I want to give glory to God first and foremost. For the many prayers he has answered.
There is one prayer in particular that was answered this past week. Back in June, my mom had mentioned that she received the invite I sent to come on the Parent Vision Trip to visit me out on the field. I invited both of my parents to this trip knowing my mom without a doubt would want to come and also knowing I would have to work harder to convince my dad to come (he is not a fan of traveling and not a Christ follower…yet). I was praying about my parents being able to come and God said to me, “If you want your dad to come you need to do something about it.” And then he gave me the word, FAST. I have never fasted before, besides the 30-hour famine I participated in back in Jr. High and I didn’t really understand the meaning of fast then. A few days later I decided to fast for my dad coming on this trip. I did it. It wasn’t easy. I only drank liquids, but I spent the whole day talking with God and being obedient to him.
That same week I called my parents for their anniversary and my mom said my dad had something to tell me… He said, “Nikki, I caved. I’m coming to the Philippines.” I let out an uncontrollable scream in the middle of a coffee shop and tears of joy streamed down my face. God had answered my prayer! I was obedient to his call to fast and he created a way for my dad to come visit me in the Philippines on the Parent Vision Trip! I was blown away.
The trip I had fasted and prayed for was the first week of this month. The day my parents arrived, me and the other racers who had parents come on this trip were waiting for our parents at the Guesthouse we would all stay. The vans pulled up with our parents inside and as soon as the doors opened and I saw my dad come out the van I ran to him and jumped in his arms! He was here! My dad was in the Philippines! Tears streamed down my face again. And then my mom came out of the van! My mom was here! My parents and I were together in the Philippines! An answer to prayer! Little did I know that was just the beginning to an incredible, life-changing week.
Our ministry together with our parents was working with an organization involved in the sex trafficking industry. They go to bars to talk with girls and offer them a way out including free education, free housing, food, pretty much anything they need.
There is no way to prepare for what you will experience.
Holding the hands of my parents’, we walked down “Walking Street” together with the rest of our group. We saw girls dressed in high heels and small dresses walking arm in arm with an older foreign man who had bought them for the night, weekend, or even the month. We saw girls outside of bars trying to get people inside. We saw women standing along the street waiting for customers.
We came up to one of the smaller bars. The doors were closed and curtains behind the doors covered what was inside. The bouncers opened the doors for us, and I pulled the curtains back, with my parents following me, and I saw about 20 girls standing on a stage. Music was blaring and neon and black lights filled the bar. We sat down in seats that faced the stage. I sat next to my parents. It was awkward at first and a bit overwhelming. We didn’t know where to begin. I started praying and looking at the girls and asked God to point out a girl to talk to. The girl that caught my attention looked miserable. She wasn’t smiling and wasn’t dancing to the music.
I walked over to the staged stood right in front of her and smiled.
She cracked a smile and bent down to hear me.
I asked if she wanted to come sit down with me. She smiled bigger, nodded yes and made her way off the stage. My parents and I talked with her. Asked her name, age, about her family, her dreams. She was timid and shy. Putting myself in her position, I would be too. She had no idea what she was getting into, but as we continued to talk with her and smile and tell her she was beautiful and worthy, and what we were doing there, she began to relax. We told her about the organization we were working with and I told her about the 11 month trip I was on. She said she was proud of me! She is beautiful and the same age as me. She has been working in this bar for 5 years in order to make money to feed her family. She sold herself, her body to provide for her family. She has a 6 year old son who is cared for most of the day by her mother because she has to go into work each night from 7pm to 4am.
She doesn’t have an education, and in the Philippines to get any decent job one needs to have a college degree. Working in the bars is one of the only jobs she could get without having an education.
She is one of the 12,000+ girls that work in bars on “Walking Street” in Angeles City in the Philippines, because they don’t have an education to get a better job. They are selling themselves to feed their families. Their dignity and worth are taken from them.
This is their reality, but we went into the bars to offer them hope, to offer them a way out.
We went into bars 2 nights in a row to talk with girls and tell them they are beautiful, worthy, and loved. We invited them to come with us on the bus to see the safe houses they could live in and show them what we were telling them was real with no obligations. Most of them didn’t believe us at first. This was too good to be true for them.
Praise be to God because 3 of the girls my parents and I talked with came on the bus with us!
17 girls total joined our group on the bus! We prayed God would fill the bus and he did!
Please pray all 17 girls will decide to change their lives and join this program. Pray that more girls will hear about this and want to leave the bars. Pray bars will be shut down because there are not enough girls to fill the bars. Everything is possible with God! Pray big prayers!
My parents and I will never be the same because of what we saw and what we experienced. I have been praying God will break my heart for what breaks his and he is doing it. My heart broke for the girls that I saw. They are someone’s daughter, friend, sister. My heart broke for the men that are just as lost as they sit in the bars and pick the girls they want for the night. They are someone’s father, husband, brother, friend.
But despite the brokenness God gave me HOPE. He gives me JOY. He used me and my parents and the rest of the group to bring HOPE and JOY to these girls. We danced with the girls, we laughed, we sang to songs, we celebrated together.
God said go and we went. With the strength of the Lord, we stepped out of our comfort zones and into the bars to be a light in the darkness.
Is God telling you to go? GO! You will not regret it. Step out in boldness. He will bless you for your obedience.
“You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16
“ ‘Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.’ After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” Acts 4:29-31
