I still have a heart for the ones who fuel this industry. Who take mini-vacays with their golfing buddies for “a little something different”. Each time I see one, or a group of them entering a bar or pulling up a bar stool next to me, I find myself praying, ‘Please Jesus, let this be their first trip. No repeat offenders. I pray they walk away emptier than when they came, and just simply bored. May they be filled with you and you only one day. The only satisfaction they need. Turn my mind off from judgment and my heart on to loving them.’
The battle rages on to not cast judgment on each and every male I see on the streets and in the bars of Patong. I remember being absolutely shocked by the number of male peers I saw at the bars, entertained by the Thai girls dancing on poles above us. In my mind I had already cast the perpetrators of the sex trade industry as white, middle-aged business men. I did not expect a group who could very well be my brothers, to be fueling the same fire.
But alas, yes – there are many of the stereotypical Western men I thought I would see buying girls from underneath my nose. And each night I can’t stop by mind from casting them in roles:
‘He’s a dentist from New Jersey, a judge from Sweden, a financial tycoon from Australia.’
I have come to a sad realization that these could be men you do business with on a regular basis. Your tax attorney, your child’s pediatrician – what if he’s a school principal? If it sounds sick and shocking, that’s because it is. And it’s the reality we’ve been battling for the past two and a half weeks in southern Thailand. It has been a constant prayer of mine since day one on the streets, ‘Lord, I rebuke a spirit of judgment and ask for more and more of your love to love these men.’ I pray this over myself and the 19 other girls who go out to minister at night. The longer we’re here, the harder it’s becoming for me.
Last night, I just decided to have some fun with it and found myself praying over the Jack and Cokes two, white middle-aged men in hideous Hawaiian shirts ordered next to me. As I was staring at their drinks, trying to ignore them man-handling the girls who came down from dancing on the bar, I began praying that their drinks would taste of the absolute filth that we were surrounded by. That the first sip they took would be putrid, enough to send them off elsewhere. I felt like a little kid waiting for Santa Claus to come down the chimney as I watched for them to take the first sip. Once they let go of the girls long enough to remember they had ordered drinks, I laughed out loud to myself as I watched one take a sip, look quizzically at his glass, and not touch it again for the length of time I stayed there.
I’ll take the small victories with the large. I have three nights left of going in to the bars before we relocate for our last month of ministry on the field. I am continuing to pray for God to use me in any way possible to bring freedom to the girls we are building relationships with. Even if it’s simply ruining expensive drinks to distract these men from what they came to do. “All things are possible through Christ who strengthens me…”
