Bangkok

Deeper Magic From Before the Dawn of Time

emilyrgeorge6 Comments

Wardrobe

It’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment in which I entered through the wardrobe door, felt the fur coats brushing against my body, noticed the temperature was dropping and that snow was crunching under my feet.  I do know that it was sometime around 2001, when I first stepped off a plane into the thick, sweltering air of Bangkok, and walked into the home of the Pennington’s.  Here was a family who had left Texas 8 years prior to live among Thais and love them with the heart of Jesus.

I brushed past the coats and emerged in the woods and quickly noticed that their world was thick with a different kind of magic than I had ever experienced before.  The kind that words cannot describe, but you can only feel it in the core of who you are.  And it shakes you.  Splits your previous conceptions apart and forces you to ask questions that you never knew existed.  Forces you to suspend what you know and believe in miracles again.  And even though you know there is really no such thing as a talking Faun, there is one standing right before you.  Asking you for tea.  And you have to go.  You must go, because you would rather be wrong then die of boredom from the current state of affairs in your life.

The Pennington’s lived and operated in a world where they were forced to believe that what Jesus said was true.  And living with them for even a few hours, let alone months at a time, forced me to start believing, too.  And that was when the deeper magic started permeating my entire being.  Because we saw the magic every day.

The days were spent walking the streets and seeing the reality of poverty; of spirit, mind, and body.  Touching hands, healing hearts, proclaiming freedom, and seeing five thousand fed by a few loaves and a couple of fish.  Learning to love the mystery of suffering instead of letting it set up pretensions against the promises of Christ.  And watching love, real love pour forth from the Pennington’s hearts, towards each other, their neighbors, and strangers on the street.  The kind of love that is life altering because of its sincerity and richness and depth.  The kind of love that is stronger than the grave.

The nights were spent making mud obstacle courses, playing soccer, hide and seek, line-dancing, baking cookies and eating them at midnight, putting on U2 videos and dancing to Where The Streets Have No Name until we knew we were truly experiencing the Kingdom on earth, picking lice out of each girls’ waist-long hair, learning how to cook, playing guitar and singing until we were hoarse, running through the rain, and finally believing in fairy tales again.

When I first started going, Russ and Tracy only had four children.  I watched them birth two more and was there for weeks at a time to help mother the others while they took care of the newborns.  The three of us would stay up late, drinking wine, often crowded on the same bed to hover under the air-con, and I would ask them, “How do you do it? How do you sustain a relationship here in the 100 degree weather with six children running around? How do you make time for your Sabbath?  What do you do with the blatant idolatry and sex workers throwing themselves at you?  How do you raise your children to hear the Lord?  How do you cast out the evil spirits that have claimed the territory over your neighborhood?  How do you live free from the fear of man when they are paying your bills?  How do you heal broken hearts and believe for the lost when you don’t really like the people you’re believing for?  How do you stay in love?  How will you know when it’s time to go back?  In what ways have you died since we last spoke?”

And their answers shaped my life, my vision, my calling.  Filled me with fear and trembling and awe.  Because I saw the truth lived out.  Their deep called unto my deep.  Drew me out.  Gave me eyes to see who He really was.  Who He had created me to be.  Teaching me to be content with the design of my life.  Gave me what I needed to be a wall, with breasts like towers, as one who has found peace in the eyes of God*.

It was the deeper magic before the dawn of time, where a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, and the table itself cracked and death itself started working backwards to produce real life**.  The kind of life worth living.

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*Song of Songs 8:10

**Taken from Chapter 15 of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Painful Process of Authentic Compassion

emilyrgeorge6 Comments

I like to think of myself as a curator of friendships.  A content specialist of hearts painted gold, who brave the desert creatures and stay awake through the Gethsemane of the soul.

I collected this one heart over a decade ago and tucked her carefully inside my own.  She had just returned from the West Bank where she had made her home with Palestinian Arabs.  Returned to a Midwestern town, to a small, Caucasian, pro-Israel Church, full of cars with W bumper stickers in the parking lot, where people lined up asking her, “How was Pakistan?”  And her face would glow the color of her hair and she would smile and graciously say, “It was fine,” and then swallow a fiery lump down in her throat.

