**For the privacy of those in this blog, names have been changed**
Part of our diverse month of ministry in Nepal included an evening where we were able to go to a dance bar to reach out to the women and men there.
Dance bar–a bar usually with a stage, where women, sometimes men, dance. When you are there you are buying her time. It may only start out as dancing, but it’s not before too long when it becomes more than that, where women will have pimps and become prostitutes.
Our ministry host had us meet at a very touristy and busy area for our evening ministry. Our goal for the evening was to go into these dance bars and love on the women and men. To spend time with them, get to know them. Laugh with them. And if the door is opened, we share the gospel with them and offer them a way out of the industry they are in.
My group I was with walked the lit up streets and into the bar we felt the Holy Spirit guiding us into–tequila dance bar.
We sat at a table and a group of girls in short dresses, high heels, and dark makeup crowded our table. They sat with us and we all eagerly bought them sodas. We talked with them about things they liked and didn’t like. We learned about their families and they asked about ours. We shared the gospel and told them about how much Jesus loves them. Then we asked if they liked their job. Many girls said no and that they did indeed want out of the industry. They looked to us with hopeful eyes. We told them we couldn’t promise anything, but we really wanted to help them, and more than that, we wanted to be their friend and show them that they are worth so much. Our goal is to get a relationship established so that our organization we partnered with could continue pursuing them and help them find a better job. And more than that, discover their worth in Christ
Note–The organization we are working with has rescued many women. There is a specific dance bar they have had to avoid for a while because they have been threatened due to all the women they have rescued. Helping a woman out of this industry is a slow process. Most of the women are working in this industry to provide for their families and the salary they make is hard to make elsewhere without an education.
We had scheduled to meet up with a few of the girls we had met that evening for lunch or coffee the next day. My heart was so hungry to pursue and love them in every way possible. A few of the girls in my group and I squished into a taxi and went to meet up with “our girls.” We were able to meet with 3 of them a couple of different times, but there was one girl in particular that was eager to be our friends and get to know us.
She was beautiful. She would squeeze our cheeks and compliment our hair or the way we smiled. But I was captivated by her heart. I was captivated by the amount of love that the Father has for her. And I was captivated in the way that I didn’t see her as a 19 year old dance bar girl. Instead I saw her as my 5 year old daughter.
I saw how she looked around at the world around her with wonder. She smiled and giggled at everything. And even though she smacked her pizza, I didn’t care because it was her first time having it and she loved it so much.
She shared with us her life and how she has to work at the bar to help provide for her mother and small siblings at home. She shared with us about her boyfriend and how he would often get drunk and hurt her. I knew she was telling the truth because I saw the bruises she tried to cover with her makeup. She shared with us how she felt alone and would cry a lot. She compared herself and how much money she made in a night verses what the other girls made. Many of them made in a night what she makes in a month.
The thing that she said and still chokes me up, is that she thought her boyfriend loved her. But now she knew what true love was because of us pursuing her. She said she knew that we carried true love. She said she felt peace when she was with us. We told her about Jesus. We told her that he is the love we carry. We told her about how she was never alone and he was always right there with her. We told her about her worth and how Jesus calls her worthy and it doesn’t matter how much money she makes in a night. He sees her as priceless and valuable.
We met with Ruah up until our last day in Nepal. We exchanged hugs and said goodbye through our teary eyes. Saying goodbye was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do on the Race thus far. I wanted nothing more than to take her home. I wanted nothing else than to love her unconditionally everyday. But then I remembered that God loves her far more than I ever could. So I’ve had to release her back to the Lord and to trust him that he is going to continue to put people in Ruah’s life that are going to love her fiercely and unconditionally. That he is going to continue to relentlessly pursue her. Because Ruah is a delight in his eyes.
I have heard people say that loving hard hurts, and I used to think they were crazy. How could loving someone hurt? But the more we met with Ruah, the more i loved her. And the more I loved her, the more it hurt. The stories she told us and the feelings she had fell hard on my heart. How blessed I am to have something (someone) worth loving so deeply that it hurts. It’s the love that dies to yourself and chooses others. It’s the kind of love where all your walls are down and you will stop at nothing to express your uncondi love
I believe it’s the kind of love Jesus had for us when he went to the cross. As every emotion, trial, and sin we would have, fell hard on his heart. As he selflessly chose to love us knowing the hurt and pain that it would bring him. The hurt was worth it in his eyes for us to know him and walk in freedom. The pain was worth bearing, demonstrating his perfect unconditional love
I want to love like that. I want to love like Jesus.
My encouragement to you is to love those around you hard. Love like Jesus.
Because it’s so worth it
