Another night. I watch as tourists walk up and down the strip, looking in each bar and trying to decide which one to go in to. I stand in our open entrance, smiling wide and inviting them in. Finally, a customer. He sits at the bar, orders a drink, invites me to sit next to him. Here we go- I know what the rest of the night will look like, and my emotions war with each other, grateful because I need the money but dreading what I will have to do for that money. He rubs my arm. I want to throw up. I smile instead, laugh at his bad joke. It’s getting late. He takes me by the arm- I am his possession tonight, something to be bought and sold- and leads me out and into the darkness. Another night.

I think a lot of times we look at people with preconceived notions: “She’s a prostitute. She chose that lifestyle.” Whether or not that is true (which I’ll write about in just a moment), the fact remains that that woman in the bar is somebody’s daughter. Sister. Niece. Cousin. Friend. That woman is somebody’s mother.

I’ve had the privilege of witnessing Thailand’s Red Light District in action, working to build relationships with the women there and offering them other options than the work they are currently stuck in. Because the truth is that they’re trapped. In some cases, sex brokers went into their village and bought them from their family, offering them glamorous-sounding jobs in the big city, only to trap them in the dark reality of these bars (Human trafficking is a dark, growing, and spreading form slavery that we need to face and work against!). In some cases, their circumstances trap them, and they feel they have no other way, no other job, to provide for their families. Either way, they are trapped.

 Think of these women as if they were your daughters. Pray for them with the passion, the heartbreak, the desperation you would were they your own blood. I’m asking the Lord to send more teams for longer terms to carry on these relationships and to continue planting and watering seeds. Will you ask Him with me?