Still jet-lagged from an excursion to Hong Kong, I want to recount and share some of my more important memories while they're still fresh in my mind. I went to visit my friend Krista who just moved there, as well as experience Asia, something I've been longing to do for a while. But I also went to experience God through overseas ministry. It wasn't a missions trip, per se, but that was a large intent in my travel.
I was able to taste many good (and strange) foods, see beautiful scenery and very crowded streets, meet people from around the world and spend quality time with friends. But what was the most memorable and valuable part of my trip were the nights we spent telling people about Jesus, praying for them, and observing the workings of the world of sex trafficking.
One night we headed down to SoHo, (South of Hollywood Street) where locals and foreigners alike congregate in the evenings for drinks at local bars, restaurants and British pubs. We met some guys our age who we talked to about our beliefs (who eventually left obviously laughing at us and wanting to find some more enticing women :)), some older Christian Filipino men who play in a band at a restaurant, and a Muslim man who had never heard about Jesus. That conversation was the most exciting, seeing him discover things about the bible (which he'd never seen) and about Jesus (who he'd barely heard of) and say that he believed what we were saying. The language barrier made it difficult to know if he really understood, but he agreed to join us for church that weekend. Unfortunately he didn't end up showing, but we'll keep praying that Krista sees him again and that God used that opportunity to open his eyes.
Krista is also starting a ministry to prostitutes through her church in Hong Kong (maybe Broken Hearts - HK?!) and we got to start the praying and laying the ground work together. Before we went I did a little research one afternoon while I was waiting for her to get off of work, where I read about the abundant female Filipino prostitutes working on the streets of Wan Chai, Hong Kong's red light district. It is fairly well-known information (since I found it in about 2 seconds on Google) that many of them are victims of sex trafficking. They're told they can come to Hong Kong for more opportunity and better work, they will just have a debt to pay back to the people who offer to bring them over. Then they get stuck working in these bars as dancers and prostitutes, forced to work there to 'pay off their debt'. But really, the debt is so large that it can't really be paid off (this is the typical method of sex trafficking in general, not just with these particular women).
I've read, heard, studied a decent amount about sex trafficking and prostitution, but it almost surprised me how 'by the book' things were when we stopped and observed. (I do ministry with prostitutes in Hollywood, but most of them are men and are there by their own choice, so the culture is much different).
The first night there we spent most of our time prayer walking, treading on unfamiliar ground and wanting to be led by God before jumping in. We quickly found several jam-packed streets laden with neon signs advertising dancers, strip clubs, bars, girls. But the signs were hardly necessary as the young girls sitting outside of these places in very little clothing was advertisement enough.
As we passed by one restaurant and bar (not a strip club or anything like that), we saw a woman sitting off to the side of the building in the shadows, not looking very well. We decided to approach her to ask if we could pray for anything. She didn't understand us very well, but as we began to repeat the question, a man working at the restaurant quickly interrupted to ask what we were doing and if he could help. We told him we just wanted to pray for her and he eventually left. She didn't understand much and said she didn't need prayer, so we left and were once again asked by a girl working there if she could help. It was a very interesting interaction, because this was not an obvious place that prostitutes would work, but they way they hovered over this woman and acted so protectively, it seemed she was definitely being watched.
Another general aspect of this business is that the women are going to have someone - either a man or a madame who's in charge - watching them and protecting their source of income. This interaction seemed to fit the bill, even as the average passerby would never notice anything out of the ordinary.
We proceeded past many other bars and clubs, filled and surrounded by men who looked at us with the same glances they would likely cast towards girls in the clubs. They had one thing on the mind and it was hard to avoid their perverse eyes and approaches. It's absolutely disgusting to see the amount of men down there going into clubs, approaching girls on the street, getting off of work and heading there in their suits, on vacation cheating on their wives and girlfriends...If it were not for the demand, there would be no business in sex trafficking. But it's a filthy truth of this fallen world that there's so high a demand, the problem will probably never go away.
As we neared the end of our night down there, praying while our eyes filled with tears, we saw another woman on the street who we couldn't tell if she was working or not. She was alone, not by a club, so we decided to talk to her to find out more. She was very friendly and spoke English, so we chatted for a while. She was meeting up with friends and later on told us about one of her friends that was being forced to prostitute to pay off her debt. She didn't seem all too concerned with it, like it was just a fact of life and something that had to be done in order to have a better life than in the Philippines. She told us that she worked at a company in Hong Kong and is a Christian, more by religion than relationship by the sound of it. Krista was able to give her the name of her church and number so that the woman could come sometime, and the conversation ended well as she went to meet her friends.
Our first night out we got a good taste of what to expect and a bit of what the culture is like down there, and left hungry for more because it was clear as daylight that this street seriously needs some Jesus. So for the sake of keeping this blog from getting to long, I'll go into our second night in another blog entry.
