This month we’re featuring stories of “The One” — the men, women, and children whom Racers will never forget.
While in Vietnam in December, Lyndi Stucky of 2015 U Squad had a conversation with a Western man who was a frequent customer in the Red Light District.
I can’t write this blog post without crying. My heart is so heavy.
While we were sitting with my friend at a coffee shop in Vietnam, an older American man named Daniel* approached us. He inquired about the English program we were teaching through because he wanted a job.
The conversation was casual at first. We told him about the World Race and Daniel said he’d heard about it. The atmosphere changed dramatically when he shared his point of view on Americans traveling overseas to help rescue women out of sex trafficking.
“That’s f’d up” he said matter-of-factly. “The same things are happening in America.”
Daniel continued on, saying if women aren’t kidnapped and forced into a life of prostitution, it was totally fine to pay for their services. He explained he had given up on marriage because he thought God had cursed him with singleness.
Buying women is his way of getting back at God.
His honesty and bluntness shocked me, so I reciprocated the same bluntness and honesty back to him. I explained that if God was calling Daniel to be single for the rest of his life, he should use it for the Lord and not for himself, as singleness can be beautiful when you are seeking the Lord.
But the way he was living now was not honoring to these women. Paying for these women fueled a demand for girls, leading millions of young girls to be trafficked.
I explained that he was objectifying them when he paid for these services. I asked if he’d ever walked into a massage parlor and asked a woman about her family, her hopes and dreams, or if she desired to be married or have children. He told me he hadn’t.
I explained that women don’t have to be kidnapped to be a slave to this industry. I begged him to stop buying women, and instead, to see them as someone’s sister, daughter, or mother.
Daniel argued that these women were not slaves and not forced. I replied with a single statement: “Well,” I said, “it depends on your definition of slavery.”
He was confused.
I explained that I believe that slavery is anything that keeps us in bondage, anything that consumes us and takes us captive. These women were consumed with taking care of their families as many had come from abject poverty. They were held captive by their desire to provide and make money.
“And it’s not just them,” my teammate added, “You are a slave to this as well. This lifestyle controls you.”
Our conversation reminded me of Romans 6–7, about how we are slaves to sin and controlled by the lusts of our flesh until we choose freedom in Christ. No one can understand full freedom until we understand what it is like to choose Christ over anything else. Only then can we experience what freedom feels like and the richness of everlasting life that follows it.
So I begged him. I begged him to not return to the massage parlors and I begged him to not touch those women. I can’t express the hopelessness I felt as I begged; I haven’t begged for anything since I was 10 years old.
He promised us that for one week he wouldn’t go to a massage parlor and pay for women, but instead would seek love from the Lord. And he agreed to meet with us before we left Vietnam.
For a week, my team, squad, friends, and family prayed. The next Monday, I went to the same coffee shop, Bible in hand, hoping Daniel would be there. Not too long later, he approached my table.
“Good morning,” he greeted me.
The conversation started like usual: weather, what countries I was going to next, and if I wanted another coffee. My teammate soon joined and we jumped in.
We talked for two and a half hours.
We talked about his past and the hurt he had gone through in his life, how he watched his parents’ marriage fall apart and began to give up on love himself. As we spoke, it was very easy to see how important childhood is and what happens when someone is robbed of it. F. Douglass was right when he said, “It’s easier to build strong children than to repair such broken adults”.
This 60-year-old man sitting across from us was so very broken.
So many people are focused on helping women get out of sex trafficking, which is awesome. But who’s running to rescue the johns who are going to the parlors? They are broken too. If we reached out to the demand, maybe we could stop the need for the supply.
Daniel continued, saying that he believed everyone has their own ways of finding peace and that he just hasn’t found his yet.
With that, my teammate asked if he truly believed in who Jesus is and was, because Daniel had said in our previous conversation that he was a Christian. However, now it appeared that he seemed unsure if he believed in Jesus.
I wish I could tell you that right then and there Daniel accepted Christ, but that didn’t happen.
What did happen, though, was that he realized how broken he was. He told us that he had a lot of people he need to forgive and that is what he would do this year for Christmas. He wanted to write down the people and situations in his life that he needed to let go of, and at church on Christmas, he was going to do it and give those things to God.
A few days later, I left for Cambodia with my squad. It’s likely I’ll never see Daniel again. If I do, I know that it will be God’s doing — just as He brought Daniel across my path in the first place.
I pray that Daniel has found freedom, that he is no longer a slave to the sin he lives in or a slave to the past. I pray that he writes everything out and lays it all down. And I pray that when he does, he meets God.
*Not his real name
Is God calling you to share His freedom with those who desperately need it? CLICK HERE for 2016 August and October Race routes to areas of the world where human trafficking is prevalent.
