Adventures WorldRace SethBarnes Sponsorship Giving

| by melissabetz

I am sitting in the back of the van. I have the seat all to myself.  Though I want to chat with all the girls on our way to the border for our visa extentions, I choose this time to check my heart.  I sit and stare out on the roads.  The streets become lined with beautiful trees. Thousands of purple flowers on each. The sun cascades in sending shadows that create different shades of purple.  Its vibrate.  Its full of life and its breathtaking.   The mountains loom in the distance.  Thailand is a place that will captivate you.

But as beautiful and captivating as Thailand is, its the hearts of its women that have captivated me this month.  I am in the redlight districts of Thailand staring into the face of the cutest little thing you ever saw. Her name is Da. She is  sitting in a pair of jeans and a t shirt, little makeup covering her face, her hair simply laying around her face.  This is not what a prostitute should look like.  Suddenly every image, stereo type or expectation you have crashes down, and you are left with a girl that could be your sister, your friend.  The girls are sweet and very friendly.  Some girls are forward and direct.  You can see how long a girl has worked in a place by the amount of light that fades in her eyes, when a customer comes her way.   Suddenly that sweet little girls mask comes on.  She needs to protect her heart from brokeness and pain. She needs to take her true self away from the reality she is facing.
 
Da is not yet there. She is so fresh and new to this lifestyle.  It has not consumed her heart and given her an identity.  I have been praying for Steph and Lindsay as they have really connected to her and formed a good relationship.  She still feels that she can have a choice, set terms and not have to go with the men who come to the bar.  She has hopes and dreams.  She wants to sell jewelery.   All it will take is one moment for all this to change.  Da will go from being a girl who knows that this is just temporary, to help make the money for school, to never feeling like she can get out.  The little choice she thought she was in control of will consume her.  Slowly the beauty of her heart will get hidden by the mask that she wears to protect herself.  Her light will fade.  That is without love, support and prayer.  But I have hope.  Even if its just for a brief moment God has put Stephanie and Lindsay into her life and they are bringing her love, and truth. 
 
 This month I have been called to pray.  Jen and I walk the streets at night praying for the woman in the bars, the tourists and the choices they make.  We pray for safety.  We pray for purity, peace and hope to be restored.  We pray for the hearts and minds of these woman. We pray for our girls who are called to be in the bars witnessing.  And though I struggled with prayer being enough.  I now understand that its a powerful weapon and a blessing to do and to have.  I see what God is doing.  He is calling back his daughters.   I remember feeling like Da.  I remember the days where I thought I could still be in control and keep my heart in tact.  But it got broken again and again.  I was hurt over and over.  It was God that healed that hurt.  It was God that gave me my identity.   I am a walking testimony of how God can take a beat up little girl and make her a crown of glory in his hand (Isaiah 62). 
This is His heart for these women.  To restore their hearts and minds.  To give them their true identity and free them of their hurt and condemnation. Will you pray for our girls in the bars, that they will bring light into the darkness and help bring healing to some hearts.  What an amazing thing God has allowed us to be a part of.   It will break you heart in a million ways.  It takes His strength each day to be out there doing this.  I am so proud of the girls this month.  But more importantly pray for the women we encounter.  God sees them.  He loves them.   There is always hope