We had the opportunity once again to partner with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and put on a luncheon for the ladies that work in the red light district. Some women on our team were able to go into the brothels the morning of to personally invite the ladies to join us for a special lunch. I heard about it the night before and since I had gone into the brothels the year before I almost didn’t want to go again. It is a hard place to be. What we see is heartbreaking, it’s heavy. However I felt a nudge from the Lord and knew that He wanted me to go.
The next morning I was spending time with Him trying to prepare for what lay ahead. He began to speak to me about His heart. He challenged me saying “I want you to weep over what I weep over, and to rejoice over what I rejoice over.” He wanted me to go in to see what He sees everyday and to be able to share that burden with Him. This spoke volumes to my heart about friendship with God. He longs to share His heart with us, the joys and grief’s, just as we do in our closest, deepest friendships here on Earth.
Later that morning the YWAM team strategically split us up into small teams of 3-4 people and sent each team to cover 3 brothels so about 21 brothels were covered. It is amazing that the owners let us in there! Only women from our team were allowed to go in which is appropriate, and there would be one man from the YWAM team who would walk in with us for safety, and wait in the hallway while we would go up to each woman who was available and invite them as a special guest to have lunch with us.
The brothels are like hotels where each lady has her own room. If the door is open that means there isn’t a man in there so we would go to the open doors and invite those ladies. If the door was closed we moved on. We prayed and were prepped as a team beforehand of what to expect and what to do. These brothels are almost like shopping malls where the men will go from room to room until they see what they want to buy. Many women are passed by and rejected in their most vulnerable state, fully or almost naked, which is heartbreaking.
There was so much grace for me as I walked into each brothel with my two partners. Neither of them spoke much English, so they let me hand out the invitation while they would talk with the women and explain this team came all the way from the US to put on a special luncheon for them. Having an American with many of the groups was an incentive to get the ladies to come!
We prayed as we walked through each hallway of each floor, seeing men stream in and out on this Sunday morning. I was so thankful to the Lord for this impacting time; seeing people as He sees them, regardless of their vocation or lifestyle.
Back at the hall where the luncheon was about to start the Lord gently spoke to me about how He was rejoicing over what was about to take place. Although what I just experienced was weighty, I could rejoice too in knowing these women would be blessed and hear the gospel!
The men on our team served the drinks, lunch and dessert as we sat with the ladies hearing about their lives, their families and their dreams. David and Mary Anna shared their testimonies along with the gospel. Then we gave gifts to each lady and prayed over them as they would come up to receive the gift. It was a beautiful, special time.
