Mim

Friday was a day of Outreach to the girls that we had met at the Christmas Parties. We headed back into the bars to "follow up" if you will with some of the girls that we had connected with or that seemed interested in Beginnings. There is one girl in particular, her name is Mim. She is from Sao and has a daughter, age 7. Her mother has been very sick and has been in and out of the hospital for a while. A few years ago her mother had open heart surgery and has been on medications ever since. Just recently she was admitted back into the hospital and was put on medications that were just to expensive to keep up with, that when Mim decided she would sell her body to help pay for her Mother's medication. She has been working in the bars for 3 1/2 months. We played a couple rounds of pool and just hung out and talked, then it happened, a customer came in and sat down at the bar next to our pool table. Mim's coworker called out to Mim to let her know her customer was here. She barely acknowledged him and urged us to strike up another game. He ordered his beer and sat and oogled her as she made her shot, I would be lying if I told you that ill feelings didn't rise up on me. We tried everything we could (Sherie,Christine and I) to shield Mim from his line of sight and play as many games of pool as we could to make sure he knew tonight Mim was not his date. Frustrated, he finished his beer and left, we knew he wouldn't be the only man tonight though, but what could we do??? We decided that by "purchasing" her for tonight we could at least buy her freedom one more time and she could go home and rest. But since our Thai is not good at all and her engligh was very broken it was hard to communicate to her what we were trying to do. She knew we were saying "buy her" and "bar fine" but after that it was a little grey. To our surprise the same man returned, determined to claim his "prize." Mim pulled close to Christine and said "BUY ME" and thats all it took. We paid for our sodas and her "bar fee" and we headed out the door. As we left there were many other girls that we knew hugging us and holding our hands and taking pictures with us, it was intense. Intense to know that we couldn't take them all with us, Christine and I looked at each other and said "One at a time!"

Christmas party 2-pics

Check out the amazing pictures that were taken at our second Christmas Party. Go to http://www.freedom424.com/ and under "Latest Updates" there is a link that will take you to an album of some wonderful pictures. Our second Christmas Party was just amazing, again we were hoping for 150-200 girls to attend and ended up having to set up extra tables and chairs to seat 244 girls!!! God is absolutely doing amazing things here, it has just been a roller coaster of emotions. These girls are just so eager and were so excited to come to the party, many had came last year and were dressed and waiting for us to come pick them up others were coming for the first time, not quite knowing what to expect, but excited anyway about a night to just have fun with their friends.

Celebration of Hope

It's been almost 24 hours and I still can't think of the right way to describe what all we saw and experienced last night when we "purchased the girls" and then at the Christmas Party. It is just so overwhelming to be emersed in this culture, with it's lack of repect for women and immense poverty. We are fortunate and blessed though to have Johanna and Daryl Calfee with us and their incredible gift of describing an indescribeable event. Please see www.calfeesinthailand.wordpress.com latest post called "snapshot of a Night of Freedom" she absolutely captures the evening and the stories we hear all to often. Thank you Johanna!!!!

