Pattaya-One Womans Story

Sorry this got blacked out for some reason on the other blog......

We spent twelve days down in Pattaya and while we were down there we had the opportunity to do bar ministry and talk to the “bar girls” as well as teach English class and share a short devotional with the girls through an organization called the Tamar Center. During English class I met a woman named On (the woman on the right), and as our time progressed there we built a good friendship. On our last night of bar ministry we went to the bar she was working at and while talking to her I got to hear her story of how she ended up working in the bars. 

She’s thirty-six years-old, both of her parents have passed away, and she has two sons, one who is seven and one who is thirteen. She had been happily married for SIXTEEN years when she found out her husband was cheating on her, and he wanted to continue seeing both her and his mistress. But she wouldn’t do it, so she talked to her kids and she left everything behind, including her sons. She moved to Bangkok and worked in a nursing home for five months there, after which she moved to Pattaya. It’s in Pattaya that she began working in the bars because she wants money to support her two sons. She doesn’t have a high education and so working in a bar is the easiest way to earn a decent amount of money. Everything she does she does for her kids. She hasn’t seen them in six months because she can’t afford to go see them, but she does the best she can with sending them things and talking to them on the phone. She told me about how sad she is and that after work when all the girls go out to do something she goes home and she cries because she hurts and is lonely, but she knows she has to keep going. I asked her if she ever prayed in those times of sadness and she said she listens to the songs we sang after English class and thinks about the devotions we shared and looks through pictures and that makes her feel better. 

On doesn’t want to be where she is, doing what she does, selling herself and working at a bar, but because of the culture and because of what has happened in her life she feels like she has no choice. She’s been trapped and backed into a corner and people may say “well it’s her choice”, but what people don’t understand is that these woman grow up in an environment of lust and debt. These woman are not looked upon as daughters of the King, but as meat and it’s been forced into their mindset that that is just how things are and that is just who they are. They have grown up in a society where you are shamed if you can’t provide for your family and that from birth you are indebted to your mother. They sell themselves and work in the bars because it’s one of the only ways they know how to make decent money for their families. It’s an insane cycle and On’s is just one of many stories. 

But I believe that in the darkest places is where Jesus is at. I know God will have victory over this city, he is already moving there through the Tamar Center.