Cory and I had been trying to work out a trip to Masat for awhile with the purpose of going to work with refugees, but it kept not working out. On Sunday night, however, Kim found a ministry in Pattaya called Tamar Center that works with women who are bar girls. Cory called them on Monday, they responded immediately, we asked them if it was too soon to come tomorrow, they said of course we can come, and we prepared to go.
To give you a little bit of background on Pattaya, it is one of the top destinations IN THE WORLD for sex tourism. It used to be a small fishing village, but during the Vietnam War, American soldiers started going there for some rest and relaxation, and from that time forward, Pattaya has more and more become a sex tourism destination. Now, although the registered population is 100,000 people, over 4 MILLION people visit it every year. Most of the women who work the bars in Pattaya are not from that city, but mostly, they are from other villages and cities. A lot of them have children, and their parents pressure them to go to Pattaya to make money and to find a foreign husband. Oftentimes, the girls don't know exactly what goes on in Pattaya, and they think that they'll be able to go, work some, and find a husband, unaware of the fact that they'll have to sell their bodies first in order to do so. Honestly, it's heart-breaking.
On Tuesday morning, Cory and I got on a bus at 10:30, and we rolled into Pattaya around 4:00. In the first hour we were there, I saw more white men than I'd seen in the previous weeks of my trip combined. It was crazy, and so different to be in a tourist destination in comparison to Korat where there are barely any tourists. The songthaew (basically, a taxi made out of a pick-up truck with benches in the back, covered with some type of roof-type thing) we were in that took us to Tamar Center had an advertisement in the back for judgment day May 21, 2011- apparently "the Bible guarantees it," although there are currently only 32 minutes left in May 21 here and I have yet to see any signs of impending judgment.
When we got there at 4:45, we walked into the first floor, where they have their bakery. We met one of the women who helped to found Tamar Center, named Eve. She told us a little bit about the ministry, and even though Tamar Center closed shortly after we got there (at 5:00), she invited us to come to a prayer meeting the next morning at 9 and to come out to the bars the next evening to talk to some of the girls and invite them to the free English classes that Tamar Center offers. We gladly accepted, and parted ways until the next day.
I woke up the next morning at 6:30 to literally THE LOUDEST thunder I have ever heard in my life. It almost made me jump out of my skin. I tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep, and when I met Cory to try to get back to Tamar Center, we saw that the streets were SUPER flooded. Oh my goodness. It was probably mid-calf, at least. No songthaew routes go past the hotel we stayed at, so we were going to have to walk several blocks to get to the main road by the beach, but one of the women working at the hotel kindly offered to drive us. It was insane, but we got there in time to eat some breakfast at the bakery before the meeting. This picture can't fully show how flooded it was, but it gives you a good idea:
Let me take a pause to tell you more about Tamar Center. Basically, what they do is offer free job training, along with bible study, free housing, and a job, to women who want to find an alternative to working the bars. They train women in card making, jewelry making, hair dressing, computers, coffee making, and baking. They also offer free English classes (you just have to pay 50 baht for the first class, basically, less than two dollars) and free pregnancy tests and pregnancy counseling. To share their ministry with women, they go into bars to invite them to English classes and get to know them, offer promotions at their hair salon, and have banquets for women several times a year. It is an AWESOME ministry.
It was so great to join Tamar Center and other Pattaya ministries for the prayer meeting, and it was encouraging to hear what God is doing in the city! After the meeting, Cory and I just hung out and walked around until 3:30, when we went back to the first building of Tamar Center so someone could take us to the other building to meet up to go into the bars together. The second building is located on Soi 6, described by the staff at Tamar Center as "one of the darkest, saddest, most hopeless bar sections in the city." Most of the bars around are pretty open air, and it's in the open bars that they do ministry so that the pairs of people who go in can look out for the other pairs. The bars on Soi 6, however, are all closed. It's necessary to go through a door to enter, and the windows are all tinted. It was super sketchy. Girls wait outside calling customers to come into the bars. It was probably one of the darkest places I've been in my life. It was my first time in a red light district, and I was overwhelmed. I feel like I'm still processing it. I felt so much compassion for the women I saw. One of the saddest things to me is that these women really just want to be loved, but instead of love, they get used. I wanted to hug every single one of them.
We ended up going into two bars, and I didn't talk much since Cory and the woman who went with us both are pretty good at Thai, and the bar girls are much more comfortable talking in Thai than in English. But it was SO GOOD to just sit down and have a conversation with these women, even though it was hard. I think that so often, these women are treated like objects, not like the precious, beautiful creations that they are.
God used this experience to break my heart, and I know his heart breaks for the city as well. In this city, it is not only acceptable, but it's expected that people go there for sex. To be honest, it makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Sex is supposed to be an expression of love and intimacy within the context of marriage, but instead, it has become a self-gratifying and selfish demand. Now, to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how big of a problem sex trafficking is in Pattaya. I asked, but since Tamar Center doesn't do legal work, they didn't really know either. I know not all women are literally forced into it, but that doesn't take away from the soul-damaging power. My heart's desire is that one day, the women of Pattaya won't be used for sex, but will know that they are treasured, honored, and deeply loved.
Every single person in Pattaya is valuable, and providing the women with a way out is noble and necessary work. Again, my heart breaks for the women who get trapped in the sex industry, and I love that people are finding healing and redemption through God's awesome love! But dealing with the problems in the city is only addressing part of the issue. I must say that now, my heart breaks for the men who go to Pattaya. Within the sex industry, there exists supply and demand, just like any other industry, and if there is no demand, there will be no need for a supply. It's easy to see this as a distant problem, but this is not a problem that is isolated to Pattaya, and I mean that not just in the sense that the sex industry exists in many, many other cities. This is a problem with roots not in Thailand only, but in the Western world. For the most part, the Western world is where the demand is. For this to change, the hearts of the men must change. It's not just the women who are working in the bars who need Jesus, but then men who come to Pattaya need Jesus too.
And with this, here come the prayer requests:
1. Pray for Tamar Center- pray for protection for its workers and that women would come, that God would use Tamar Center to transform lives!
2. Pray for the sex tourists- pray that God would change their hearts.
3. Pray for the city of Pattaya- pray that God would take over the city, and that it would no longer be known as a destination for sex tourism but as a city overwhelmed with God's love.
4. Pray for my last ten days here- pray that God would move!
THANK YOU all for your prayers and support- you are all wonderful, dear people.
Frances! Did you know that "God of this City" was written in Pattaya? Reading what you wrote puts a whole new perspective of that song. I love you, shrub!
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