booth began to fill up. Two hours later we had a full booth and were chatting with the women who worked there. People were even crowding around nearby tables and standing next to our booth just to talk with us!
Mikey’s isn’t just any bar though. Tourists from all over the world come to Siem Reap for various reasons, but many men come because they know that they can buy time with a woman. Men searching to fulfill a deep longing inside of their heart come to Mikey’s.
After talking with a few different girls I realized that they are not prostitutes. They are not whores. They have families and they have dreams and they love to laugh. They are just like me. They didn’t choose to work at Mikey’s, they actually hate it!
One girl in particular sticks out in my mind. She has a huge smile and was very open with us from the moment we met her. She is truly radiant. Her English was great so we were able to really connect with her. We asked her what her dreams were and she said “to own a house”. As I thought of my own dreams and desires I felt so guilty. How is this fair?
It brings tears to my eyes to think about this concept. How can these women be selling their bodies and still live in extreme poverty while I sleep in my bed without a worry? How do I get the CHOICE to go to college while some of these women are hungry for a basic education? I wish I had the answers. I wish I could end my blog with some hope or a practical way to end this awful industry….but sadly I don’t.
I’m still trying to find a piece of hope in these dark places. Some encouragement that my team has found though is the fact that we are light, literally and figuratively we’re composed of light (down to our core genetic make-up). So even if we can’t solve the complex problems of this world, we can walk around and shed light.
Some other updates
-we are entering into our third week in Siem Reap staying at the Overflow guest house! Our ministry hosts are have all done the race before so they’re super relatable and they love us SO well.
-we eat an excessive amount of rice/noodles/ice cream……instead of the freshman 15 we’re getting the WorldRace 15
-in two weeks we will head to Bangkok, Thailand for debrief and then our team will go to our next ministry host!
