After many months of preparation for this journey, I still don’t know if I will ever be really prepared for the things I will encounter this year. That’s okay, because I know I have God with me. He will guide me and keep me strong. He will give me the wisdom and I know He will only take me as far as He knows I can go. With that being said, I am going to share with you about our first night ‘out’ in Patong.
If you read my most recent blog, I explained that we will be working with an organization called SHE. To sum it up, this ministry is designed to get women out of bars and night clubs and offer them employment along with training them in various vocational skills that they can use to make a living. Many of these women are trapped in the commercial sex trade and are desperate to leave but have no other option. I know this is true because I’ve talked to several of them. So where do we come in? Well, it is our mission to find the girls that desire to stop what they are doing and become part of this ministry. We have to go out into the bars and clubs where they work and befriend them. It’s beautiful really. Once we’ve earned their trust we offer the option of leaving the bar and coming to SHE.
On a typical day, we help out around the office, worship together, and pray for the other teams that are out on the field. SHE actually just bought a large piece of land for their future property which will provide more housing and room for training for the girls. It is going to be amazing when it’s ready! But… right now, it’s just land.. and today we got to start prepping it for construction… oh yea, manual labor for 4 hours in the HOT sun 🙂 Okay, you’re probably wondering why my blog is titled The Devil’s Playground.
As I prepared for our first night in Patong, I wrote in my journal about how I was feeling (nervous of course) and the last sentence of my journal entry was, “tonight, we’re going to the Devil’s playground.” As we walked through the crowded street called Bangla, we went to the bars that we felt the Lord was leading us to. There are over 200 bars on and off of the main road and an estimated 1,200 ‘working’ girls on Bangla road. They are literally pouring out of the bars.
We walked by one bar in particular and noticed about 4 girls waiting out front and decided that this would be a great place to start and get to know some of the girls. Immediately some of the girls came up to us and started talking to us (maybe she thought we were interesting because we ordered Pepsi instead of a drink) 🙂 One beautiful lady in particular, I’ll call her May, was so sweet and friendly. We really enjoyed talking to her and getting to know her. We talked about family, where we are from… small talk. Once we decided we had been there enough, we headed to another bar and as soon as we left and started walking down the strip, we passed by a bar called The Devil’s Playground. I got chills.
Finally being in a situation like this looking at people through the eyes of the Lord, my heart was broken. These girls smiled, but they did not look happy. I know this is not the life that God wants for them. They are daughters of our heavenly father, just like me. He has a plan and a purpose for all of their lives. We have been back to the bars several times and are forming relationships with some of the women and meeting new ones. When they see us, they are so excited and they just can't stop hugging us and smiling. I know they see the Lord in us, please continue to pray for this ministry, pray that the Lord speaks to the hearts of the women we meet!
"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11).
Prayer Walking in Patong.. we do this every day before we go out into the bars that night. We pray for the women we will meet and we pray that God will guide us to the right bars that night. This place looks much different at night.
Same street… later on that night.
During the day we also do manual labor 🙂 We are working on groundbreaking for the future SHE building. We are digging up roots and pulling weeds along the fe
nce. The guys are also building a bridge.
Oh, and Andrew had to learn how to drive us around in a stick shift.. on the wrong side of the road, with the wheel on the right. He did a great job! 🙂
Front of the truck….
Back of the truck 🙂
One more just for fun.. we went here on our day off on Saturday…. Kata Beach(the good part about being on and island!) My first time in the Indian Ocean!
