As I stand on Bangla Road I just want to scream.
Two teammates have gone into a bar to say hello to our friends.
I’m with my other teammate praying.
The song “Love in a Hopeless Place” is blaring from the bars.
I can’t help but notice the emptiness all around me.
Though the streets are full, the people that occupy them are empty.
Their eyes say it all.
So many different eyes searching for something, anything to satisfy them.
They look at the girls dancing all around.
They look at all the pictures of naked girls being shoved in their faces.
They look all around to see where they might find happiness? Pleasure? Peace?
They even look at my eyes, but quickly look away…
I hope they see something different there.
I want to scream, “Why are you here?!”
“Don’t you know what goes on here?!”
“Would you care even if you did know?!”
This night has been discouraging so far.
But my prayer this week has been about beauty.
I want the beauty that others see in me to be a pure reflection of God’s beauty.
And I want others to feel beautiful as a result.
But when I look around, all I see is ugliness.
Sin and darkness is rampant here.
But then it happens.
My two teammates return and exclaim, “She wants to get out!”
Whoa, what?!
A girl we have been visiting at one of the bars says she is ready to leave the bars now.
But she can’t leave until her shift is over at 2a.m.
We have to be outta here by 11:30p.m.
We decide to go back in and convince her to come with us now.
We will pay off the rest of her shift if that’s what it takes.
So we split up again and I stay back to pray.
Man, do I pray.
I pray against fear and distraction.
I pray for boldness and confidence.
I pray for protection and clarity.
I’m surrounded by emptiness and ugliness, but I’m clinging to hope and beauty.
Next thing I know, my teammates return with “Alice” between them.
Praise the Lord!
She is coming home with us tonight!
We paid the bar $10 to cover the rest of her shift,
And ensured Alice that we are not buying her,
But we are doing whatever it takes to get her out of here.
We buy some McDonald’s and head back to our compound.
In the truck with "Alice"
You know what she said to us before she went to bed?
“I never been around people like this before. Never in my life.”
I hope she sees the beauty of the Lord.
Beauty that never fades and that tells her she is worth the fight.
Bangla Road may be dark and ugly,
But over the years it has been invaded and sown with light and beauty…
Which turns out is more powerful than the emptiness.
Even though she decided to go back to the bars,
We are believing she sensed the difference here.
She is not going back to the bars to work long term
Because she knows that she has options now.
She knows there is a place she can go to find hope and love and true beauty.
I think we just found love in a hopeless place.
This is my team that goes to the bars at night. Lindsay is the 4th. Please continue to pray as we go out one last week and visit girls like Alice. And please keep Alice in your pryers too..that she would leave the bars forever.
