After The Trip

What happens when you get back from the highest mountaintop and the lowest valley? When the plane touches back down on blessed soil and all you know to do is go back to what you left behind? What happens to a team so touched by what they experienced when they return home to the simple life?

How do you return to life as you knew it?

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We have been back in the States for nearly a month. It is still strange to me—that I wake every morning in a bed draped in queen-sized satin to a radio speaking my language telling me that the weather outside is freezing cold. I drape myself in layers in the darkness of pre-dawn, clip headphones into my ears, start my Garmin watch (which cost 12.5 times the amount a man can buy a girl in Thailand for 24 hours) and I run. I run in the frigid darkness to music that takes me back into the bars. I do this on purpose, because in the still of the morning with Rihanna’s “S&M” blaring in my ears (not edifying, I know), I am forced to go back, to remember, to be mad again, to pray. I run hard. I run because I don’t know what else to do.

I have been back in the States for nearly a month. A whole month. One that included Christmas, New Year’s, opening a new business and witnessing my sister laid up in a hospital bed after a nasty car wreck. Life goes on.

But I would be lying if I said this month has not been difficult. No one talks about what happens when you get back from the missions trip—the battle ground. You are still a soldier ready for war, but the war here is not the same. It’s familiar; a battle among the blessed who don’t realize how darn good they have it. It hurts to watch when you see it in light of what you just came from.

It is hard to explain what it’s like to have a heart that’s still bleeding out for the girls you encountered halfway around the world, but having no way to touch them, hug them, tell them you love them. Like sustaining a mortal wound, there’s no easy way to stop the gush, but here life goes on amidst the pain you know is happening every second you are away from them. You feel helpless. Worthless. The hole can be momentarily plugged with the nuances of American life, but the slow bleed continues with every heartbeat. There is simply no easy answer to wanting to fight a war that is so far from where you are.

My prayers have changed in a month’s time though. They are less of a conversation and more of a demand—God, how am I to make a difference here? How can I possibly help from this far away?

And yet, I know that it is not within ME alone to make a powerful and lasting difference. The war goes on without me. The women who will be reached will be, with or without me on the front lines. For now, all I can do is give generously, pray intently…and run. Because I don’t know what else to do.

An Unforgettable 10 Days

Tonight is our last night in Bangkok. Very early tomorrow morning, we board a plane back to America, land of the free. Back to our cushy existence. Back to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. Back to living a life where the simple act of walking down the sidewalk doesn’t break our hearts daily.

This week has been unforgettable. Indescribable. Inspiring. Heartbreaking. I’m at a loss for proper adjectives to sum it all up, but here are some of the things from the past 10 days that will be imprinted in my memory forever:

-This scene, played out a hundred times before our eyes of a young Thai girl, being approached and ultimately purchased by an older Western man.

In particular, this scenario we witnessed at McDonalds of all places (yes, they really are everywhere) involved a very old man with a hunchback and a young, attractive Thai girl….or at least what he thought was a young, attractive Thai girl. This is the one time our team actually laughed at seeing this, because in this case, this girl is actually a boy—a lady boy, and this old creeper clearly has no idea. Joke’s on him.

-A realization that an immense amount of life is conducted on the streets here. From beggars to street vendors, prostitutes to children, dogs to cats, life in Bangkok literally unfolds on the sidewalk—and that’s just on Soi 4. We were also surprised and kind of impressed with how many of these same people and animals could sleep just about anywhere.

-Creating relationships with the girls living at Beginnings was perhaps the highlight of our time here.  These girls and women are the definition of what it is to find new life in Christ. From darkness to light, dead to alive, they are all at once childlike and wise, naïve and mature, loving and inspirational. One girl that I got to spend a lot of time with this week came up to me after the last Christmas party, wrapped her arms around me and in her heavy Thai dialect said, “I love you, Jo.” I nearly melted into the floor. At just 18, she has experienced more life, more pain, and on the flip side, more freedom than most people will in a lifetime. I love her so dearly.

