This year, we’ve focused on stories inspired by our We Are the World Race Campaign. This month, we’re sharing stories inspired by women on the mission field. (Don’t worry guys, your turn is coming next month!) Our experiences with women worldwide have taught us what womanhood really means. Women are wired for intimate relationships and deep, abiding love. And even when that “love” is used to take advantage of them—things like human trafficking, prostitution, and exploitation, to name a few—women teach us about beauty, femininity, joy, and God’s love for each one of his daughters. This month we want to celebrate all things women-in-missions related, and give you a chance to share your story as well.
Kaleigh Ward of the September 2013 V Squad spent a month serving in the Red Light District in Thailand. She quickly learned it’s not her job to save the lost and broken women trapped in prostitution, that’s God’s job.
I thought “saving a prostitute” would be easy.
When we showed up to our ministry in Thailand to spend a few days being educated on sex trafficking, I couldn’t wait to get in the bars and start offering these girls hope, love, and a way out of the hell they were living.
As a Sociology/ Women and Gender Studies student, I was very aware of the social conditions that lead many women into prostitution. I knew that many of them didn’t have a true choice in the matter.
So I believed as soon as one of these women was given a real choice, an opportunity to leave the bars for a better life, she would jump at the chance! All I had to do was get out there and let them know that they did have a choice, that there was a better life waiting for them and then…Presto!… they would start leaving the bars in droves.
But my first night in bar ministry was a wake-up call.
It’s true that social conditions lead many women to prostitution. But this captivity reaches every aspect of who they are.
I met one young girl who, as she played pool with me, constantly looked over her shoulder at the bar mom to see if she was allowed to continue talking with me. She is physically bound, living above the bar and not allowed to leave, even for a lunch date with me.
I met another woman who has the physical freedom to come and go as she pleases but, after years in the industry, is so mentally bound that the only “dream job” she can fathom is owning a bar of her own.
Some girls are bound emotionally, caught up in dreams of falling in love and being whisked away by a foreigner who will buy them everything their heart desires.
Others are in relationships with bar owners or clients and those ties are invisible chains that keep them in the bar night after night.
The oppression is spiritual. Satan has blinded the men and women in the Red Light district to the Truth. He has lured them into darkness with heady promises that are flashy but empty.
The problem is huge. The captivity is all-encompassing. The deception runs deep.
Even if I spent my entire life here in Chiang Mai, I wouldn’t have the power to free even one girl from her captivity. To free a woman on every single level (physical, mental, emotional, relational, and spiritual) would be impossible for me.
This was a humbling realization that slapped me in the face after my first night in the bars, but it was followed by a beautiful revelation.
I can’t save these girls, but God can.
He knit them together in their mother’s womb and counted the hairs upon their head. He knows their strengths, weaknesses, fears, and dreams.
He can reach into their deepest places and break every chain, one by one. He can open their eyes, soften their hearts, and infuse them with the strength to shake off the chains and walk into new life with Him.
For a moment, I discouraged to realize that I couldn’t set these girls free, but now I’m seeing the beauty and freedom in inviting God to do what only He can do.
I discovered where my true power lies, in worshipping and praying to the only One who can set them free.
So as we go on our daily prayer walks, I listen to worship music and declare the Lord’s goodness, joy, mercy, grace, hope, and love again and again throughout the red light district.
I am beginning to see just how powerful prayer and worship truly are, for they are our means of connecting with the only Solution to the problem, the only Light that can shine in this darkness, the only Freedom that can break every last chain.
I am letting go of what I thought I could do or say to change the world and instead spending hours sitting in the presence of the One who already has.
He is going to pursue these girls’ hearts long after I’m gone. And when the chains fall off and lives are changed and Hell is shaken, God will get every bit of the glory, for it will be so clear that He is the Power at work.
God is writing a beautiful story here in Chiang Mai, a story of victory and redemption. He is the Author and the Hero, and I, like the many girls He is going to save in this city, am simply a recipient of His love and grace.
He has called me to love Him and obey Him. I’m going to focus on that and leave the rest to Him.
We know that we can’t always save the the lost and broken, sometimes we have to leave that to God. What we can do is love them and bring awareness of the 27 million men, women, and children trapped in prostitution and human trafficking. We believe in faith together that we can end this thing. While we know simple awareness will never end these issues, we also know they’ll never end without it.
You could be the one to answer the Lord’s call to be a voice for the voiceless. Your hands could hold the hurting. Your voice could spread the name of Jesus. Will you go? Click here see all the places you could go this year!
*Photos by Carly Marin
