Surprise, I’m writing you from CAMBODIA!!!
Typically WorldRace teams will spend 1 month in 1 country, totally invested in one culture and one ministry. This month my team was given a unique ministry opportunity which involves a lot of travel, prayer, and discernment. Instead of spending month 7 in Thailand like the rest of our squad, we’ll be spending two weeks in Thailand and two weeks back in Cambodia. We’re actually headed back to Siem Reap, Cambodia today to begin a new ministry before we leave again in two weeks to head back to Thailand for month 7 debrief.
This week my team worked with YWAM (Youth With A Mission) in Pattaya, Thailand. This specific ministry base works with women who are stuck in the sex trade. They empower women by inviting them to the Tamar Center (a treatment and learning center) and giving them free English lessons as well as offering them the opportunity to learn a new trade, free of cost, so that they can leave the sex industry and work in a safe, healthy environment. These women also go through incredible healing and restoration programs in which they’re taught that they are beautiful, worthy, and loved deeply by God. For the most part, ministry for us was just hanging out in the bars and forming relationships with the women who worked there as well as inviting them to English classes and trade school.
I learned that it only costs about $ 10 to purchase a girl for the night in Pattaya, and that’s pretty expensive actually. In Cambodia it’s around $3-5. That’s all it costs to purchase another human being.
Human trafficking is no longer something I’ve heard about, read about, or seen on TV. I’ve looked it right in the face.
I watched women being bought and sold for sex. I walked through alleys filled with men carrying lifeless gazes as they decide which woman they want to purchase for the night. I counted hundreds of girls anxiously waiting along the beach for customers to offer prices for sex.
Pattaya, Thailand is a sex tourism destination. You can buy Thai women, Cambodian women, and even European women who were trafficked by the Uzbek mafia. You can even buy male sex workers and children. The possibilities are endless, really. I asked the Lord to give me the ability to see this city for what it really is and He gave me eyes to see past the beautiful beaches and sunsets this week. In fact it was pretty difficult to enjoy the beauty around me because it was almost entirely consumed by darkness. What I really saw was an incredibly calloused city. A city calloused by the devaluation and dehumanization of women.
Many of the tourists didn’t even bat an eye at the hundreds of Thai women dressed in scandalous clothing lining every bar and beach. It’s like they’re dolls on a shelf in a store; completely lifeless. There’s somehow this false notion that these women want to sell their bodies for sex. The men that purchase these women buy into the fantasy that these women love what they do and love having sex with strangers. In reality, the amount of trauma these women endure is incomprehensible. Their self-worth and value as a woman crumble under their years working as a prostitute. They feel they have nothing to offer, that their trash.
A women’s value is slowly chipped away each time she’s purchased. She begins to believe she really is worthless and disposable. Many of the girls I spoke with were in disbelief and denial that God could really love them despite their choices; that He’s still pouring out grace and pursuing them at this very moment. They couldn’t believe that they were worthy enough to be loved by God or that He actually wanted to free them from the Hell they were living in and invite them into a deep relationship with Him. Many of them had no idea that anyone could love them unconditionally for that matter, because as far as they know, sex is all they have to offer. A lot of the girls thought they were ugly, stupid, and even tried to pay RaeLynn, Mardie, and I after we prayed for them.
The Lord, in all His goodness and sovereignty, used these moments to build up these women. One of my favorite parts of bar outreach was getting the opportunity to really know the girls. To find out about their passions, families, dreams, and hobbies. Each of them had unique, fun, and beautiful personalities. It was humbling to be able to speak into their lives and cast out the lies they so often believed about themselves and instead fill them with the truth that they are seen, known, and loved deeply God. We encouraged the women to explore the possibility of leaving the sex industry and pursuing the dreams they had of owning markets, doing hair, etc! Each time we prayer over a women, we prayed for freedom and healing. We prayed that God would reveal his deep longing for them to enter His Kingdom and rest knowing how worthy and whole they are in the presence of their Heavenly Father.
While there’s a great need to reach out to the women in the sex industry, there’s often an even bigger need to reach out to the men; it’s a supply and demand industry. I often found myself feeling angry and helpless each time I watched an older foreign man with a young Thai girl. In fact I can’t explain to you how difficult it was to watch my Thai friend, Goy, leave the bar with two men who had just purchased her. I was helpless and tirelessly praying that the Lord would awaken their souls and convict them of the damage they were doing to this girl and themselves. It’s really easy to be upset and at times, if I’m being honest, a little disgusted with the Johns (the men who purchase women), but the Lord reminded me that they’re also broken in a different way and they’re still dearly loved and desperately in need of grace.
These men are spiritually void and lost. Blinded by intense lust and a false sense of intimacy, they search for a quick fix. The men who provide the demand for this type of industry also need freedom from a different type of captivity. They need freedom from the lies they believe about intimacy and loneliness. They need freedom from the false fantasies they entertain about the women they purchase for sex. They ultimately need an awakening in their hearts; to understand the hurt and damage they’re causing each time they purchase another human being.
Human trafficking is a complex issue; while vulnerability and poverty play a significant role in this dark industry, I firmly believe the foundation of the sex industry starts in the spiritual. God weeps over this kind of captivity and He’s waiting for His sons and daughters to take the blinders off and see the sex industry for what it really is; dark, damaging, and evil. It’s grounded on the idea that women are worthless for anything other than their bodies, so they can be bought and sold for a price. To end human trafficking, it takes more than bringing girls out of the industry and helping them get jobs and education. It takes more than speaking with Johns about the emotional damage they partake it. Only good can overcome evil. Just as the women need to understand their worth, beauty, and identity in God, men also need to understand that the loneliness and lack of intimacy they feel cannot be filled by empty sex, but by an authentic relationship with Jesus.
As this week comes to a close, please pray for safe traveling for my team this month as we’ll be traveling internationally several times on our own. Also pray for supernatural energy and discernment this month as we begin a new ministry in another spiritually heavy community. I love you guys!
