Redemption
God in Thailand.
Pattaya. The Sodom and Gomorrah of modern day. Sad. Beautiful. Tragic. I fell in love with this city the moment I got here, and not for the usual reasons of the foreigners that roam the bar ridden streets. I fell in love with the potential this city has. A potential to be a place that screams the testimony of Gods redemptive love.
It's a weird feeling, seeing men who could be my grandfather, with a girl who might as well be the same age as me, if not younger. It takes everything in your being not to judge them and condemn them to hell, if I am being honest. Putting yourself in a situation where you see prostitution first hand is not something you can prepare for. No matter how many documentaries you have seen, or informative books you have read, that amount of brokeness you feel will never measure up until you are walking down the road. Realities hits, it hits you like a big wave coming 1,000 miles an hour. Girls in skimpy outfits line the streets, 30, 25, 23, 20, 19,18, 17, 16, 15, 14 years of age. People say its business. The lonely men get sex and the girls get paid. It is what it is. People say its emotionless, they say the girls are enjoying themselves, that they have no other choice, it's a part of culture and it is never. going. to. change. But if you look past that, If you look past the smiles, the giggles, if you look into their eyes, you catch a glimpse, a flicker in their eye. Something that screams "Help." That's when it happens, like glass hitting a cement floor, Your heart breaks, so fierce, so real you can almost hear the sound.
As I finished walking through the streets, I could feel the tears coming, I can't even think of an adjective strong enough to express the brokenness I felt, the pain I saw in the short 8 minute walk. I couldn't speak. I didn't have words. What do you say when you see hundreds of God's precious sons and daughters paralyzed by the bondage of sin, a sin that devalues them down to an object worth a price of $10. All I could do was walk, tears streaming down my face, having an intense internal conversation with God. As I was beginning to sort through my emotions, a man about the age of 70 brushed past me with a lady about the age of 20. Never in my life have I felt as much anger and hatred towards a person as I did then. The sorting of my emotions was lost as a battle with God began. How, just how could God love the men who came here? If God is so righteous, if He is so just, how is this happening? I don't understand, I can't comprehend how you can love a person who belittles a persons existence to dust. How God, Why God? Are you in this at all?
And then it happened, as it always does, God showed me in a way I was able to grasp. If you look at a perfect parent, (And God is our Heavenly Father, who just happens to then be the perfect parent), You would state that no matter what their children do, they will love them forever. Now, we tend to forget what the word 'love' implies. When a child rebels, his/her parents may be heart broken, they may be crushed by the choices their beloved son or daughter is making, they may be angry at the way it affects the child or others. Boundaries may be set up, consequences put in order, but they still love their child with a love that never fails. Love is a choice, love looks like something, and I believe that Love for these men and woman will come when they encounter their Heavenly Father waiting with open arms for their son/daughter to come home, just like the prodigal son. And there is one thing I know, without a shadow of a doubt, the love of Jesus is stronger than the power of the grave, it can overcome anything and everything. The love of God can capture a nations heart, let alone a whole city. There is also one thing that God's love never fails to bring....
Hope. It rises it up from the depths of your soul and overwhelms you as you realize nothing is impossible for the maker of heaven and earth. There is hope for the hopeless, hope for the broken, hope for the lost to be found. In Jesus true hope is found, a hope of a never ceasing, never changing, ever constant, life-changing, radical Love. And that Love brings freedom, it's a love that brings redemption, it breaks the chains of the captives and shatters the darkness, it is a love like no other, a source of value, identity, forgiveness, restoration, it is a spring that never runs dry.
250 girls have been through a training put on by the Tamar center, a ministry who provides vocational training as well as discipleship for the bar girls. 90% of the girls who go through this training stay of the streets and are now providing their own income through a job skill provided by the Tamar Center. They have their own hair salon, bakery and cafe, as well as sewing classes, and a beautiful card making business. They have seen already so many stories of redemption and salvation. God is working in this place. Just talking to the founder this morning my heart is so inspired to hear what God can do through just one person with a willing heart to obey God and what He calls you do.
So many good things have come from being here, one it is that the passion in my heart is stronger. Each time I walk the streets of this grief stricken city, I will be reminded that there is hope. That this is not the end. It is merely the beginning of a grand story of redemption for the city of Pattaya.
No Pattaya is not Sodom and Gomorrah, it's Nineveh. Amidst the darkness, amdist the pain, God's love shines through without fail.
