The Battle for Thailand

Well, we just got back from another night of ministry down in Patong, the Red Light District area of Phuket, Thailand. Our time here has been intense and different than expected. This was our 3rd full day at the ministry site in Phuket. Let me explain a bit of what we are doing here.
This area of Thailand is well-known for its beaches and sex-tourism. There is a ministry here started by a British missionary family that reaches out to the girls working in prostitution in the bars that gives them an alternative to what they are doing. The ministry is called SHE (self-help and empowerment) and offers them training in making jewelry, chocolates, and baked goods, while also offering them a place to live and Biblical teaching.

Right now there are about 18 girls working for SHE, about 7 of which live at the site, and the others travel here each day to work. While the team is here, we have been getting up in the am to lead their morning devotions at the start of their work day. Then we help them do their work - making the jewelry or baking the cookies (yum! my favorite job...), etc. While we are doing this we have the opportunity to have conversations with them. Many of the girls who work here are not yet Christians. The only condition for them coming to work for SHE is that they aren't working in the bars. So there is quite a mix of spiritual conditions here. Some of the girls have become Christians and have been baptised, some have gone through YWAM Discipleship Training Schools, others have just left the bars a few nights or weeks ago (we got a brand new lady who moved in today!).


Then some afternoons we go to Patong (the red light area) and prayer walk through out the areas.


In the evenings we have more chances to talk with and disciple the ladies who live at SHE. Many of the later nights (9-12 or so) are spent out at those same bars, engaging in conversations with the girls.
The bars have "bar-girls" that are employed by the bars and they are basically hostesses. There job is to get people into the bars and to spend money. Most of these bars do not pay the girls a salary, but they are provided free housing that indebts them to work as hostesses. They rely on other things to make any money. They get comission off of certain drinks they sell, or get to keep their tips, or they can arrange to go with the men that want to purchase them. The sad thing is though, that without doing those things, they aren't making any type of a salary, so the girls often seem to feel really trapped. Most of them have children that are living with the girls parents, and Thai culture says that these girls need to financially take care of their parents. Add that in with taking care of their children and themselves, and these girls feel a lot of pressure to do whatever it takes to make money.


So we go into these open-air bars (nothing behind closed doors - many awful things happen in those places and this ministry doesn't feel released to go there yet) and sit down for a soda with one of these girls. Their job is to talk to people, so it's easy to have conversations with them. They have lots of games they play, like Jenga, Connect 4, etc to help break the ice too. So it is easy to converse, and you just look for openings to talk more meaningfully to them. One easy thing is just asking them if they like their job or are happy doing what they do. 9 times out of 10 they say no and start going into reasons. We can then tell them about SHE, invite them to come for lunch here, etc. Whatever the Spirit leads.
We've seen some amazing things come out of those conversations. But we see a whole lot of really hard stuff down there as well. The atmosphere is just so dark and perverse. So many strongholds and demonic activity. And as we are combatting all of that in the Spirit, it means a lot of personal spiritual attack. I feel it a lot more than I did in India (not that it wasn't there in India too, but for some reason it is felt more here). I know we are doing so much good for the Gospel, but it just looks really different than many other traditional types of ministry. And the things we are exposed to open us up to a lot of attack. So please pray hard. I will talk more about the spiritual warfare soon in another post, as this one is getting really long. :)