Singing in Bars

Thursday night will be one that I will never forget. Everything started out like it normally does when we go out for bar ministry...we get ready, we pile into the back of a truck, get driven to Patong, and then pile out onto the streets and make our game plan. But that night was different. We were so excited and pumped because some of our own were chosen to perform in a local bar. It was as if we had received concert tickets to a sold out band. Our pace walking down the street was faster, we wanted to just get there and hear the music. So here it was...us crowding into this tiny bar in the middle of Bangla road. I was so excited I thought my cheeks were going to pop. We started singing, and the singing then led to worshipping, and before we all knew it, we were raising our hands in praising our Creator. The feeling of proclaiming Christ name among the darkness was one that I will never forget. It was as if every once of darkness couldn't stay...the coverings over people's eyes were falling away. Hard hearts were beginning to feel again. And this world that Satan had been so cleverly constructing was beginning to fall a part....just with some voices jamming out in a bar, proclaiming the name of Jesus.
After the band was done we had an hour left to go talk with some bar girls. So we decided to try out this one bar that, we had what seemed like failed at the first time around. The girl who asked for our drink order came up to us with a very stone expression. She was hardly polite and didn't even want to look us in the eyes. When she returned with what we had ordered, we began asking questions about her life. It was as if with every question another layer would peel back. We soon saw a girl standing in front of us open and telling us that she is hurting. It was her third night in the bars, and wanted out. We gave her some information and she is meeting with our contacts on Monday for lunch. Now I say all this because there is no sense in what happened Thursday night. It does not make sense that we were praising God, shouting His name in the middle of a red light district. It does not make sense that a girl should trust someone she hardly knows, who says they can help her. People.....this is only through the will and awesomeness of God that any of these things are possible! Thursday night happened because God wanted it to. Thursday night happened because Satan had to run because believers were shouting His name. Thursday night will be one that I will never forget.

One Question Changes Everything

Back to Bangla Road we go....pushing yet graciously plowing our way through the fields of hopeless people. I wanted to believe that tonight was different, I wanted to believe that God would open the skies and rain down His grace on these people who desperately are searching for it. Yet as I'm walking, there is a heaviness and a strong hold that we are doing nothing. This black fog of doubting my effectiveness has clouded my thinking. So we arrive at our first bar, and are greeted with smiles that begin to clear the haziness. My first initial thought was.....they remembered us. More fog cleared out.
The first time we visited this bar...it seemed as if the girls could smell the difference we brought into their bar. They would not leave our table. My partner and I were trying to think of more questions to ask.....because we had asked them all, and they had eagerly answered them all. Customers would come in and they still wouldn't leave our table. Out of questions, I looked at one of the girls, and asked, "If you could travel anywhere in the world, if you could see any place, or any wonder, where would you go?" She looked down at the dirt floor and whispered, "My village." A simple answer that surprised and almost brought me to tears. She was so honest and yet her answer was filled with so much regret that my heart stung. She went on to explain that she had been away from her home for 2 years, and that she sends the money she makes in the bar, back home to her family in her village. I have been praying that God would use me and break my heart for these women....and He had with that simple answer. We said our good byes, and returned to that same bar last night. I was excited to talk with my new found friend, and when we were greeted with smiles....I knew our last visit was not in vain. I began looking for my friend but she was no where to be found. I ended up asking another girl where she was and she responded with, "Oh she took 3 days off to go up to her village." At first this went right over my head, and I was sad that I didn't get to talk with her, but as I was sitting there thinking....it all hit me. What if she went to see her village and family because of something I said? Was she inspired by me asking that question? And then it was as if God was saying.... I am using you. You are effective. I can use even something you think is so off the wall to bring My kingdom. Your words are effective. They do sense My presence in you when you walk through the door.
Inspiration can come from anything and words are an effective tool to bring it about.  I was reminded last night that God uses the small things that you may not even think are important to bring about His plan. Without them the master piece would not be complete, so go out with no regrets. Your words are powerful so act as if they are. Fill the people you are around with light and truth today. Let the people around you smell the fragrance of God dripping off you. I won't ever know if that is why my friend went up to see her family but I know that I have learned that God will use anything and everything to bring about His glory. God's Kingdom will come regardless, so we can be a part of this amazing journey or we can be filled with regrets of wasting the day. After we left that bar..the black fog was gone and hope was pouring out of every pore of my body. Hope is still there and God still reigns.

