This month I had the privilege of serving alongside a fabulous ministry that works with all sides of human trafficking: awareness, prevention, intervention, and restoration. I was able to love on children in an area that traffickers target in order to buy children from their parents, I was able to build relationships with women who were being sold every night, and I was able to serve coffee alongside women and get to know women who have been rescued from the cycle of slavery. It was a great month, and one that was very eye opening. But it was tough, and that reality will be reflected in this blog.
If I had to describe Thailand in one word it would be emptiness, and below are two reasons why.
First off, growing up in America something that was instilled in me from an early age was that American pride was a must. The red white and blue were colors to be honored and pledging allegiance to the flag was a daily ritual. I learned to agree and respect with anything that had to do with my country.
So when I walked into ministry this month and was told, "To be Thai is to be Buddhist," my heart broke. Many people in Thailand believe that if you aren't Buddhist that you are disrespecting the country and the culture, which is why almost 90% of the country is Buddhist.
Although Thailand is known as the land of smiles, its a country that is so desperate for the joy that can only be found as the result of Jesus. Thousands of people spend their time, their money, and their talents practicing and bowing down to a statue who cant deliver peace, joy, or the abundance of life.
Secondly, thousands of men crowd the bar streets each night to see which woman they want to buy, as if women were nothing more than property. In fact, one staggering and repulsive statistic reports that 80% of the foreign men in the Bangkok airport are visiting Thailand in order to be a customer in the sex industry.
With that being said, I could enclose 11 pictures like I have in months past, but they simply wouldn't capture what I did this month. Cameras aren't appropriate to pop out in the middle of building relationships with women in bars or strip clubs.bSo instead of 11 pictures, I'll share with you the story of one woman who changed my life. (Her name has been changed to protect her privacy)
It was my first night going into bars to talk and build relationships with women and to be honest I was a little nervous, and then I met Nicole. She's a spunky woman who just turned fifty and is smaller than my right thigh. We sat down and ordered a sprite and began to talk to her while playing Jenga. She immediately showed us her phone and pictures of "her love." He's a man who looks to be in his late sixties and he's from California. He is one of her regular customers, and he's visited her at least four times. She showed us pictures of them with tigers, and him taking her to get a pedicure and as she shows us these pictures my heart begins to break, she really thinks this is love. She continues to go on and say that she misses him and that the next time he comes back that he is going to take her back to America with him. She shows us their conversations over some international chat service and she calls him forty times and then he responds with, " I would have answered but…" As she shows us the conversations she says "I cry, I hope."
You and I can hear or read this story and can confidently say that this man has no intentions of taking Nicole back to America. There's even a strong possibility that he is married to some other woman in California who has no idea about his double life in Thailand. He doesn't love her, he just uses her to feel important, to feel wanted, and to fill a void that is so deep in his life.
As sweet as Nicole is, she is incapable of filling that void for this man. And even if this man delivered on all of his promises, he would still be incapable of filling that void in her heart too.
That's our problem, though.We don't like to feel empty, so we try and try to fill the emptiness with so many things. But God made us with a void, not to be cruel but so that he could show us that we don't fully live until we allow him to fill every void in our life. He's what's missing.
What I love about Thailand is that despite its emptiness, it is a place with people that are so ready to be full. They just don't realize what they are really after is Jesus.
As you read this all too familiar story of Nicole and this man I beg you to take a minute and pray for these women. Pray that they would recognize their beauty and their worth. Next pray for these men, who are so desperate for attention and intimacy and for confidence. Finally pray for yourself and ask Abba to reveal any part of your life that is filled with anything but him