That summer, I watched as she found healing and solace while tending to her melliferous bees.  We would spread fresh honey from bell jars on bread, and I would ask her question after question about the conflict within.  She would point out specific regions on the map that was hung above my bed, finding hope when I began to understand.

Little did she know that the West Bank was just the beginning of the constant cycle of suffering, compassion, and freedom that would be her life.  She wandered the streets of Calcutta, among the heroin-addicts and slum dwellers.  Built shelters in Sri Lanka when the tsunami decimated Southeast Asia.  Became homeless when Katrina blew in from the Atlantic.  Joined me as I worked with sex slaves in the red light district of Bangkok.  Provided food and housing to refugees in Darfur.  Went back to Jordan.  Moved to Afghanistan.  Fled when her colleagues were kidnapped.  Sought asylum in Amsterdam.  And then resettled in Kenya.

She has been homeless and displaced; a refugee and a wanderer.  She has seen more brutality inflicted upon the human race than most people in this generation.  She has stared at the heavens and begged for rain and then seen a small black cloud the size of a hand appear.  She is covered in spiritual DEET, capable of entering into the darkest of territories and coming out, afflicted, but not crushed.   She has died over and over again and has held tightly to the only thing this life can give to her.

And when she writes to me now, from her small cottage in Kenya, and describes the spiritual trenches with tears flowing freely and with intention, I can easily share with her about the kid I know who contracted HIV from his uncle, my college friend who was raped and is now with child, and the aching of my own broken heart from love that has been lost.

Because she walks around with her own broken heart, cracked from the hundreds of times she has known and loved and suffered.  Because she sits with me, a million miles away, but in the same Garden.  Crying out with me that the cup would be taken, dreading the constant request for another death that will ultimately bring life.  A woman who would never fall asleep while I am sweating blood, because she is sweating blood, too.

And it is for her that I write this, to remind her that he is coming and has overcome.  That where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more.  That sorrow and sighing will pass away.  That blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  That a bruised reed he will not break.  That by his stripes we are healed.  That we will no longer be called “forsaken.”  That we will run and not grow weary.  That there will be a garment of praise.  That there is always more. That the sons of Satan will fall down at our feet and confess that he has always loved us.

So, let us lift the cup and drink quickly now.

Here’s to her.

And here’s to Him.

http://whitneyfry.wordpress.com/

A Glimpse of the Red Light District in Bangkok

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“As long as a women can be bought or sold, no woman is free.” – Maria Castaneda, Filipina Activist

The brilliant haze of neon lights gives the appearance of daytime.  Hundreds of bodies fill the narrow streets.   It is almost midnight, but the air is balmy and thick.  There is no breeze, no room to breathe.  It smells of fried fish, noodles, opium and sweaty flesh.  Street vendors shout the same phrase in broken English, “I’ve got good price for you.  Cheap, cheap.  200 baht, but for you only 100 baht.”

The consumers, white men and women, sun kissed from days spent lying lazily on the pearly sand beaches of Phuket, elbow their way to the front of lines to pick over cheap trinkets, bartering in mangled Thai, bringing already reduced prices even lower.

Little brown children meander through the crowds, selling flowers – not for lovers, but for idols – to place in front of spirit houses, to appease the gods of the land for allowing these vendors to use their property to buy, sell, and trade.

Designer baggage, brilliant skirts, and handmade jewelry are not the only items available to buy, sell or trade.  There are men standing on the street corners with menus advertising girls.

“I’ve got good show for you.  One woman.  Two woman.  Three woman.  Only 500 baht.  Very sexy.”

500 baht – the equivalent of US$12.

The menu has pictures of girls in assorted sexual positions and girls doing tricks with different parts of their body, like some twisted human circus that one could only imagine in hell.   What the man is not saying is that for the equivalent of US$17, one could purchase a girl for the entire night.

I look behind the man to the entrance of the bar.  Two pre-pubescent-looking girls are standing in a smoky brume behind the door made of beads.  Red pieces of string and lace barely cover their naked bodies – bodies bearing the straight lines of 12-year-old boys.  Their faces are powdered white, to appear more Western, or to appear less Thai.  And their eyes – their eyes are what make me shudder.  They stare, but they see nothing.  They are lifeless, bored, and empty.

