Bar outreach and following Jesus

Jim and I, and a friend went into the bars the other night, for outreach. I might have explained what I mean by bar outreach in an email several months back, but allow me to describe it for you.

Southeast Asia is very well known for it's sex tourism. The way it looks in Bangkok is nothing short of a human rental system. It's like your neighborhood Blockbuster. Big illuminated sign out front. You can go in and check out the merchandise in HD. Then after browsing around, you can check one out. You know rent one out for a couple of days, or just a night. If you don't like what you see, or liked what you tried out, you can go to the next store next door, or down the street. I hope you followed all the analogies I used with out being too vivid. It is a degrading, distasteful, money making line of business. The bar areas are in dead end streets with various, "message parlors, bars, and hotels". But some are just out right Go-Go bars. Loud music is common. Neon lights flash and women hang out front half naked at times, sitting there waiting for customers. Not all women have sex with customers. Some just entertain them. Some are real pushy, while others are quite sweet. They have people working the doors trying to pitch their bar to you. There are also plenty of Ladyboy bars in these areas also. They seem to be the more aggressive ones. Often I don't get by a Ladyboy bar without getting physically touched. A Ladyboy is what a transvestite or, very feminized man is called in Thailand. It's very common in Thailand, and well excepted in society. You really have to do a double take and convince your self that they are men. They can look very convincing as women. A regular sin bin of drugs, sex, and whatever else they can think of. So we go in these bar areas with Jesus living in us.

This was my third time doing outreach in the bars. We made our rounds to some of the women who Jim knows and checked up on them. We also met some new ones. I met Nan, as Jim was talking with another women he knows who works in a bar. She was very nice and open to talk. And, most are since they make a living doing it. But I sensed the Spirit just guide me in conversation just making small talk. At this point in being here, 3 months, I can carry a small conversation pretty well in Thai. She told me, she was from Surin, a town not that from from where I stayed out in Buriram province. She asked what I was doing here in Bangkok. Very quickly I sense she knew I wasn't there for what most men are there for. Which is not bad. Love is a powerful tool. Let the light shine in dark places, my brothers and sisters! After a short while of talking, I introduced her to Jim, who can speak and understand a good amount of Thai. He got deeper with her, and found out she had no children, and was working in the bar cause she needed a job. Jim gave her the info for the Well, and left her an open door to come.

This may look like a senseless ministry environment. How could anything good come from that place? But once again we serve a God who rewrites the book on impossible everyday. In fact The women I helped serve out in Buriram, for my first three months here, came out of one of these same bars. She had worked in one for 4 years. Jim reached her, God did the work, and now she is serving the Lord full force out in her village. There are several women in the Well, with the same story, or with even worse cases. The ministry I help with Jim and his wife, is called the Well, because of the testimony of the women at the well in John 4. Jesus met her there. Where she was. He showed her love, spoke truth to her and showed his true self to her. She ran to her village, and testified about him. Pray for these outreaches.

" Only by walking with God can we hope to find the path that leads to life. That is what it means to be a disciple. After all-aren't we "followers of Christ"? Then by all means, let's actually follow him. Not ideas about him. Not just principles. HIM."
- John Eldredge
I am a follower of Jesus Christ. That is all I can try to do with my life.