Worth It

“We will go till the whole world knows that Jesus is alive, we will run burning with your love and fire in our eyes” -Lindy Conant

This last week has been the roughest one since I’ve been in Thailand and I’m learning how to embrace the complete brokenness of my heart. Its really a beautiful process to watch your heart be completely torn to shreds on account of another person. And yall, I mean completely.

Last night our outreach team went to a bar we have never gone to before. A closed bar. A go-go bar. A strip club. A brothel. Whatever you want to call it. We have never done outreach in such bars. In fact no one that we know of in all of Pattaya is doing ministry in such bars. They are too dark, there’s too much exposure inside, it’ll be too scarring. I’ve heard it all, but I knew I had to go because there are girls in there that need help just as much as the girls we normally visit. There are precious souls in there that have yet to encounter the love of their creator. They have yet to hear that they are treasured, priceless, and deeply loved. I had to go and share the truth.

We walked up to the blacked out bar as the security guard ushered us in. This place was the most horrible place I’ve ever seen or been in, but I will spare you a lot of the details. They seated us right in front of a stage of half-dressed girls dancing on poles with numbers wrapped around their wrists. The mamasan (female pimp) came over with a laser pointer and asked us which number we wanted. My heart broke. It was so dehumanizing, reducing their identity to a number. The three of us chose the girl we felt God was leading us to. For the sake of privacy we will call her “Hope”. Hope came and sat with us. We got to know each other over a couple glasses of coke. We told her we were 20 years old and with a huge smile she said “same same I  20 also”. At that moment I couldn’t quite comprehend how I was sitting with a beautiful girl my age who somehow got trapped in the sex industry and I couldn’t help but wonder how she ended up there instead of me. How am I lucky enough to not be in that situation, because I very well could be. Why is she there forced into prostitution every day and I am over here free as can be. How does that work. Sometimes I take my freedom for granted. That could so easily be me in there selling myself for sex.

We got to spend about an hour with Hope, laughing and getting to know each other. As she leaned into me with embrace, I looked down to her hand that had been holding mine all night and I saw the number wrapped around her wrist that we had been asked to identify her with at the beginning. I saw her hand and the number and I saw my hand and my thumb ring that quotes Jeremiah 29:11. At that moment I knew God was not done with her yet. He has a plan for her life. She is not too far gone-she is completely clean and pure through Him and He is not done with her yet.

“’For I know the plans I have for you’ says the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and  future” Jer 29:11

When we are on outreach we are not allowed to show on our faces that we are upset, sad, or angry. The only way I was able to keep it together when I was in there seeing what was happening and the daily realities of these precious girls, was knowing that even this one hour with Hope was worth all the horrors my eyes were seeing and all the sorrows my heart was feeling. The fact that one girl felt loved and actually cared about for the first time in who knows how long made going in there completely worth it. As awful and hard as it was, I don’t regret going, and  I will continue to go see Hope and girls like her to speak truth, because they are worth it. Despite what Hope hears on a daily basis as men ask her how much for sex, she IS priceless and Jesus has paid it all for her already, she just doesn’t know it yet. She will soon. She doesn’t yet know that she is free to be a daughter of the King and that’s the only thing that defines her. She doesn’t know she is royalty and worth so much more than selling herself for sex daily. She doesn’t know that she has other options than this. She will know all of this soon as we continue to visit her and spend time with her, allowing God to minister His love to her. She is worth having my heart broken over and over again as I see the truth of human trafficking happen to my new sweet friend. And God is worthy of me going back into these bars to bring His light and glory and claim His victory over each one of these girls. Its all so WORTH IT. Its worth the pain, the heart ache, the uncomfortable settings, all to see one person feeling loved.

Jesus you are worth it all, every nation, and every SOUL.

“We fix our eyes on your nail pierced hands that say ‘it is finished, it is done, you’re purchased with my blood’”. -Lindy Conant, Every Nation