Redlight districts, Trafficking, Prayer requests

It's powerful when you get to see places and people you have been praying for in person. When you put a face and story with an issue, or see the reality of how grotesque and dark a place is, it fuels your prayers and leaves a mark on your heart.

That was pretty much the case today as one of the missionaries here and I prayer walked through several red light districts in Bangkok during the day today. She told me about the numbers of girls and guys working in the bars, and also about how many men-mostly foreigners go there. 1500 girls working this strip of bars, 2500 in this building. So much is wrong here. So many things need to change. The corruption, the sex workers, the sex tourists and Thai men, the bar owners, the culture. I got to meet some of the women that the missionary with me knew and afterward got to hear their stories. Darkness is definitely winning the battle currently, but God can change it all in a second.

It's so worth it. To invest yourself in helping save these men, women, girls and boys is a just and worthy cause. That was one of the biggest things i walked away with today. There doesn't have to be this much darkness, with Christ it can change. I truly believe God has been preparing me to be here. 8 months ago it would have been too much, and I wasn't at the place to go into a place like that. God has firmed up my feet to go into a dark place and reach those who have no hope, and to help enable those here to continue in that after I'm gone. I suppose that's what He means to do for every Christian, to create a strong person so they are at the place where they can reach out to others. If you are not at that place, yield to Him! You are not on this earth just for yourself. There is a battle going on for the people of this world, and one thing I've seen in Japan and Thailand is the laborers are few (>1% Christian in both, and way less missionaries than that).

Something you guys can be praying for is a young boy that one of the ministries here found in the street. He has been Trafficked and exploited in various ways for about 6 years. Some of the missionaries here have taken him in and begin working with him. I haven't met him yet, and may not for a little while as he is very distrusting and fearful of men. Pray that Christ would work in this kid, he has been through a lot.

There is a whole lot you guys can be praying for:

For me and the other missionaries here-This is a dark place overall, and much darker still are the redlight districts. There is a whole lot of spiritual warfare here and satan is not happy about those working here. Pray protection, strength, integrity, and intimacy with Christ for all of us. Pray for favor for us as we seek to work with the people in that environment-and that they would have open hearts that would dare to hope we are trustworthy.

Please also pray for the ministry as a whole. The building needs a fair amount of work still before it can open and begin taking in sex workers. Pray that I am able to greatly help this along and be efficient and excellent in my work. Also that there are no more problems from the building (it's older) or from the work that a previous construction crew did. Pray that all the necessary paperwork would go through without any problems as well.

Lastly please pray for those we are working with, there are several sex workers the ministry is connected with and reaching out to, so please pray that they would get saved and come out of that lifestyle. It's a dark, essentially brainwashed, demonic, destructive mindset many of them are in. Pray for revelation from Christ.

...It's not against flesh and blood that we battle...

I'll leave you with an uplifting story that one of the missionaries told me:

There was a girl working in a bar as that was given a tract. She told the missionaries she wasn't interested, but knew of one girl who was, and that she would give her the tract. The missionaries went back to the same bar a few days later. They saw the first uninterested girl, who told them she would go get the other girl who she gave the tract to. This 18 year old, beautiful Thai girl came out and yelled right in the middle of the bar (with all the raunchiness going on around) "I'm a Christian!" She then filled in the people there that she couldn't wait for the missionaries to return, so she went to a church and asked someone to explain the tract to her. She said a lady sat with her for 3 hours and took her through scripture explaining the gospel, and as a result, the girl got saved! She soon after left the sex industry and was taken in by a ministry in the city. It was a great story of God grace. Pray for more stories like this one! The road may be slow and ugly at times, but this is not a lost cause!