For two nights me and my team went to “Walking Street” in Angeles City, Philippines.
For two nights we went into bar after bar, filled with scantily clad women, dancing, eyes glazed over like they wanted to be anywhere else but there, fake smiles plastered on some of the faces of those who could muster the fortitude to put on “another show” that night.
For two nights we went into bar after bar and talked to woman after woman about the freedom that the ministry we were partnering with(Wipe Every Tear) had for them.
For two nights we explained that there is a way out.
That they are worth more than what they have been told they are worth.
That we love them, unconditionally and that we were there, not to buy them for the night, but to offer them a life free of the bondage that they are currently in. And all they need to do is accept the invitation.
A few weeks ago I helped lead a Parent Vision Trip for a World Race Squad. The world racers had the opportunity to invite their parents out on the field for a week of ministry. We had 18 racers and a little less than double the amount of parents on this trip.
The ministry we partnered with is called Wipe Every Tear(WET). An organization that offers freedom to women who have been trafficked, tricked into working in the bars and who are now stuck there because of their circumstance.
WET currently has 5 safe houses with over 80 women who have accepted their invitation to come out of the bars. They offer the women a place to live, a living stipend and pays for them to go to school or for them to learn a trade. They help the women have a better, most sustainable life.
While 80 women, 80 daughters of our King have left the bar life, there are still thousands stuck dancing and selling themselves night after night to support themselves and their families.
The “Walking Street” in Angeles City is a mile long stretch of road where, in bar after bar, there are over 15,000 Filipino women who are trapped.
For most, it is NOT their choice. Most were tricked into coming to Angeles City for a promised job.
Recruiters from the bars go out to remote villages and islands looking for young women, promising jobs and a better life. They pay for the women to get to the main island and to Angeles City, saying that they can pay them back with their first few paychecks.
But once the girls get to Angeles City, they are told that all the waitress jobs are taken and that they need to work in the bars, dancing and selling themselves week after week in order to pay off their debt.
This is Human Trafficking. And this is what I helped to fight against while I was in the Philippines.
Sometimes it is easy to look at the enormity of the problem(over 15,000 women trapped in a one mile stretch of road) and be overwhelmed, thinking “How can I make any impact here?”
But when I reflect back on my time in the bars a few weeks ago what I see is this.
I look back and see the 9-10 girls that I was personally able to love and offer freedom to.
I see the looks on their faces when I tell them there is another way and that all they have to do it say yes.
I see the seeds that have been planted in them that I pray will grow and eventually lead them to accept the offer given for a better life and an education.
I look back, remembering those 9-10 girls faces and names and I think to myself, I may not have been able to make a noticeable different to the problem as a whole there, but I know that what I did, my actions, my love, my offer of a better life mattered profoundly to those 9-10 girls.
