This is an old blog that Juliet wrote just about a month or so after we got to Bangkok.
Its raining right now, here in Bangkok. We have been waiting for this rain for three days, and on the one day it said it WOULDN’T come it has arrived. Here in Bangkok rain for us is the greatest treat… its so hot normally and when it rains it rains HARD, not just a bit of a drizzle, but a pour, a constant pour… last time it rained we couldn’t help ourselves but get out in it and take our daughter and go run down the streets. People here consider rain days “winter”… so they were all putting on their coats, even though it was still hot out and getting out their umbrella’s and I think they thought we were pretty crazy. But they laughed… we have regulars here that see us everyday that its fun when you have moments that are bigger than every day talk, without talking. But things that are fun to experience with them, even if it isn’t a shared experience exactly… just kind of. Anyway, its raining and pouring and there is nothing to do but write… listen to it, enjoy it, but wish my Jonathan were home with me to enjoy it and lay on the bed and listen… or sit by the window and just AWE over it. Everything is better together…
I was thinking about how clean everything feels after it rains, even in a busy messy city, things just feel renewed somehow. The stains are still on all the buildings and the ground is still full of filth, but it feels different, it feels like bits of it have been washed away. I cant help but think of the Lord in this, and how he doesn’t come into our hearts and give the appearance of newness, or even just a temporary FEELING of newness… but he actually renews. This topic, this rain is perfect for today as I wanted to write about the incredible women who have endured, do endure and continue to survive the imprisonment of sex slavery, trafficking, there unfortunately are to many names for it.
I have stories that God has burned into my heart of women, women who have become a part of me, though never even having met them, they are there, forever to stay. I read a book before we even knew God was calling us to South East Asia called, “The Road of Lost Innocence”. Its about a woman named Somaly Mam. Somaly was sold into sex slavery by the man she knew as her “Grandfather” when she was just a little girl, and was forced to endure the sex trade until she was more than twenty. Sex slaves are forced by their pimps or the brothels they have been sold to, to have 20 or more clients per day and if they miss this goal they are brutally tortured and abused. I read a story recently about a young girl who was sold into sex slavery when her family thought they were sending her to the city to get work, she was kidnapped and sold to a brothel. The man who brought her there put her in a cage that she didn’t even have room to move her arms in and he tortured her so that she would fear him. She was shocked with broken electrical wire and had snakes and biting ants poured on her. This as a result of her refusing to sleep with men for money… and the more she cried the worse it got. When she refused again, this man made her drink his urine, and continued to beat her within an inch of her life. Finally, she was forced to do it so that she would survive, she had to live in a life where her spirit had been murdered. Before she was ten years old, she was forced to sleep with hundreds of men… hundreds…
Her name was Sreypov Chan… who has now since been rescued and is going to school trying to find her own purpose and joy in this world. But how many of these women go nameless… like the friend she spoke of who when she asked for a days rest after having had to undergo an abortion, had her eye gauged out by her pimp as punishment. Or the five year olds, who are coming into an age when they are starting to learn how to make friends and play and start to discover their talents. Five year olds are being sold… In much of Asia as well as other parts of the world, virgins are sold for much higher prices because the men either believe that it can increase their prosperity, or they like their lighter skin, but girls are being kidnapped or sold as young as five years old to ensure their virginity. Then, they will be sold to a man and given to him for a week to be raped over and over and over again, brutally… If they survive this, they are then re-stitched by their brothels or whoever claims them, without anesthesia, so that they can be sold again as a “virgin” and the men will feel the tearing and hear the screaming and not question if they are a true virgin or not. And this process can be repeated up to five times… on a five year old… what, was her name, what IS her name… and how can you ever give her her heart back? Her innocence back.
The very cruel thing is that in reality, many families are quite aware of what they are doing when they sell their little girl to someone, due to an overdue debt that they need to pay off etc… but the point is they know it. In other instances, even if they weren’t aware as to what would happen, these girls can never go back to their families or villages, even if they escaped. Thailand, Cambodia, these are shame based cultures. If you dishonor the family or dishonor yourself, it is a greater insult than many could fathom being unforgivable, but alas it is. Either they wont believe them that they were forced, or it will just be to great a shame, so many women even stay involved due to having no where else to go, no other way to survive. Somaly Mam today is doing amazing work to save those who have be forced to endure stories like her own, she is rescuing these little girls and she is a very loved, important and cherished woman…. so very courageous. But when interviewed, she speaks of herself as being dead inside… as what happened to her and in her, is not something that can be fixed. She sees herself as nothing, she will always see herself this way… she knows joy in what she now is able to do, but she continues to live in this world of suffering. Not only in her own heart but in the work she does, saving these girls in the greatest thing a person could do… and yet, she in doing so, is continued to re-live it all, or feel that helplessness no matter how much progress they make… or see the eighteen year olds die due to diseases, AIDS… or know in her heart they all feel like she does, that there is nothing left, it was all taken far to long ago.
Who is telling them about Christ? And just how treasured they are in His eyes?
“God has set within you a femininity that is powerful and tender, fierce and alluring. No doubt it has been misunderstood. Surely it has been assaulted. But it is there, your true heart, and it is worth recovering. You are captivating…
“God went back and got the shaking little girl that was hiding under the bed and convinced her to come out. He unclenched her little fists and took her hand and placed it in his and answered her question. He held her and told her it was OK for her not to be tough. He would protect her. She didn’t have to be strong. He told her she wasn’t a rock but a child. His child. He didn’t condemn her for anything but instead understood her and loved her! He told her she was special… like no other and that she had special gifts like no other. She knew His voice and trusted him. She could hear the pleasure He had for her in His voice and felt His delight in her as He talked. He was so gentle and loving she couldn’t help but melt in His arms.
