Her beautiful smile out dazzles the obnoxiously bright neon lights that pulsate around us. As we converse with our new friend, Say*, we learn more about her life, her son who lives with her parents in another part of the country and whom she hasn’t seen in months, and which movies she likes to watch. After a little bit, Say tells us a little more about her job as a bargirl/pole dancer, one of the highest paid jobs in the city, and how she sends every scrap of money she can to her son and parents. At this point, her voice drops down a bit and we have to strain to hear her over the music blaring around us. She’s still smiling, but her eyes are telling us a completely different story. “I have to do boom-boom every night. Last night a man make me boom-boom 25 times. I hurt very bad. Drink lots of tequila so I don’t feel it.”
And that’s when God speaks to me about her: She is my child. Show her she is worth more than a one night with a man.
So we do. We play the bar games with Say, asking her more about her life and telling her about ours. We encourage her, telling her how beautiful she is and that she is more than what men pay for her. At the end of our time, as we say goodbye, we do what the hundreds of other tourists watching her dance fail to do: we look her in the eyes. For the twenty minutes that we are with her, we showed her that she was more than simply a sex object.
We enter another bar, the same scene as the last with flashing neon lights, overly loud music and girls dancing on the counter. I end up sitting next to a man who keeps making lewd motions to one of the girls dancing and my whole body reels in disgust. I want to ignore him, simply sit there and drink my coke, and try to initiate conversation with more of the bar girls, however God keeps telling me to talk to him.
His name is Jeremy* and he’s a frequent visitor from Australia. As we begin conversing, God starts to show me more than what I first saw in him. I see more than his actions towards the women dancing on the countertops and start to see Jeremy’s heart.
He’s lonely. He loves the life he’s living but he’s searching for something more.
And that’s when God speaks: He is worth so much to me.
It doesn’t matter why he’s here, what he’s done, or even the condition his heart is in right now, Jeremy is worth so much to God, so much so that God is here, in a bar on Bangla Rd., pursuing this man, trying to have a relationship with Jeremy.
So I talk to him about my life and why I’m there in Bangla Rd, paying too much for a soft drink at a bar. I don’t force religion on him or make him feel guilty for what he’s doing but I simply speak simple truths into Jeremy’s life, and when I have to leave, Jeremy is left at the bar, processing the planted seeds in his heart.
It doesn’t matter who we are or our pasts. It doesn't matter if it's your mother (and I'm sure she's a great lady), the Pope, a prostitute, or a man at a bar. We are worth so much to God that He’ll actively pursue us until we realize how much we are truly loved by Him.
*Names have been changed
This month we're working with SHE Thailand, a ministry that goes into the tourist area of Bangla Rd., and creates relationships with the women working in the bars for prostitution in order to offer them an alternative life. For more information about the ministry, watch the video below or visit SHE Thailand's webisite (www.shethailand.org)
