We are happy to say that next month, there is a book coming out by Dr. Shirley Holland in which we have had the honor to have been asked to write a chapter. I also was privileged to have done the book cover. As soon as it is released we can give you information on how to purchase it. The title is WOMAN - From the Beginning.
In our chapter, I wrote a few paragraphs about my trip to Thailand. I took this and created a short story with it and entered it into a writing contest. Unfortunately, I did not win. It was a good experience for me though. I wrote two stories but one was too long to enter. I thought I'd post them here on my blog. Both stories are true from my experiences traveling abroad. One is very serious and I wouldn't exactly read it out loud to your kids as it is about sex trafficking. The other is a humorous story about one of my adoption trips.
THE ONE
The scene flashes in my mind as if it were yesterday.
My heart was pounding. Here I was in a place that I would have never imagined myself in and I was about to do something that I had never done before: minister to prostitutes. In honesty, I was scared. The thought went through my head, “If mom knew right now that I was standing in the middle of one of the largest marketplaces for sex of any kind, she’d flip.”
As I worked my way through the bustling crowds on Walking Street in Pattaya, Thailand, my heart pounded with fear. I was definitely outside of my comfort zone. My senses were overstimulated with the sounds, smells and scenery as I walked down the street. Go-Go Bars were crammed so close together that the music blaring from each one clashed with the other. Girls were pole dancing on table tops, men were enjoying girls like they were play toys, young girls no older than my teens, in skimpy themed uniforms were calling out to everyone that walked by. Beautiful ladyboys, groomed from childhood for this profession, were waiting to be purchased while roaming children were selling roses to the men looking to purchase. Dark windows above bars masked rooms where unthinkable things were happening to children. Food vendors cooked exotic foods for the masses, while neon signs flashed, advertising the best price for sex. Massage parlors offered more than massages. All of this gripped my heart with grief breaking my ignorance about a very dark world. I was not prepared for the tears that poured from my eyes as I lifted them to see girls pole dancing behind colored glass panes with immense sadness in their eyes.
As my eyes caroused the second story area above the street, I noticed a cold concrete staircase of beautiful women dressed, poised as if they were in a beauty pageant. The warm tropical breeze blowing through their lustrous, long, flowing hair made them even more beautiful. My heart gasped and the tears continued even more violently. The girls were on display, raised high above all the commotion below. They were for sale - at a very high price. Though highly visible to the buyer, they were completely invisible to anyone else.
Their grief, their pain, their fear, their nightmares, and their numbness were not visible to the naked eye, but on that night I saw it. I saw it with my heart. My heart urged me to run up that grand staircase, wrap my arms around them and shout, “My daughters, I see you! I see you! You are not invisible!”
Helplessness overwhelmed me as I stood frozen, because I couldn’t snatch them up in my arms, hug them or whisk them away to safety. My heart, my spirit, my being cried out, uttering things to God that I had no words for. Pacing back and forth in front of the brothel, tears streaming down my face, I asked God to rescue them, to give them hope.
That night changed me forever. There were times back in the United States, that I would just break down crying, moaning within my soul for those girls. The grief at times seemed too hard to bear. God was letting me feel his heart for them. Why?What could I do? I’m one person.
One day I came upon this scripture in Proverbs.
“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves;
Ensure justice for those being crushed.
Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless,
And see that they get justice.” (Proverbs 31:8-9, NLT)
He taught me that my intercession of prayer, art and tears for them, moved His heart and the host of Heaven to set those captive girls free.
The trip to Thailand thrust me completely outside of my comfort zone and wrecked my heart, mind and emotions. This caused a rude awakening within myself to a horrifying life that others suffered.
God was telling me to be proactive, to be a voice in a world that didn’t hear theirs. One person can do something. One person can choose to be their strength. One person can choose to be their voice. One person can choose to end sex slavery. I choose to be the one.
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