This is Patpong; the infamous area compromising the red-light district of Bangkok, Thailand, where a flesh-seeker can have any sexual wish fulfilled for less than 20 bucks at the expense of a young girl.  Over 100 bars are crammed into two streets that run side by side – an area that can be no more than 1 square mile – with an estimated 4000 women selling sex on any given night.

The sex workers in Patpong represent a small percentage of the total number of commercial sex workers in Thailand.  An estimated 2.8 million men, women and children work in the sex trade of a country with a population of 63 million.  In 2003, the sex industry in Thailand generated US$4.3 billion, 3% of the Thai economy.

Non-profit organizations have discreetly opened shop in the middle of the red-light districts of Thailand to provide rescue for these victims of sexual slavery.  Rahab Ministries is one of the many organizations attempting to rescue women and children from prostitution by providing opportunities for sustainability outside of human degradation.  Rahab operates as an agency by day and a salon by night.

Sex workers file into the salon at nightfall to have their hair and make up perfected before servicing customers.  The hairdressers are survivors of sexual slavery.  Everyone knows the intimacy that is cultivated between an individual and their hairdresser.  These visits turn into opportunities for the hairdressers to say, “Look, I’ve been where you are.  That life is not your only option.”

During this time, relationships continue to develop and trust is built.  The Rahab staff informs the women that during the day, if they are tired, they can come rest at the salon.  There are beds available and food is always provided.  More often than not, these women start visiting the salon during the day, getting to know the former sex workers and staff.  As these friendships develop, the sex workers begin to believe that there is another option to generate income.

With the powerful exchange rate of the US Dollar to the Thai baht, it only takes $300 to rescue a woman from prostitution.  Rahab Ministries spreads this money over six months to provide housing, counseling and education for a woman desiring to leave the sex trade.   After six months, the woman has usually arrived to a place where she can generate income on her own by the skills and education she has developed during that time.

Although six months may be enough time to establish monetary sustainability, it does not provide enough time to heal the horrific wounds that have been afflicted to a woman’s body or psyche.   Most of the women continue to reside in housing provided by Rahab for several years with other women who have survived sex slavery.  During this time, they learn the truth: that they are not commodities to be used and discarded.  They learn that they are powerful women filled with purpose and value; women who are capable of using their mind and talent to produce an income, not their bodies.

During 2006, Emily worked as an independent researcher and client advocate for Rahab Ministries.  If you would like to participate in supporting survivors of sexual slavery, please visit http://www.rahabministriesthailand.org.

 


Believing in Justice, Believing in You.

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IMG_3964I recently read the book This I Believe, a collection of  essays taken from the NPR program initially launched by Edward R. Murrow in the 1950s.  Naturally, this prompted my own reflection on what belief I would want to proclaim to the world in 200 words or less.

In my short life, I have witnessed some of the worst acts of human degradation.  In Bangkok, I worked with sex slaves and saw women and children who were victimized daily by men in ways that could only be mentioned in hell.  I met 18 year old girls that had undergone complete hysterectomies because STDs had ravaged their insides.  I witnessed men take little girls by the hand and lead them into hotel rooms.  I listened to women tell of the endless sexual violence and abuse they endured nightly only to receive $10 on payday.

In Ghana, I saw 4 year old children scooping water out of boats for hours without eating a single meal.  I saw children sleeping on the ground with scorpions while their masters slept on a bed within four protective walls.  I heard these children’s stories of repeated abuse, and touched the scars that were on their heads and backs from being beaten with oars or pushed into open fires.

After sharing these stories with people, I often am asked, “How can you not lose hope when you see such immense suffering?”  The answer is simple.  The answer is because of you.

When those former sex slaves or child slaves would run to me and embrace me and I would look into their eyes and kiss their faces, I never forgot for a moment where they had come from.  Their hope, their joy, their laughter, their dreams, their very life was a miracle in itself.  They were products of someone’s great mercy and compassion.  Some human, somewhere, made it possible for them to be free…to sleep in a bed with a full belly and wake for school each day. Some human made it possible for them to feel safe, loved, and wanted.  And that is why I do not lose hope when I see injustice.  Someone, somewhere is making justice possible every day.  And I am very grateful for that someone.  I am very grateful for you.