Hard, this is hard. It is hard to walk down Bangla road and see all the women. The women who are prostitutes, the women who are tourists out with their girlfriends, the women who are there with their husbands and sometimes kids. the women who are bar managers or ping pong promoters.
There are so many people. The same list of women can be made for men. There are so many faces, it is easy to let your self get overwhelmed.
there is light and there is darkness.
There is a veil.
A veil over the faces, over the eyes.
I often wonder, how many of the tourist, of the families who wander down Bangla road know? Do they realize that men buy women for sex? The same way that they are buying ice cream for their 8 year old son? Do they know what can happen behind the closed doors? Do they know what the effects will be for their son who’s eyes are huge as he watches the women dance on poles half naked, his nose and mouth still covered in vanilla ice cream. Do they care about the innocence lost? The innocence of the boy, the innocence of the women dancing, the innocence of the men buying them.
One of the hardest parts of the first day walking down Bangla road was realizing how much like america it was. The big difference is that in america the half dressed drunk women are doing it for free. They offer their bodies up to men for a night of pleasure for free. In america a young women will actively seek a man out, flatter him, try and get him to like her back so that they can go some where for a quickie or for the night. Maybe even for the weekend or a month or two as their girlfriend.
Maybe you are or were one of those women. Have no fear you are loved, just as much as me, as the women on Bangla road and you are a daughter of the most High King!
In Thailand a women will do all of that, but she will be paid for it. A man will give her money to pretend. To pretend to like him, to pretend to smile and laugh, and sometimes to pretend to be his girlfriend for a week or month.
It is all overwhelming, I know. It ok, theres hope.
My team is working with SHE, we go down to Bangla road and into the bars. What we do is simple. We talk. We talk to the women, to the men, the promoters, or the shop owners. Everyone has a story, everyone wants to talk. Even some of the men will buy a woman just so they can talk to her.
So we give them someone to talk about. Christ. We may not say His name or introduce ourselves as christians, but they know. We have to walk down that street clothed in His light and His Love. There is no other way to do it. If someone does not see Christ in us then we will hit a wall and not be able to do anything. It is pointless to try it any other way. So we cloth ourselves in Christ. We pray and worship before we go out at night, we dress modestly to gain favor with the Thai people and we radiate joy.
We talk to the people and often many of them know who we are right away, they know we work for SHE because of how we dress and by the simple fact that we will look them in the eye and smile at them.
Without Christ there is no way to bring freedom to the street.
I had my first night of staying back and interceding for my 3 teammates who went out for the night. The word veil was brought to my mind and soon after that I was reminded of 2 corinthians 3:16-18.
“But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes form the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
So I have a faith and a hope that the veil will be taken away and the people will see the Lord, will experience the Spirit and gain freedom. The key to this is that we who have turned to the Lord and now have unveiled faces must reflect His glory to others, and must increase in it.
We(SHE) slowly build relationships with the women and men and eventually we can offer up what we have to them and sometimes they accept. I experienced this on my first night walking Bangla road. I saw where the veil had been removed and the Lords glory shined.