It's a weird feeling, seeing men who could be my grandfather, with a girl who might as well be the same age as me, if not younger. It takes everything in your being not to judge them and condemn them to hell, if I am being honest. Putting yourself in a situation where you see prostitution first hand is not something you can prepare for. No matter how many documentaries you have seen, or informative books you have read, that amount of brokeness you feel will never measure up until you are walking down the road. Realities hits, it hits you like a big wave coming 1,000 miles an hour. Girls in skimpy outfits line the streets, 30, 25, 23, 20, 19,18, 17, 16, 15, 14 years of age. People say its business. The lonely men get sex and the girls get paid. It is what it is. People say its emotionless, they say the girls are enjoying themselves, that they have no other choice, it's a part of culture and it is never. going. to. change. But if you look past that, If you look past the smiles, the giggles, if you look into their eyes, you catch a glimpse, a flicker in their eye. Something that screams "Help." That's when it happens, like glass hitting a cement floor, Your heart breaks, so fierce, so real you can almost hear the sound.
As I finished walking through the streets, I could feel the tears coming, I can't even think of an adjective strong enough to express the brokenness I felt, the pain I saw in the short 8 minute walk. I couldn't speak. I didn't have words. What do you say when you see hundreds of God's precious sons and daughters paralyzed by the bondage of sin, a sin that devalues them down to an object worth a price of $10. All I could do was walk, tears streaming down my face, having an intense internal conversation with God. As I was beginning to sort through my emotions, a man about the age of 70 brushed past me with a lady about the age of 20. Never in my life have I felt as much anger and hatred towards a person as I did then. The sorting of my emotions was lost as a battle with God began. How, just how could God love the men who came here? If God is so righteous, if He is so just, how is this happening? I don't understand, I can't comprehend how you can love a person who belittles a persons existence to dust. How God, Why God? Are you in this at all?
And then it happened, as it always does, God showed me in a way I was able to grasp. If you look at a perfect parent, (And God is our Heavenly Father, who just happens to then be the perfect parent), You would state that no matter what their children do, they will love them forever. Now, we tend to forget what the word 'love' implies. When a child rebels, his/her parents may be heart broken, they may be crushed by the choices their beloved son or daughter is making, they may be angry at the way it affects the child or others. Boundaries may be set up, consequences put in order, but they still love their child with a love that never fails. Love is a choice, love looks like something, and I believe that Love for these men and woman will come when they encounter their Heavenly Father waiting with open arms for their son/daughter to come home, just like the prodigal son. And there is one thing I know, without a shadow of a doubt, the love of Jesus is stronger than the power of the grave, it can overcome anything and everything. The love of God can capture a nations heart, let alone a whole city. There is also one thing that God's love never fails to bring....
Hope. It rises it up from the depths of your soul and overwhelms you as you realize nothing is impossible for the maker of heaven and earth. There is hope for the hopeless, hope for the broken, hope for the lost to be found. In Jesus true hope is found, a hope of a never ceasing, never changing, ever constant, life-changing, radical Love. And that Love brings freedom, it's a love that brings redemption, it breaks the chains of the captives and shatters the darkness, it is a love like no other, a source of value, identity, forgiveness, restoration, it is a spring that never runs dry.
250 girls have been through a training put on by the Tamar center, a ministry who provides vocational training as well as discipleship for the bar girls. 90% of the girls who go through this training stay of the streets and are now providing their own income through a job skill provided by the Tamar Center. They have their own hair salon, bakery and cafe, as well as sewing classes, and a beautiful card making business. They have seen already so many stories of redemption and salvation. God is working in this place. Just talking to the founder this morning my heart is so inspired to hear what God can do through just one person with a willing heart to obey God and what He calls you do.
So many good things have come from being here, one it is that the passion in my heart is stronger. Each time I walk the streets of this grief stricken city, I will be reminded that there is hope. That this is not the end. It is merely the beginning of a grand story of redemption for the city of Pattaya.
No Pattaya is not Sodom and Gomorrah, it's Nineveh. Amidst the darkness, amdist the pain, God's love shines through without fail.
Isaiah 65: 1-2, 17-19
"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, 'Here am I, here am I.' All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations... "Behold, I will create a new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more."
"Let Your love be a fragrance that dwells in this place, break the chains, their if freedom through Your Amazing Grace."
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