The Red Light Illusion

It happened! I finally got a chance to meet Connie’s many friends in Thailand. Connie has led 2 trips/teams a year, over the past few years to Bangkok, and each time, I heard the stories and supported with prayer from home. I never had a desire to go, always thinking to myself that the Red Light District in any country was the last place I wanted to be. As it turns out, the Red Light District is exactly where believers need to be.

It is such an ironic thing that in a place that is so full of light, noise, and what appears to be “life”… when you look beyond the surface you find so much darkness and despair. The Red Light District in Bangkok is a place filled with this illusion. There are women who feel like they have no other option but to sell themselves to earn a living and support their families. Men so lonely that they believe that because they have bought someone, they can fill their emptiness. Touts offer up other people and their shows on a menu as a way to make a living. Their work brings so much shame that you can feel it in their looks. If ever there was a place that needed light, it is under the bright neon lights of the Red Light District.

We as believers are asked to shine. Christ tells us to let our good deeds shine before all men so that people might know our Father in heaven. What good deeds can visiting the bars and the clubs possibly do? Our team’s deeds included prayer up and down the street. These were not loud booming prayers as we walked up through the market. No, we walked but as we walked we had quiet heartfelt conversations with our Father in heaven, pleading for the hearts of the people we saw before us.

The team also engaged in conversations. Our connections were with the women and men who worked in this area. In these conversations we told them the simple fact that God in heaven loves them, making our best attempt to share that they have great worth, not because of the fact that they can sell themselves but because the God who created them says they have great worth. We communicated this and expected nothing from them. As a team it was important for the guys (three men) on the team to show that there were men who could express the love of Christ and respect to the women caught in this industry. 

(Above to the right :: Jeffery, Don and Larry – To the left, sits Jennifer. We call this area Little Pong and it’s where we have been able to have mini VBS programs )

As a guy on the trip, we never went into the strip or sex clubs. We did stay outside and pray for the women of the team engaged in those conversations. The men also hung out at the bars on the outskirts of the Red Light District. In these bars we were able to talk with some of these men searching for companionship and significance. It was in one of these conversations I met a man who asked me why we were there. I told him it was to share the love of Christ with people in Bangkok. He asked me if we were doing that in the churches. I answered him, “No, the people in the church already know. We are doing it in the bars and the clubs.” He looked at me and said, “I love you guys; that is where people need to hear it.” We prayed for this man and as I left, he grabbed my shoulders, looked me in the eye, and said to me, “I will see you in paradise.” It is my prayer that this would be true. 

This was a great trip for me. I got to see my wife in action, serving and being used to glorify the kingdom of God. I have a better perspective about how to pray as she continues to lead these trips (she is going back again this fall). I was challenged once again to see that as believers, we need to go to the margins of society where it is the darkest in order to let our lights shine. God is at work in the world; and when we get out and see Him it is not hard to find Him bringing the Kingdom of Heaven in the most surprising of places.