*This is a about a situation that happened while our squad was in Bangkok, Thailand in December. *
Our last night in Bangkok our squad decided to go out and minister in the red-light district. I decided to stay back and pray because my heart was not in the right place to minister to these people. Let me tell you a story.
See two nights previous I went to a night market in the middle of the red-light district. I went with a group of people, 3 males and 4 females. As we were walking through the market the men in our group kept having their bodies touched by different people asking them to come into their bar. (Just so you are aware the bars in this area of town are not just places where you go to get a drink and maybe sing some karaoke, they are often fronts for paid escorts. Prostitution. Often these clubs/bars are strip clubs, sex clubs, or straight up brothels.) There would be girls standing outside of the bar with other men trying to get you to come into their bar so they would grab the guys arms and say things like “looks like you need a drink, come on in and get a drink, what can we do for you tonight.” The men in our group just brushed them off and kept on walking, acting like nothing happened and we went on with our night. But I was still stuck on that street. I couldn’t get that picture out of my mind. Realizing that most men would have gone into that club/bar. I couldn’t believe that this was actually something that happened. I had heard about how men would come to Thailand to have sex but to actually see it is completely different.
My heart just broke. This particular red-light district that we were in is one of the oldest in Bangkok. So to realize that this had been going on for a long time just made my heart break even more. So when the squad decided to go out and evangelize in this district I knew that I needed to stay back and just pray. A group of us stayed back for many different reasons. And we just prayed. One person prayed that while our squad mates were out being the offense we were staying back and being the defense. Defending them against anything evil that tried to come.
I loved that because if you know me you know that I love football. And a saying that we have in football is that defense wins championships. That offense wins games but that the defense wins championships. I loved this because I felt like because my heart wasn’t in the right place to go out that I was letting my squad(team) down. But in reality, my squad needed some of us to stay back and defend for them.
