Right now, I am sitting on my bed during some “free time” before we head back out to another red light district in Bangkok tonight. I am cuddled under a blanket a sweet friend made me listening to my worship mix on itunes. All in all, a good day so far. This morning, we met around 9:00 pm to debrief from our experience with the night life in one of the red light districts here.
Last night was my first experience within the bar here. Unfortunately, I cannot say this was my first time in a bar with women dancing but honestly, I never thought I would ever find myself in another one. Funny how that works, huh? Well get this. A year or so ago I had a dream. No, not at the same intensity of MLK, Jr.’s dream, but yet… still powerful to me. In the dream, it was a dark environment… both literally and spiritually. I was sitting on this very small, somewhat uncomfortable barstool next to several ladies at these little round tables with soft drinks and a couple mixed drinks sat on top of them… two of the ladies had very distinguishable faces in my dream. But I did not know who they were. The other ladies in the booth with us were fuzzy to identify. We were all sitting there visiting with ladies in scantily clad bikini wear… and in the dream, I recall that there was a young pregnant female on the dance stage leaning up against a wall on the stage. At the point that I noticed the young girl, my friend next to me leaned in and started conversing with me…
I recall waking and asking myself why in the world would I ever find myself in a bar setting like that again? Why in the world would I, after growing closer to God, ever be in that position? And who were these girls around me? Craziness. It was a very “random” dream to say the least. Enough so that I wrote it down in my journal at that time because… well, you just never know what can happen, right?
So last night… we arrive at our district and break up into our designated teams… my first role is playing Uno and coloring with some amazing and super adorable children of the area. Our intent is to love on them, tell them Jesus loves them, and keep their attention on our activities rather than the “norm” they are exposed to every night.
Then came my rotation to enter the chosen bar of the night for my group… I walk in with my team and we carefully choose our seating position. The walls of this place are very dark… yes, painted black… but lined with obscene 3 dimensional “art” on every wall. I redirect my attention and say a quick protective prayer over myself, my team, the girls, and the place. I find myself sitting on this small round bar stool at this very small table. My teammates are behind me and beside me, to my right… in a big long blue booth with another small table between us. Shortly after sitting, my leader is quickly recognized and welcomed with open arms by the “mama sam” of the place. Then, a girl on stage recognizes my leader and as soon as her stage performance is over, she runs over to welcome us as well. Gradually, a couple other girls come over and I find myself sitting next to a young, braces-wearing, beautiful Thai girl that orders herself an orange drink. We make small talk… she is 17 years old, from Bangkok… she has a two year old son at home… sometimes her parents come watch her dance when they are working in the market… she does not go to school… she enjoys dancing and American music… she giggles at the thought of Justin Bieber, however. Another friend of hers comes over to sit with us.
Between mildly awkward and language-limiting attempts at conversation, I look over to the stage offering soft smiles of a hope that there is a Man that loves the girls unconditionally and wants to save them from this life. I look to seek emotion and life in their faces. Some of them are very very young… some excited about the music and the attention from customers… their long and beautiful hair extensions… and impressively high heels, I might add. Others… sad. Empty. Tired. Worked. Worn down. Lost. I look to the end of the stage and there stands a young girl with her back against the wall. Her hands resting behind her tired back. Her bikini and stiletto-induced posture exposes a moderate protuberance from her abdomen suggesting a 3-4 month pregnancy and my teammate leans in to talk to me…
What? I know right!
God knew. As He knows every little detail about me, and about each and every one of the 4000 women at work nightly in this Red Light District, He KNEW.
He knows. There is nothing on this earth that is hidden from Him, no where where He cannot see. If I were to go to the depths of the sea, even He would be there. And He is here in this Red Light District, in interactions with true, unconditional love, in the smiles we give the girls, the prayers as we tie bracelets on their arms, in the hugs, the held hands, the laughter, and the "kap kuhn kaa's" (thank you's). He is the God of this City, the God of dreams… right down to the one I had over a year ago on the other side of the world.
Please continue to pray for me, the team, the girls, and our impact!!!
*Photo by Connie Rock