Hesitation from Fear

Hesitation is something that is brought about because of fear....and fear alone. Last night is was my turn to pray and intercede for the other groups out doing bar ministry. So my partner and I found our way on the beach where we decided to sit in the sand so we could focus, away from the loud music and the endless sea of people. As we were lifting up prayers of boldness and wisdom, a girl walked up behind us, who from first glance appeared to be a bar girl. She looked Thai, and was wearing a green tight tank top, and short shorts to say the least. Her demeanor was one of unstableness.... it seemed as if she wanted also to get away from the loud roars of the streets. She stood behind us and acted as if she wanted to talk to someone. Trying to continue to pray...I looked away as if I wasn't paying attention to her need. A good 30 minutes went by and the girl had now moved and sat what seemed like a good ten steps away from where we were sitting. I couldn't pray, I couldn't ask for boldness for others when all I felt was the need to go talk with this girl. I wish I could describe in words the conversations and battles that were taking place in my head.....Do I go talk with her? Or do I stay? A wave of hesitation took hold, and I just waited. And waited. And waited. 

At what seemed like forever, my partner looked at me and asked, "What are you thinking Gab?", and I looked at her and said, "I'm supposed to talk to that girl." At that point she was feeling the same thing. So we decided right then and there to get up and move the ten steps over to talk with this mysterious girl. As we were grabbing our shoes, two men approached this lonely girl who was sitting in the dark. They began to start a conversation which eventually led to them wanting to buy her for the night. Frustration began to pour out of me in the form of tears, because I was supposed to talk to that girl, but I waited. Fear and hesitation took over me and I had missed my opportunity. I was praying for boldness and yet I did not possess that very quality. I wanted so much to walk over and tell those guys off, or grab her by the arm and just run away from those men. But I couldn't. We eventually moved from that spot and watched from a distance. Praying and hoping she would just get up and walk away. We had to meet up with our group, so we left not knowing what happened to that mysterious girl in the green tank top. But I tell this story in hopes that you don't let fear cause you to hesitate. Seeing a girl being bought is something that I have come to see very often, but seeing a girl being bought when I was supposed to intercede is a different feeling all in itself. Fear is something that is crippling and hindering people from doing the work Christ intended us to do. So this day....what is making you hesitate from doing what you were created for? Is it fear? Pride? Whatever it may be...opportunities are slipping by us, and the world is staying the same. Don't let hesitations run your life, because you will always think, what if and I wonder. Live life with Boldness and take the ten steps over to change someones life.

What's in a Name?

Here in Thailand...one of the phrases I have come to memorize, is the phrase of asking someones name.  It is somewhat easy and most always they understand what you are saying, even though I am messing up the tonal part of the language. But when working with kids or even trying to make friends with the girls in the bars.....asking what their name is......is usually how I break the ice of cultural differences. Then I started thinking what is someones name? It's not who they are...but it identifies them as someone beyond just the faces and numbers. I started to think of the women we encounter daily who never get their name spoken. Who sometimes take on different names just for the night. Names although it might not seem like a big deal becomes a sense of identity with them being an actual human being with life and love flowing through them. 

We drove by a building near Bangla Road, which our contact described as being probably the darkest part of Patong. This building from the outside looked like any other building, it had an office building feel to it. There were a lot of windows, three or four stories high, but it was what was happening on the inside that made it so dark. This was the center ring, you could say for the trafficking business. Girls came through this building before being bought off by other brothels. Girls in this building were behind glass windows, with numbers instead of names. Every ounce of identity was taken from them....and they become just another number. So when driving past this building I was reminded how much a name can be significant. As we walk the streets at night asking for their names, it almost puts off a sense of caring towards them. It lets them know that we care beyond the drink they will give us. We care about their soul, and we have a desire for them to have more in life than one that consists from night to night. I was reading in Isaiah where God summons Israel by name. It says this several times, and it just connected everything together..and its this......The God of the Universe passionately longs for us, and He summons us by name. The God who opens the skies for rain....knows your name! And just like asking and knowing those girl's names at the bar is an important tool in our ministry......our God does the same with us. You are not just a number to Him, He knows you. He is not a distant God waiting for you to mess up....you are so much more to Him. I see these women with empty eyes searching for someone or something to fill that void. I feel as Christians we forget who we serve. We have forgotten we serve a Great God who knows us by name.