-On the night of Nana Plaza’s party, I squeezed into a cab with six girls we were able to free from one bar. They chatted like girlfriends do, playfully teasing each other and laughing the whole way to the party. One spoke English quite well and explained that this was the first time since they began working in the bars that any of them had ever all been able to go somewhere together outside of work, just for fun. This normal act of “girls’ night out” that we Americans take for granted was a first for them, and excitement spilled out of them as a result.

-The simplest presentation of the gospel can and will still change lives everyday. We witnessed a pretty basic message about Jesus from Pastor Nikorn on both nights of the parties and, in return, also saw dozens of hands raised in acceptance. Sometimes we forget as American Christians that you don’t need flashy lights, hip videos, and cool church environments to get the message across. Don’t get me wrong—those things are fantastic. But the gospel has spoken for itself, plain and simple, for centuries—and it still works just as well in 2011 as it did in 200 A.D.

Last but not least, what impacted me heavily this week, and will continue to as we go into the holidays is that these girls will work on Christmas Day. And New Year’s Day. And nearly very day in between. So many in the bars have young children, yet they will be with old, drunk men, as one girl put it to me so vividly, on the day they should be sharing presents with their family and babies. As I unwrap presents with my young daughter in just a few days, it will be impossible not to think of these girls who have to sacrifice their bodies and dignity every day.

The most difficult thing about leaving Thailand is that there is so much left to be done here—so much freedom left to give. It seems impossible at times. The heartbreak on a daily level is almost too much to handle. But as Bonita wisely pointed out, God sees it all simultaneously, and it breaks His heart too. And He is bigger than any bondage man can put us in.

So, as I prepare to leave and return to a life that can only be described as pampered, I will carry with me the names and faces of these beautiful girls. I can speak for the team when I say that we will not and cannot forget them. What we’ve witnessed here is burned into our minds, and our anger against the injustice and our passion to free them will not quickly or easily be doused. These 10 days at Beginnings are literally only the beginning of the freedom story we hope to write in Bangkok and around the world through Brentwood, Freedom 4/24 and individuals who are also ready to join in the war against sexual slavery.  We pray that God will use our fight to multiply the 12 women at Beginnings a hundred times over.

Until next time, Bangkok, our hearts will remember your darkness, your people, and the hope that is still so evident in spite of it all.

Christmas Party Recaps

When was the last time you had to defy your boss, risk your physical safety and flee a scary place just to go to a Christmas party? I dare say that all of us would say, “Never.”

Over the past two nights, that was perhaps the one thing that stuck out to us the most–how much some of the girls were willing to risk just to be at our parties and to hear the truth that can set them free for more than a night.

Let me explain: Of the 130+ women we were able to pay to get out of the bars at Soi Cowboy on Wednesday night, 17 of them came from a Go-Go bar called Tiliac. Those ladies were dressed to the nines, eagerly awaiting our arrival to pay their way to the party. But just 20 minutes after they walked into the hotel ballroom where the party was being held–in the middle of an enthusiastic round of musical chairs and limbo–their owner called and told them they must return to the bar, despite the fact that we had paid their bar fine for the night.

Disappointed and with many in tears, Vanessa and Megan led them back to Tiliac, where the girls all hugged them and promised to try to come back. Within an hour, 12 of the 17 were able to return, paying their own bar fine to set themselves free for one night (we later reimbursed them). We have no idea what punishment, if any, they suffered for their decision, but whatever the consequences were for them–the pull to be free was stronger.

Even bigger wins were in store for our party for Nana Plaza last night. The highlights: We shut down a whole bar, had more than 220 girls in attendance and more than 40 raised hands signaling a decision for Christ. Oh, and did I mention that there were three girls in attendance who told us this was there very first night ever working in the bars? What an amazing opportunity!

