Bar Hopping: Outreach Style

I went to go-go bar hopping tonight.

Yup. Me. I'm a female 19-year-old white American college student, and I frequent Bangkok's red-light districts. It's okay though. I go with my parents.Today though, I went with a new American couple. They've been here three weeks, but the husband, Ron, was in Chiang Mai (northern city) for four years a long time ago, so his Thai is great. And then there was Men-ee, a middle-aged Thai women who is adorable. No joke. Even the bar girls kept telling her she was cute. We hit Nana Plaza, which is like an outdoor mall that sells women. It's rather gross...and we just made rounds on the bottom floor. It was a little crowded tonight.

We found a few women that are regular at the english class I teach, and a few not so regular ones. I harped on 'em for not showing up (in thai) and they laughed. Been busy, they say. They always say how busy they are. We stopped at another bar and Men-ee prayed for a woman that dad and I have prayed with before. She's an older bartender, and she has something wrong with her stomach. A miracle would be cool. : )

Next we walked down to Soi 1 Plaza, which is a quieter building with about ten small bars and no go-go dancing. We have a lot of friends at one of these bars, and the Mamasan of another bar likes us a lot. Today she told Ben that if he ever needed to go to the hospital, she'd take him. He was so perplexed by the randomness of that he asked her to repeat it three or four times, in case his Thai was messed up. But that was what she meant, so I guess now he knows where to go...

I talked to a quiet girl, and I'll call her Noi here. She's been in Bangkok for almost 3 weeks, and working at the bar from day one. She has two boys who live with her mom about 10 hours away. She misses them like crazy, calls them every day, hates her job, hates Bangkok.Bingo. She's got "help me get out of here" written all over her.

I turned to Men-ee. "Do you know Noi yet?" I asked her. She replied that she did not, and I introduced them. Men-ee turned around and talked to her for twenty minutes. I think she shared the gospel, or part of it...it was hard to follow with the dance music blaring at us from all sides. Anyway, Noi wants to come visit the Well (our exit program) sometime in the next two weeks. I'm really praying that I will be able to directly help one bar girl leave before I come home in two months, and Noi might be the one. (I think I've indirectly helped about seven, maybe eight. How is that for cool?) Please pray for her! There are a few others at the same bar that I've been friends with for months. Pray for that whole bar, please!

Okay, I'm sleepy. Speaking in Thai for three hours (or trying to speak...) will do that to you. No, I won't come back fluent. But I definitely have a firm grasp. That's right, people. Anna can speak Thai!