One of my biggest take-aways from my time in the Philippines was a better understanding of how big God’s hope is. I wrote about seeing hope for people living in a garbage dump in my last blog. In this one, I will share of ways I saw it in the bars where women are sexually exploited.
Before going into the bars, we had the chance to go to the Wipe Every Tear houses to meet the women who had come out of that life and were being loved, taken care of, and going to school. When I initially met the first couple of girls, I found myself looking at them and thinking, “Oh, this poor girl came from a bar.” That’s how I saw them. After spending time with them for just an hour or two, though, their past completely faded away and forgot that they had ever been through something like that. They were just normal girls. They liked to play card games and do zumba, and they were pursuing their dreams through college.
I’m glad I got to see the result of women coming out of the bars and living at the W.E.T. houses beforehand so I could have a picture of what I was offering the girls in the bars. When I called a girl down from the stage to share a drink with her, I found that I was not talking to a bargirl, but a girl who likes action movies, Taylor Swift, and wants the best future for her kids. One much like any other girl you might meet. These women just found themselves caught in a dark world where they were seen as objects for others’ enjoyment. When you see how hopeless of a situation they’re in and you realize that God’s hope is still bigger, it blows your mind a little.
Something else I learned through this experience is keeping my trust in God and clinging to the belief that he is good, even when the hope he offers is not embraced by the people who need it. The first girl I spoke with, when she realized what we were offering, said that we were angels sent from Heaven because she had been praying for a way out. We told her that if she met us at McDonalds two days from when we talked to her, we would let her visit the houses and would pay for her transportation there and back. Based off of what she said about us, I had high hopes that she would come with us…but she never showed up. When I asked one of the girls from the W.E.T. house why she thought that might be, she said it might be that she didn’t want to risk being late for work. If she misses work, than she will be in debt and owe money for her absence. Another girl I talked to, when I shared with her about W.E.T., she said she thought what I was doing was very sweet and she could see that I was a very “good girl.” She really appreciated that I was trying to help women like her and that I was taking the time to see them…but no matter what I said to her she seemed set on the fact that it was too late for her. She was a 35 year old with a 5th grade education. She believed that her life was never meant for anything more than where she was at.
It’s not surprising that the women caught in sex trafficking are very slow to trust. I have learned these last 8 months that trafficking ministry is not for you if you become discouraged easily and like instant results. When you’re faced with disappointments such as these, you have to remember you are not these girls’ savior. You have to keep your faith firmly planted in the one who is, and trust him when you don’t understand why these things happen. Without a complete trust in the Lord, the burden of these women’s lives will become far too great to handle, and you’ll probably lose lots of sleep and sanity. In a world that is dark and difficult, holding fast to God’s hope for this world has been my only option.
It’s true that there is a lot of discouragement, but sometimes you get to see things like what my team saw one of our last days there: a girl who came from the bars graduating college! Ending our time there watching that graduation was a truly amazing experience. Sometimes girls don’t choose to embrace God’s hope for their lives, but in the end it’s all worth it for the ones who do.
One of my favorite stories (author unknown) is of a young boy who was throwing starfish into the sea. The sun was coming up and the tide was going in, so if not thrown into the ocean, the starfish would die. An old man came along and asked the boy why he was doing this. He pointed out that there were thousands of starfish along the shore, so the boy would never make a difference. The boy thought for a moment, picked up one starfish, threw it into the ocean, and said, “It made a difference for that one.”
