Our last night in Pattaya

It is hard for me to try to start writing this. All of the emotions that welled up inside of me last night. All of the anger, forgiveness, confession, empathy, impotence, sadness... Deep deep sadness.

We gathered in our room to pray beforehand. Earlier in the day, after eating lunch as a group, I nonchalantly made the comment, "it's our last night here, so don't leave anything on the table." Walking through the mall to get to beach street, I am not sure any of us understood just what we were about to experience.

I drank a coke and 4 sprites - our tickets to be there.
The bar sold out of coke before the night was through!

We made it through the mall to Beach Road. There, we looked for a nearly empty songtao (these are the trucks with a big metal frame on the back, and two benches that run over each wheel well - it's how everyone gets around). We negotiated the price: "10 baht per person to Utopia bar?" The driver nods his head. 

We drive two blocks to Walking Street. The songtaos are allowed to drive down walking street during the early hours of the evening. We enter walking street and slowly honk our way around delivery trucks, people walking, and street vendors. Soon amber sees it: Utopia Rock House.

We pay the driver as the DJ sets up his system.  A few Pattaya praise teams had been given permission to play here. The owner, Steve, is from Northern Ireland, just like one of the bigger bands. 

I'm just going to have to skip to our debrief time after the night was over.  Amber suggested we gather to debrief and pray before bed. Mardell called it, "get cleaned," which really resonated with me. I started to gather us in the downstairs lobby for a quick prayer circle, but we quickly realized that wasn't going to work. In our room, as a group, tears quickly began to pour. We wept. 

As soon as I entered our room, I felt a strong desire to wash my hands. 

The women in our group had spent almost the entire night hanging out with the bar girls. They had made deep connections with 2 of them.  They had invested their hearts in these girls hearts. We men had prayed for what we saw happening the entire evening. We prayed for the women from our team, for the customers arriving, for the bar owners, for Pattaya - for the bar girls.  I didn't realize how broken my heart was until we sat down in the room. 

I first confessed my anger to the group. It had gone from 'righteous anger' to hatred, and I needed to be forgiven. It was the transition from that emotion, to the severe impotence I felt sitting in the bar. Anywhere in PA, if I was on a bar, and saw a man treating a woman like that, I would ask him to stop. I would make him stop. Here, I sat there praying. I tried to remember that this is her job, but that only made it worse. 

The emotional transition moving from that impotence, to deep sadness for the life of the bar girls - that's when I broke. I began hysterically crying in our room. Sherry prayed over us that we were walking with Jesus on a beach, glowing in white. I prayed in my head, "but Lord, what about the girls?" The Lord showed me Guy, a bar girl that Mardell had made a strong connection with, walking down the beach, holding Jesus hand, walking. 

 This image in my mind didn't make the pain to away. For awhile, it made it worse. That image was in such stark contrast to the images I had been seeing all evening that it took quit some time for the dissonance to be worked out. 

This is my prayer for Pattaya and the world, please pray it with me:

Our Dad in heaven, set apart is your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. I declare that no man in the world will come to Pattaya to buy a woman. That the world will be filled with good men, with good hearts. Please help me to teach men to teach men how to be good men. I declare that this city, Pattaya, becomes a center of worship for Jesus Christ. That this city would be known throughout the world as the city that worships Jesus.

We leave today at 1:30 after lunch with Yolanda and Angel who work in Isan in the area of prevention. Our flight leaves from Bangkok at 8:40 your Saturday morning. 

Thank you so much for your prayers - we have surely felt them and continue to feel them and rely on God. 

As others send me their perspectives of our last night here, I will post them, and you will get different angles.