Dancing in the Rain

Today I danced in the rain and my audience was the King of Heaven. I was sitting at the table eating my always reliable rice that they feed us every day, when it started to pour outside. It was a peaceful rain and I was excited because I felt like it would cool off the 90 plus temperatures we are in everyday. I was trying to enjoy my rice when Shelley, one of my team members, jumped up and said, "Lets go out in the rain!" Now here I was trying to enjoy my meal and she wanted to get drenched by the rain. At first my reaction was, "Well....let me finish eating first".......as if I wanted to finish. She looked at me and said, "You're gonna miss it, it will be gone soon." She reached for my arm, and I dropped my fork and ran for the door. We didn't even think about what would happen after....we just stepped out and went. It is hard to explain what happened out there, but I was dancing and singing for the King of Heaven. My audience was my Heavenly Father....and I didn't care what I looked like or who was watching. I probably looked like a fool to anybody else, but my King was front row and center. I don't really know how long we were out there, but I have never felt so close to the Holy Spirit, than in that rain. I felt His grace and freedom with every drop that fell on my face. We walked through the house trying not to drip on everything and I was hit with a reality that stung and it was this. How many times do we get to experience things that God intended for us? Sometimes we wait and say....oh I'll do it after I get done, or let me finish this first. When in reality God has so much He wants to give to you, but we settle for things like eating nasty rice. You don't want to miss God's presence, you don't want to wait for another rain, because this might be it. Don't worry about after, just go...get up....and dance before the King.

A Strange Floating Candle

It's hard sometimes trying to figure out what to blog and how to portray what I am experiencing into words, but here is my shot at things that before this trip I would have never believed. So last night we went out into the bars and we had gone to the bars on our street and met girls and created new relationships but me and my partner Kim felt like we weren't finished. We felt like we had something else we had to do before meeting up with the rest of the group. So we began praying over the streets we were walking down. Kim looked at me and said, "I feel like we need to pray for the men down here". So we began walking again, praying for these men, that God would make them strong, have them walk away, and be filled with Christ love. Honestly the endless pit of thinking, oh I'm not helping, your not getting anything done down here, had begun to creep into my mind, so praying I felt was about all I was doing right. 

When all of a sudden we look up to the sky and there was a candle floating in the sky. Now I will try to portray the thoughts going through my head as accurate as they were infecting my mind last night....but I honestly thought I was going crazy. We both looked at each other and our expressions said it all. I was thinking....oh my goodness, there is a candle floating in the sky, I'm loosing it! We didn't know what to do but stare at it...when all of a sudden I said aloud, "We should follow it!" So we go walking very fast down the crowded streets of Bangla, following a light we didn't even know if others could see.  When finally it burnt out....so I started looking around on this crowded street for someone or something that this light had brought us to. We looked back up and it was burning in the sky again....when all of a sudden a man appeared before us and asked what we were looking for? We answered very hesitantly....there is a candle in the sky. He smiled and said,  "Oh yeah they let candles off the beach and they float up in the sky." Well relieved at the thought that someone else could see the candle, and that we weren't crazy, we started talking with this man that led into a 25 minute conversation about his life. After learning about this interesting man, who was from Nepal, and had worked on Bangla Road for 10 years...I was confused.  During all this craziness, I was thinking why did the light lead to this man? Who is this man? And then he said something so encouraging and so filled with light that it all made sense. He said, "Business has gotten worse these past 5 years. It keeps getting worse and worse, I might have to find a new place to sell my stuff". Now at first those words had no meaning, and then I remembered when Mark, Sharon, and all the teams started coming to Puket.....and that was 5 years ago! I can say that it was a strange night filled with interesting ways of being encouraged. But the endless mind game of your not making a difference spiral....was stopped! We are making a difference. Prayer is making a difference. Bangla road is becoming more empty! God has His timing....and just our presence alone is filling the streets with light that people are searching for. Bangla road is being filled with light one candle at a time, and yes I will shine my light...I will not hide it!

