This month of ministry has been weighing on my heart since I sent my application in to be considered for the World Race. That was 19 months ago. Now, it’s here and God has given me the opportunity to live it. I would say that SHE Ministries is the coveted ministry for women of the Race who serve in Thailand. I wish all the women of P Squad were able to experience this month, and I consider myself blessed to be called to the darkest, heaviest, nastiest spiritual climate I have ever walked through.
Patong is a very touristy section on the beach right over a massive hill where we are staying in Kathu. To any vacationer it may appear like Daytona Beach, a place you may have been to in Cancun, your typical consumerism concentrated beach fun spot. To those who walk the streets with the eyes of Jesus, it is the very center of the bowels of hell. Dripping with immorality, drugs, slavery, seduction and things my eyes have never seen before. I don’t come equipped with a halo, I’ve got a past, so I was not really expecting to be caught off guard by the bar scene where we minister to Thai girls. I was genuinely surprised how hard I was hit our first week of ministry. Patong is heavy.
The nights we spend going bar to bar to form relationships with the bar girls are prefaced by hours of prayer walking the same streets and bars hours before we set out at night. The spiritual climate is nasty here, this is essential. Our contacts made it very clear to us in the beginning – if no prayer walking is done in the daytime, no ministry is done at night. Ephesians 6:10-19, anyone? This is going to be a month where we are not just aware as women of God the mighty power we hold in us because He lives in us, this month is our chance to flex our spiritual biceps 1) because we have to, and 2) because we are able. This is what God has been preparing us for the past 9 months.
Our goal of building relationships with the bar girls is to eventually be able to call them ‘friends’ instead of ‘bar girls’. We are aiming to set up dates to meet with them outside of the bars, when they are not working or entertaining customers so we can show them what true friendships looks like, and to hopefully interest them in English courses taught by SHE. This is one step in improving their future to attain a more substantial job.
We have already seen some significant breakthrough with a few of the relationships formed. We still have a good two and a half weeks of ministering, so we will see where God takes us in this time. Please be in prayer for the protection and safety of the 21 Race girls who spend their nights interceeding/ putting themselves in the paths of unrighteousness, for the women we are hoping to reach, and especially for the men and women who frequent this business and keep the industry running. This is where my heart has been overtaken this month. Not so much by the women we are reaching out to, but by the empty and lost who come here seeking to fill themselves temporarily. I want to reach them and see God do radical things to permanently fill their voids.
