My fingers cannot possibly type this blog quick enough.
Let me start at the beginning.
A couple months ago I was working in the red-light district of Chiang Mai, Thailand. Olivia and I, on our second day at the bars, were walking to meet one of the women we met the previous day. As we walked by a different one on the way to where we were headed, we heard loud giggles and looked to our right to see three young girls sitting at a table playing cards. We chuckled to each other and continued walking so we could meet our new friend. When we got to the original bar we planned to go to, our friend wasn’t there so we turned around and pretty much at the same time asked each other if we wanted to go where the three girls were.
We walked in and were greeted with more giggles and smiles. We were asked to sit down and play cards. So. We did. That day, friendships were made. Bonds were created that were maybe even borderline strange. There was something different, contagious about these girls. We didn’t understand the card game so most of it was spent laughing. We bought ourselves and them drinks, exchanged names and a bit of all of our stories, and told them we would be back to see them the next day.
We went to seem them as planned the following day, and made a date with them for the next day. We would take them to a cafe where we would eat, learn more about each other, and just be girls. We were told in the beginning to drop expectations, that we were not there to rescue each and every girl, that maybe our job would be to plant or water rather than to reap. I actually had a hard time with that in the beginning. I wanted to see fruit. It’s easier that way, right? To see the fruits of your labor, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that you actually did something, feeling that you did something. We picked them up from the bar and on the way to the cafe we passed a carnival. Olivia asked if they would want to go and they giggled with excitement at the thought of being able to go. For some reason this stuck with us. The girls we had seen just two days before in a bar, selling their bodies, their emotions, their hope and dignity even, now excited at the thought of a carnival. Ironic, we thought.
At the cafe we just had lunch as if we were ole buddies meetin up for a date. There were again lots of laughs, lots of repeated sentences, lots of attempting to speak the other’s language with lots of failing miserably. When the date ended we took them back to the bar and were on our way. That night we had night ministry and Olivia and I went to a bar across the street to pray. We had a straight view of the lovely ladies we had just spent the day with but this time when we saw them the joy was drained from their eyes. The carefree spirits were replaced with knowing that all eyes were on them, and not in a good way. They were playing pool with old men… going through the motions. This was also really hard. Why are we seeing this? Why do they have to be living these lives? Why is there no quick fix? Am I really even doing anything for them?
Over the course of the next couple weeks, Olivia and I were able to visit the girls several more times and take them out on more dates. Often I would find myself back at the same questions. Am I really doing anything? Is there not more I can do? Our contact showed us a clip from The Lorax where he says “you can’t reap what you don’t sow.” That’s true. Someone had to sow for someone else to reap. I struggled with being totally okay with just being the one to sow, though. God had allowed me to love these girls so deeply, so quickly, and I wanted desperately to see results. That’s just not always how it works. God taught me a lot about that while we were there too, but I reckon that’s a different blog for a different day.
One day during day ministry we decided to not go to see the girls because our main english speaker was visiting her family and we thought we would take a break and just go to a bar and pray. There is a bar on the street, Carnival, and it caught our eye because of the girls. So we decided to sit in there and pray. I was facing the street and I looked up right in time to see the youngest of our girls, I would say about 15, walking hand-in-hand with an old white-haired man. Emotions rose in me that I can’t explain. My heart broke. She shouldn’t be with him. She is just a baby. What is going to happen? Then, we could have stopped this. We should have gone to the bar. If we had been there, she wouldn’t have had to go with him. The thoughts, the emotions, the questions lasted most of the day.
The more we thought and prayed about it, though, the more we knew it was just another appointment set up for us. Had we not met the first woman at the bar the first day, we would not have walked by the girls, and we would not have taken them to the cafe and driven by the carnival, and Carnival bar would not have caught our attention, and we would not have gone there and had a clear picture of her and the man walking. While it was extremely painful to see, it allowed us to love her a little deeper. To get a bit of a clearer picture of how God hurts for them. If Olivia and I, two girls who had known her for less than two weeks, were so hurt, how much did their Creator hurt for them? I can only imagine.
The king’s cousin died so the bars were closed the last Saturday we were there. We decided to have a going away party of sorts for the girls at the cafe. We all invited the girls we had gotten the closest to and two of ours came. The ministry we worked with that month was starting a program where the girls would be out of the bars, live, eat for free, and be trained in various areas to help them get on their feet with something other than prostitution. At the end of the night, right before we said goodbye, we handed them a little flyer that was a brief explanation of the program. For our entire time there, something stuck out about one specific girl we were with. We always said if she could just get out of the bar, she could do so much good. If she could use her joy and her love for the Kingdom, she could do some sick damage. As we walked away from the girls that night, I hurt. I honestly felt like I had not done enough. Like how could God ever use simply my loving on her to bring her from the bars?
Then I get an email. Today. It is a picture of our girl, the one there was just something about, with our contact from Thailand. She (and one of her friends from the bar) are no longer working in the bar. They are starting the program, continuing to learn english, and are in church. Less than two months ago I was at a buddhist temple with her watching her recite a prayer and throw eel and snails into a pond, trying to earn her luck. Now… this. I don’t know that much more can even be said.
I am so thankful to have gotten the opportunity to be a vessel in her coming out of the bar. This is such a clear reminder that God is faithful, He is Sovereign, and His ways are so much higher than ours. I did not understand how such seemingly simple acts of love could be used for a bigger purpose. He obviously had a different thing in mind. Please continue to pray for her and her friend. Satan is undoubtedly not a happy camper, and his schemes will not stop now. Pray for their hearts to be protected, for the people working at this program to be able to pour into them as needed. What a beautiful beautiful picture of grace and redemption this is. Pray that no shame would be in their thoughts, but instead that they would come to know more this grace that has so lovingly washed over them.
Lastly, thank you to all who donated. This literally would not have happened without you. The dates that enabled us to love them and grow closer to them were paid for by you. I hope you understand that you played such a vital role in this. Thank you for being our finances as we were your hands and feet. What a beautiful thing the body of Christ is when working together.
BOOYAH!!!