The Land of Smiles

Yesterday started out like any ordinary day, but as the day progressed we began to see what the "Land of Smiles" was really about. Come 9 o'clock a.m. the bars were already open and women were already being "bought" for the days activities and the evenings festivities. We spent the day in the massage parlors and "Pool bars", we would sit and order a drink and gently strike up conversation with the waitress or one of the the other girls hanging around just waiting to be bought. In most instances they would come up to you hint to you to buy them a drink just so they could sit and spend time with you-talking, laughing......smiling. How rare it is to see and feel genuine heart felt smiles from these girls. Thailand is called the Land of Smiles, but how ironic, when most often all you see is faces of desperation and loneliness, faces searching for a purpose far beyond what their life consists of now. in the evening we headed to one of the biggest areas of the "Red Light District" called "Nana Plaza." The easiest way to describe Nana Plaza is to put every image you have ever collected of nudity, provocative images, or sex from commercials or magazines or movies and roll them into one horrific, twisted nightmare. Girls on turntables, their face lifeless, half-heartedly swaying to the thumping of the music. Wearing their barely there outfits and sporting a bright yellow pin with a number on it, men oogle at the choices for the evening. Some men groping or fondling each girl as if to pick out the most tender piece of meat. These men range from early 20's through late 60's all searching for the same thing, but all coming from broken backgrounds filled with pain and despair-looking to fill that void with instant pleasure. (one thing that surprised me the most is that the average age of these men is 65, mostly looking to "buy" companionship for a week or more.)
In each of the bars, in Nana Plaza, that we visited it almost almost always started out with "No Thank You" when we offered them an invitation to the Christmas Party, but as we described the event it would always spark the attention of some girl and that just opened the flood gates-so to speak. The girls would just flock to us, eager to hear about what we had to say. It was almost flattering that some of the girls would just leave the "date" they were with to run over to us and read our invitation (written in Thai). Today we are going to return to these bars and "purchase" the ones that are willing to come to the Christmas party. Please pray that everyone of the girls that we invited would make the sacrifice (of the money that they could be making tonight) to attend this event. And if you have an extra moment check out Johanna Calfees blog http://www.calfeesinthailand.wordpress.com/ . She is an amazing writer and she so powerfully describes the atmosphere of what we saw and experienced last night.

Smooth Sailin'

Here we are flying into Bangkok.

Part of our little group in the taxi to head over to Beginnings.

Here are a quick snapshots of us flying over Alaska.

Well, we made it!! We left Dulles Airport at 12:30 pm without a hitch and arrived safely in Tokyo 14 hours later. With a short layover we were back in the air for another 7 hour flight. All in all its been a very long day, but it is still hard to sleep or settle down. We are so excited of what tomorrow will bring. Tomorrow is a big day for us, we will head out to the Pool Bars around lunch to meet the girls and invite them to the Christmas party and then come evening we will head out to the GoGo bars and "Clubs.". It is 2:45 in the morning here so it is equivalent to being 2:45 in the afternoon there. So off to grab a quick nap and ready for our big day!! More tomorrow.

24 hours to Go!!!

Here it is less than 24 hours to go and we will be on our way to Bangkok, Thailand! I would like to thank each and everyone of you for your support, your kind words (and sometimes tears) and your endless prayers. It's hard to describe how I am feeling right now. Such a mix of emotions, I have my moments of excitement and I have my moments of fear. Not necessarily fear of the the trip to Thailand or even of going into the bars, but more just fear of what to say to the girls. These girls have been through so much in their short lives, more than I hope any of us will ever have to know or experience. I fear it's going to be hard to look at their faces and not think of my little girl. From such a young age each girl has been beaten down physically, sexually and emotionally and has had to live with knowing that her life is worth no more than if it were buried underground.

What exactly will we be doing while were there? On wed night and thursday night we will be hosting a Christmas Party at Beginnings. Beginnings is a Christ-centered organization that houses girls that are looking to get out of the sex-trade industry and start over. Beginnings provides these girls with food, shelter and education. It provides them with the means that they will need to get them on the right path. The first day we get there we will be heading out to the GoGo bars, the Pool Halls and the "Clubs" to invite as many girls as we can to our Christmas party. If a girl commits to coming we then pay the mamasan (bar-mom) the $24 fee (hence Freedom 4-24 http://www.freedom4-24.com/) This $24 fee will buy the young women "freedom" for 24 hours. On Wed and then again on Thursday afternoon we will return to these bars and shuttle these girls to beginnings to be pampered and doted upon. We will have the opportunity to just sit and talk with them, to hear their story and to share what the love of Christ can do in their lives and how much they are valued in Christs' eyes!! If that doesn't make you emotional , just wait. I will continue to blog during my stay in Thailand and I am sure that God is going to be doing amazing things and working in wonderful ways. I am convinced that at least once during this week you will read a post that will make you want to stand up and say THANK YOU LORD!!!! How amazing to have this opportunity to love on these girls when no one else will. Please pray not only for safety during this week for the entire team, but that the power of the Holy Spirit will be unavoidable to these girls and that many will make the decision to start anew and be redeemed!!!! I will attach links of the team members that will be blogging so that you can follow along with all of us on this journey.

Love,

Stacey