I am not for sale

I am not for sale
A batch of drugs can only be sold once. But when a woman is sold, she is sold over and over and over and over again which creates a never-ending source of money.
Patong Beach, Thailand is a Red Light District. Both women and men from poor provinces all over Thailand come to Patong Beach for work. The fastest way to make profit here is by working in the bars and selling their bodies. This makes Patong Beach a hub for human trafficking since tourists who come for both sex and partying, can’t tell the difference between prostitution and trafficking. And because the Russian Mob pays off the Thai police in order for them to keep their mouths shut about them trafficking women from Eastern Europe to work in Thai bars.
All of the bars play music videos that stimulate the sex drive. Once I even changed the music to rock and the bar manager told me that the music I chose didn’t have enough energy. (I thought, what? No band is as energetic as Guns n Roses!) Then she put on typical Patong Beach bar music to get people in the party mood…especially the men sitting at the bar propositioning women. In the videos, men who are fully clothed are outnumbered by women dressed in little to nothing who dance behind them. For example:
DJ Khalid ft. Justin Bieber- I’m The One. Shaggy- It Wasn’t Me
Rihanna ft. Drake- Work
The Weeknd- Earned It
The list of music videos that portray women as something to be sexualized goes on and on. It is normal for cultures all over the world, especially westernized cultures. Along with raunchy music videos, it is normal to walk the streets of Bangla road getting “Ping Pong Show” signs shoved in your face, Lady Boys asking if you want a massage, and countless women dancing on poles in EVERY direction. This entire city thrives off of sex and partying. Patong Beach is a broken city.
One night for ministry, a couple of girls on my team and I stood on the spiritually heavy road of Patong…Bangla Road. I was dressed in baggy joggers down to my ankles and a loose fit tank that went to my shoulders…definitely not what most girls wear to downtown Patong. My two teammates and I held a sign that read “I will listen”. Bangla Road is a spiritually dark and heavy place. Showing compassion and a willingness to listen to strangers by holding up an “I will Listen” sign made people stop and stare. Multiple people came up to us and asked what the sign meant, we told them that we are here to just love people and make them feel known. Some people would walk up to us and tell us how brave it is what we’re doing, others would come up to us and offer us drugs of all sorts, but the turning point of the night was when two Indian men walked straight up to me. I immediately smiled really big, reached out my hand to greet them and introduced myself. The businessman in the foreground denied my handshake and looked at my sign. He mumbled something in his own language. Then he told me that I am very white. Not knowing what to say, I smiled and laughingly said “Yes I’m very white!” Nothing could’ve prepared my dignity for what happened next. The man dressed in a white button down looked at my sign, back up at my eyes, and asked “How much?” As my lips quivered I immediately looked at my two teammates standing to my left and my face was distraught. With disbelief in my tone, I told my friends what was too quiet for them to hear over the night life of Patong, “He just asked me how much” my team leader looked at the man and firmly said “NO! We are not doing that. We are here to LISTEN.” I sat the sign down and began to weep. I have been witnessing human trafficking for six weeks at this point, but I was unable to feel full compassion for the victims until I myself was asked what my price was. It’s something inexplicable. A feeling I wish every perpetrator understood. On the same street where you can buy souvenirs, food, and beer, a man walked up to me and asked me what my price was, as if I am not priceless! I felt exploited, ashamed, and numb. It was a moment of feeling embarrassed of my femininity. No matter how baggy my clothes were, or how kind I was to those men, they still chose to look at me as something to buy. I couldn’t hide my femininity that they felt so dominant over. I realized that I don’t need to be ashamed, embarrassed or numb in my femininity, but rather bold and empowering through it. These men have a serious moral and spiritual heart issue. And rather than bringing my own wrath down on them, I chose to embrace my femininity in order to get through ministry for the rest of the night. I chose to bear the image of God that is specific to women. I chose to be compassionate in mind and spirit. I chose to fully feel the pain that I felt because that is strength! And the capacity to feel so deeply is a gift from God. I used this compassion to love the people of Bangla even harder. I was empathetic because I understood that the men and women of Bangla Road are here looking for something to fill the emptiness and brokenness in their hearts. I knew that their lives have led them to a point of desperation and longing for something fulfilling. I pray that they will see that Gods light can shut out all of the darkness inside of them and on Bangla Road.
Very shortly after these two men walked away after propositioning me, a group of four men in their twenties walked up to my teammates and I. This story is a story of redemption! It turns out, one of the guys is a Christian. He even encouraged my teammates and I through words of affirmation that what we are doing is making a difference. The long conversation ended with two of the young men saying they’d join us for church on Sunday. One of them is a Christian, and it turns out that he prayed for God to do something in his friends heart that very night before walking Bangla Road. It ended in his friend being open-minded about coming to church, which is out of the ordinary for him. God redeemed my spirit with his affirmation by sending one of his kingdom workers to encourage my teammates and I. Gods light will always outshine the darkness of Bangla Road.