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!