Red Light District- Bangkok

As a kid, I was afraid of the dark. The dark brought fearsome things of the night. Shadows on the walls that moved, strange noises from creatures that grab you out of your bed at night . While I am (mostly) over my fear of the dark, and I realize that these childhood fears were figments of imagination, there is something about the dark that still today conjurs memories everything that goes bump in the night.

We had the opportunity a few days into our time in Thailand, to take a bus downtown late at night with an organization called Word Becomes Flesh that ministers to the kids who work alongside the prositutes in Bangkok's downtown red light district selling flowers, or gum in hopes of making some money off of Thailand's sex tourism. We had been warned by the team beforehand that some of the stuff we were about to see was dark. Evil, evil stuff. To prepare our hearts, we'd prayed that God would open our eyes to see this part of the world with His eyes. I believe that God sees even the darkest of places with hope- with love. As we walked down the streets, it was clear that Thailand was a completely different place at night. Prositutes, mostly Thai, sat, stood or danced along almost every sidewalk beckoning for men to come over. Mingling among the street vendors selling food, fake designer goods, and I LOVE THAILAND tshirts, these girls were everywhere. One of the most shocking sights of the night, was one particular street filled with bright neon lights, bars, bargirls, and men. As we walked down, everything screamed SEX. Viagra was being sold like vitamins on the street side. Young, beautiful thai girls held hands with old white men like young lovers. As we saw these things, something in my heart felt for these girls. Something in their eyes told me they were looking for love. Something in the way they smiled back at me told me there was still hope.

These men. Looking around I realized that you really couldn't stereotype a sex tourist. Some were old, some were young, some were white, some were asian. Some of them looked like loners, creeps, while others looked like fathers, grandfathers or husbands. It was too easy to look at them and feel scared, feel vulnerable, but most of all, to feel angry. Something about them though, drew me in. Maybe it was something I read on the MST project site- (www.mstproject.com) "Some of these men who come to Thailand looking for sex are hurting and in need and are trying to fill that need and hurt with love and intimacy".

I realized that these men are looking for LOVE but are just looking for it in all the wrong places. How many of us look for ways of filling NEED in our lives with the wrong things. Money, jobs, clothes, porn, SEX. These men suddenly didn't feel so different.

As we walked further along the street on our way to meet the other group that we had come with, we stopped to talk to a lady sitting on the side of the sidewalk. Her little girl about the age of seven lay sprawled across her lap as the woman held out a cup, hoping to get some spare change from passerbys. We sat there with her, pulling out some crayons and paper for her little girl to draw while our friend and translator, Jane, asked her some questions. We found out that she had come with her two children to Thailand from Cambodia looking for a better life. Every night she sits on the street begging hoping to make enough to pay her dues to the mafia as well as for food. Wait.. the mafia? Thailand also has another dark side- their mafia. On more than one instance we talked to beggars on the streets who were forced to pay dues in order to be allowed to sit there on the street. For this lady, it was 200 baht. Six dollars to sit on a public sidewalk.

When we eventually found the other group, they had been joined by two young children around the ages of seven and six who had been standing on the street selling gum. A little while later, we were joined by two more children who made money selling flowers to men for their prostitutes. It amazed me that while most parents back in North America wouldn't hesitate to shield their children from even hearing about the horrors of the red light district, these kids were forced on the streets every night by their parents in the heart of the seedy area. They are constantly witnesses to the the horrors of night. There is no need for a rampant imagination, reality is enough.