It’s stories like these that make the 70+ total who accepted Jesus over the past two nights even more profound. In spite of so many walls and strongholds we encountered in both Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza this week, the victory for those who came and heard, and especially those who raised a hand, took a Bible and stayed afterward to pray, were not only  but also against all odds. To put it in more basic terms, it was totally a “God thing.”

Please take a moment to watch this slideshow recap–to see the girls playing, laughing, praying and enjoying–and soak in the simple power of how much it means to them to simply be loved and honored, even if for a night. We pray that the impact of these parties will stretch much further.

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Pin’s Journey: A Resurrection Story

In most every group of women you meet around the world, there is a ringleader. If you’re lucky, that ringleader has the characteristics of Pin—the kind of personality who rallies the troops, is strong in the face of danger, keeps others laughing when things get tough, and isn’t scared to get her hands dirty for a cause close to her heart. Pin is all these and more.

Three years ago, in 2008, Pin came to the Christmas party thrown by Beginnings for Nana Plaza. She was working in a bar at the time, when Fa, another girl who lives at Beginnings came in to round up the girls for the party. Pin recalls with a laugh that Fa told her the party would have a free dinner, and that’s all it took to get her out the door of her bar. The party that night unfolded in the usual fashion with games, presents, songs and a clear presentation of the gospel.

“I remember seeing the video clip showing Jesus with the crown of thorns on his head. I realized that He had to suffer to give us hope,” Pin recalled. “And I felt something…but I didn’t understand what it was at the time.”

Pin had been working in the bars for several months leading up to that night—a decision prompted by her mother, who pressured her to earn more money and “be rich like my aunt’s friend who also worked in the bars,” Pin remembered.

At first, she says she actually enjoyed it. Being young and outgoing, she liked the dancing and social interaction, but soon realized the unseemly side of the job—being forced to sleep with men.

“Sometimes I was brave but sometimes I was afraid. And I had to do whatever the customer asked me. I had a lot of questions in my mind, like why I had to go and sleep with anyone who bought me,” she said.

Pin’s unsettled feeling about her work made the timing of the Christmas party perfect. When she returned home that night, she started looking through the gift bag from the party and saw a flyer from Beginnings. It explained that the home offered a way to continue an education—and that struck a chord with her.

“At the time, my two goals were to make a lot of money, which is how I ended up in the bars, and to continue my education,” Pin said.

She called Beginnings at 2 a.m. that night and spoke to house mom, Anne, who invited to her to come visit Beginnings the next day. Pin moved in that same week. Three months later, she accepted Christ as her Savior after witnessing the lives of the girls around her at Beginnings.

“It seemed like they have peace in their heart, so I decided to give my life to Christ,” Pin said.

But Pin’s story doesn’t end there. One year after moving into Beginnings, she made a dramatic decision—she left the house to go back to work at the bars, among other places.

“I left because I thought she still didn’t have the answer yet and wanted to go back and have fun, but once I left, I realized it was hard and a mistake,” she said. “During the time, I was really tired and had no close friends. I thought a lot about God and Beginnings and about when I became a believer.”

After a year of being gone from Beginnings, Pin hit rock bottom and resolved to return, but not before making a bargain with God.

“I said, ‘If you are real, bring me back to Beginnings’ and He opened the doors for me here,” Pin said, explaining that Anne and Bonita welcomed her back with open arms.

Pin has now been back at Beginnings for a year and says she has learned to trust and move towards hope in God and in people. Her faithfulness brought her full circle on the night of the Christmas parties this year—from sitting in the audience three years ago to standing on stage, sharing her testimony.

“I am so proud and grateful to speak at the Christmas parties,” Pin said. “I prayed to the Lord that I could become a blessing to my family and friends, and now I’m getting the chance to speak about what God’s done in my life.”

As she told her story to the audience, tears filled her eyes. She spoke with the same strength, humor and conviction that anyone who now knows Pin finds so appealing. And, most importantly, her words reached a room full of women who are now in the very same place she was just a few years ago.

