I stared feeling almost blank, and yet a million emotions at the black heeled boots clumping around in front of my face on the bar. My heart started thumping faster to match the beat of the glossy boots and their dancing…faster and faster it raced until I felt sick. My heart felt like it was sinking lower and heavier into my stomach. And yet my stomach was in my throat as if I were about to puke. As I turned away from the boots my vision was slammed with men.
Old, young, lost, lonely, rejected, and yearning men…
The red lights wash over their faces and other lights flash incessantly gleaming off the rows of dancing poles. The music is so loud people are shouting to be heard. In every direction there is bar after bar, girl after girl, dressed in skimpy tight clothes and spike heels. Noise screeches and claws its way into my ears while my eyes frantically take in the distractions around me. Beer, shots, laughter, shouts, shame, women, and lust everywhere. It’s consuming the crowds. The pain of these girls dancing, flirting, working, surges through my veins…the search for love, for intimacy. Everyone is looking for pleasure, for something more, something to make them happy. They may think this is it…but it’s not.
This is hell on earth.
I have seen things I never want to see again.
I have heard things I never want to hear again.
I have felt emotions I didn’t know I could feel.
These girls have torn my heart right out of my chest and they don’t even realize it.
Bangla street is filled with people, couples, lady boys and kids. I want you to know and to see, to feel and to hear what I do every night. I want you to be able to experience what I have…but there is no way to do that through pictures, or through simple words… to watch a man with a prostitute on his lap look you up and down. To see these men hiding behind the alcohol, and hear them tell us they’ve never wondered if they have purpose. Seeing toddlers being pushed in and out of bars in strollers and children playing connect four with a prostitute. Hearing men disgustingly flirt, and strut around with women on both of their arms. Making that eye contact that screams help with the women dancing on the poles right before their eyes glaze over. Seeing girls posing half nude for pictures in the street.
It wrecks you. It changes you.
To know that I live the comfortable life at home while these girls sell themselves to men…so they can pay their rent, so they can provide for their kids who live hours away with family…it completely breaks me. They’re in it for the money. They don’t like it.
I have not met one girl yet who likes working in the bars…
I have watched woman entice men with their eyes.
I have been kissed on the cheek by their lips. And my first thought was who else have they kissed.
I have felt their grip when we grab hands…their eagerness to be truely loved.
These women are just girls. Working a profession. They’ve told us what the difference between a good customer and a bad customer is. They’ve told us how much they make. And they’ve told us how much they hate it. I hate it too! I wish I could shut down every bar, shake up every bar manager, and lock up these filthy men forever. But forgiveness is something I am very slowly learning to give. To see and love these men and women as God does. It is only by Gods grace that I am able to even come close, I cannot do it on my own.
I cannot begin to do this month justice; I cannot fully explain what I have experienced here in just a week and a half. But know that amidst the evil, anger, and sin God is so prevalent, he is here working among us, creating miracles each day. I want Thailand to know so badly how much love God has for them.
God loves Thailand.God loves his beauitful daughters. God loves his strong and worthy sons. One day every knee in Thailand is going to bow, every tongue will be confess that he is God.
Our God is a good God. And a just God.
Romans 8:37-39
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