This is available. This is the offer of our Savior- to heal our broken hearts. To come to the young places within us and find us there, take us in his arms, bring us home. The time has come to let Jesus heal you.”
After I read Somaly’s story and then began researching the millions of other stories out there, I was desperate to BE something to these women, to love them and hold their hands and tell them how beautiful I think they are… how strong, how their beauty and strength inspires ME. There were nights where Jonathan would come home from work and I was just broken, with nothing to even say, and he would hold me in the shower and let me cry… Because there was just nothing else I could do. To know these things, to really know them, and to read these stories and to truly imagine it, it could break your soul in two if you let it, which I think we all need too. Like I said, God showed me his burden for these women, which became my broken heart over them… before I knew he was leading me to the most central place this is going on. There are two streets in Bangkok alone where over 4000 prostitutes work each night, 4000 on TWO streets. And that is just a piece of it. God led me to a ministry working here that helps these women, and brings them into a place of safety and love and shows them the love of our beautiful Lord in every way possible.
Just a few days ago we went to meet the people that I already know will be life friends and partners in doing the work of Christ within the hearts of these beautiful women. But how can I tell you what it was like to walk into a room, and have them all be there. There were maybe fifteen girls or more sitting doing crafts, and they greeted us with such warmth and smiles, even trying to practice their English and play with my little girl… I thought I was going to need to prepare my heart but I hadn’t time, they were just all sitting there, REAL… I know that sounds funny to say “real” but you hear these stories and don’t want to admit how true they are, even if you are living a life to help change things for them… its still so much to say, “This is happening…THIS is real.” And then here I came upon the life of it, the truth of it, in girls who gave us nothing but their love… when love, innocence, purity, is everything that someone tried to rob from them. But here they are living and working to try to believe in their worth and be something different, something someone else believes in them to be… sacred. And I met them, I got to see their beautiful smiles that haven’t left me. And I get to go back and know them… and hear their stories. Without a doubt I know there will be so many nights I come home and cry, and that living amongst those who have suffered such injustice, will be a life of suffering in some regard, just knowing what people you love have endured and not being able to take it away from them. It’s going to be so so painful… but I would never give up that pain for anything. I would never go without it… I would NEVER EVER wish I didn’t know, or wish I was in a place where it was harder to do anything lasting. NEVER. This is going to hurt, and its going to hurt bad, and that is SUCH a good thing.
Because Gods heart is one that breaks daily and yet he remains perfect and giving and good. He sees the injustice of this world he created once perfect that has fallen so hideously to its sin and evilness. God does not give up, God does not turn his head, God in fact looks at the depth of it that we couldn’t even handle. He knows the deepest and darkest truth of the wickedness of man and he he still BELIEVES in the truth of our souls, which is Christ, which is his heart, which is good. If only people would turn to that good, to his presence within them and see a soul rained clean. If a prostitute could give up the lie for the truth of her beauty, her worth… if the men who support this multi-billion dollar industry…. would change. Christ can do this work in man! Lord I pray I might be your hands and feet to be a part of laying the foundation for you to talk upon!
“Human trafficking, a multi-billion dollar industry, is the fastest growing criminal enterprise in the world. With over one million women and children sold into sexual slavery each year, it is a global crisis that must be stopped. More resources are critically needed to support the rescue and rehabilitation of these young victims.”
Stopping this industry is just part of the problem… you can stop it, but the survivors will still face a war in their hearts and minds forever if someone doesn’t lead them on to hope, the hope only Christ can offer, that freedom and rebirth… that chance at a life where Satan is abolished and Christ dwells in you. Where the words in your mind are not an attack, but a liberation, a love story, one just for you that he wrote for you… one written on his own heart about who you are, who they are. His. His precious, sacred and holy ones. He is here, always, waiting to meet them and hold their faces in his hands in love… he is always waiting on that invitation… he is ALWAYS READY to show you the love he has been LOVING you with whether you know it or not.
“Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful…” (Acts 3:2)
This is where the man met Jesus, where he said he was always sitting when he returned… and it is where Jesus first entered Jerusalem. It is called, “The Messiahs Gate”… it is called Beautiful. Jesus is also prophesied to come back through this gate when he returns to earth at his second coming.
“The fact that the Lord Jesus Christ will once again walk through the Eastern Gate is confirmed in Ezekiel 44:
“Then the man brought me back to the east gateway in the outer wall of the Temple area, but it was closed. And the Lord said to me, “This gate must remain closed; it will never again be opened. No one will ever open it and pass through, for the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered here. Therefore, it must always remain shut. Only the prince himself may sit inside this gateway to feast in the Lord’s presence. But he may come and go only through the entry room of the gateway.” Ezekiel 44:1-3 (NLT)
Not only does this passage reiterate certain details of the Lord’s Glorious Appearing, but it offers substantial evidence to the unbeliever that the Bible is the Word of God. Why? Because Ezekiel 44 demonstrates the astounding accuracy of bible prophecy, providing evidence that can verified firsthand by anyone who doubts.
Over 2,600 years ago, the Lord declared the Eastern Gate would be shut and would remain closed until the Messiah arrived to open it. For hundreds of years, the Eastern Gate offered convenient, unfettered access to the Temple courtyard. Yet, for almost five hundred years now, it’s been closed.
In this generation, the Messiah will open it.”
He will open it, just like he can open the hearts of any, even those whose hearts have been sealed shut to the pains and horrors inflicted upon them. But as he will re-enter the gate, he is here to enter your heart when ever you so desire to break that wall down.