Tainted Roses

Your walking down a crowded street, people pushing and asking questions like if you want cigarettes or girls every three steps. You fight to just get down this 100 yard street that holds more than 200 bars.  You have the stench of vomit and alcohol, that was tried to be cleaned with bleach smell invading your nose. Everything is so loud you can barely hear yourself thinking....your ears pounding, you begin to hear your heart beat. You stand and watch these women with empty eyes trying to make a living for just one more dance or one more night. Some and most are numb to the fact that they deserve so much more than dancing on tables, filling their bodies with drugs and alcohol, and selling themselves for the equivalency of about $ 20 US a night. Night after night we go out...wanting to love on these women of Puket and night after night I come back thinking, "God...only you can save this place, please show up."

The other night it was our turn to prayer walk the streets of Patong while the other groups go out and minister and love on these women. I will say with the description I have stated above of Bangla road, it is very hard to pray when all that is going on. So I had my ipod in, just lifting up street after street and bar after bar. When all of a sudden we came to a bar where we saw a group of men handing roses to some women working at the bar. Now, It is very hard to describe in words the anger that flooded my body at this moment. But, here these men were handing out something that is so beautiful to these women in hopes that the women would feel cherished for the hour or two that they would have them. I was so mad and couldn't understand how these men could taint something so beautiful. Well I tried to forget it, but I couldn't because every corner we turned I saw roses. They were everywhere. There where roses on the street, women carrying roses, roses being sold. I couldn't get away from this awful thought. We finished out the night and I crawled into bed, and I couldn't get this flower image out of my head. I eventually fell asleep and the next morning I woke up, and began reading in the Word. It is so funny how God works but I was reminded when reading that the crops usually have flowers before the harvest. Now here I was mad at this image Christ let me see, and He was talking to me. God quietly yet openly reminded me that the harvest is coming. Working these nights it is very easy to get discouraged and down at the fact that we aren't seeing women leave the streets. But by these roses, I remembered that God knows the streets of Patong, and He has not forgotten what goes on behind closed doors. The harvest is coming....and there will be a day where light will flood Bangla Road, and women will have enough confidence to begin to walk out of bars. The harvest is coming, our God is bigger, and these streets will be washed one day! The harvest is coming, pray that God will flood the streets of Patong with His everlasting light and that darkness will run away. I declare Freedom for Thailand! The harvest is coming!

Freedom

Oh what to write.......so much has happened since my last blog, and God has really showed up since the last time I wrote.....so I find myself asking....oh what to write? Well there is a lesson I learned from training camp that seems to be creeping more and more into my life....to a point where now it seems to be intertwined with my very core. So there is this thing called freedom that we so often forget as Christians that I feel if we remembered our lives would ultimately be different.  What we forget as Christians is that Christ died for our freedom, but yet we live like we are still chained up to that wall. But here is the problem....when Christ died the chains fell off, but sometimes we have been chained to that wall for so long that we forget how to move. We forget that our legs have muscles, and that we were not made to stay chained up.....we were made to move. So get off the wall and move, because Christ did not go through what He went through for you to stay how you are. We have been given so much life, so what will you do with it? I have realized this when walking down the streets of Patong, looking at women who are chained and they are fighting to get free. We know the freedom Christ gives and these women are looking for something or someone to come along and set them free. A women I met in the bars the other night looked at me and said, "I know you, I have seen you, I know you from your smile." At first I was confused and didn't understand and then realized we had walked those streets earlier that week to pray over the people of Patong. A smile......could that be freeing to someone? Yes it could, when every night they are forced to deal with people that might not be friendly. I have already seen the people of Puket searching for that freedom....so why aren't we getting off the wall and running to them? Christ died for our freedom so what is holding you back? What is keeping you from doing the thing that you were created for? Bring freedom that Christ intended for you to the people that are desperately searching for it, the chains have been broken!