Pin’s hope for the future is to become a lawyer, but for now, she is on the front lines in the bars each week, telling the girls there about her transformation. Though the red light district of Nana Plaza represents every kind of pain and evil to her, Pin overcomes any fears of going back in order to give the same hope she has found to another girl who needs it. And there are many, many girls there who need it.

Most days, Pin can usually be found in school, making crafts to sell and joking around with the girls at Beginnings. She is gregarious, funny and playfully affectionate yet very much a tough soul. But her strong voice instantly softens if you ask her the right question—usually one about what Jesus means to her. She pauses, her eyes watering, and gives a simple answer.

“Jesus is my family—my father, my mother, my everyone … my everything.”

Reason to Celebrate

Today, there is reason to celebrate.

It’s 12:30 a.m. here in Bangkok and though we are all wiped out after the first Christmas party, it is a new day in more ways than one for many of the girls who attended. I will post a full recap after a good night’s sleep, but the highlights include 130+ girls in attendance and approximately 30 raised their hands to accept Christ tonight. Exact numbers and lots and lots of pictures forthcoming, but for now, I think this one says it all.

For Whom We Fight … and Party

Disgusting. Degrading. Dehumanizing.

In case you missed this photo from my last post, this picture pretty much summarizes Soi Cowboy–an avenue to offer flesh of any size and shape to men who just want to pay for a warm body of their choosing.

This is who we are fighting to offer freedom to tonight–the girls of Soi Cowboy who have been treated as less than human and unworthy of true love for the extent of their time there, and probably their whole lives. Pray that in just a few hours, doors will be flung wide open, that mama sans’ hearts will be receptive to us taking the girls to the Christmas party, and that they would even shut down bars and come as well.

Our God is front of us….we cannot wait to share the stories of victory.

Heartbreak and Hope–A Lesson in Opposites

In one of the loudest cities I have ever been in, it is often the quietest moments that stop me dead in my tracks.

On our walk to Soi Cowboy tonight, we passed a young mother sitting on the street as a beggar. She was quietly praying over her infant son; her toddler daughter sat just feet away. She never looked up as people passed by, even as some dropped baht in her Styrofoam cup. It was clear she was ashamed to be begging, and the look in her eyes was recognizable by any mother on Earth–she was desperate to provide for her babies.

I know I said that we have to choose what breaks our hearts here. But sometimes, there is just no choice in the matter. Your heart just simply shatters at the scene unfolding before you. The worst part is that we felt helpless to improve her circumstances, beyond a few baht here and there.

That’s how we have struggled not to feel all week, actually. We know beyond a doubt that Beginnings offers real hope and change … we have heard it in the girls stories and have seen it in their refreshed innocence and childlike smiles. But there are still so many girls in need of rescue. At one bar two of the women on our team went into at Soi Cowboy tonight, there were at least 200 girls working. And that’s just ONE bar among 20+ in just Soi Cowboy alone. Not counting Nana Plaza. Not counting street walkers. Not counting Lady Boys (that’s a whole other piece of the puzzle we gained more insight on today, but more on that later).

These are just a few of the images captured tonight at Soi Cowboy:

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We know it’s not up to us to save them all, but … our hearts ache for each one of them.

Tomorrow is our first Christmas party for the girls at Soi Cowboy. And guess who is coming? Na. See my post about my time with her from the last trip here. Tonight, I went into the bar she worked at the last time I saw her, in 2009, to see if she was still there. I hoped she would not be–that she had somehow escaped, but she was the first person I saw when I walked in. Because she was working a jam-packed bar, our reunion was quick, but sweet. She lit up and asked me about the baby and I showed her a picture of Ella in the locket around my neck. It was so good to see her. She said she would come tomorrow night and bring more girls with her. Praise God for that little window of encouragement.

So tonight, we as you to pray boldly for our first party tomorrow night. Pray for a huge turnout–that we can buy freedom for so many girls that we actually shut down whole bars.