Thoughts from a red light district
I stood between two men on the street of a red light district in Phnom Penh. My skin was crawling and I felt sick. Tons of older, foreign men strolled the streets with young Khmer girls on their arms or trailing a couple steps behind. Every minute a man was leading a girl into the guest houses next to the club and I shivered as I thought about what was going on in the rooms. 
The reality of their situation hit me as I stood between the two men and would get glances from various men on the street. For a second I was able to put myself in the place of the women. What if I was on the street that night, forced to provide for my family and told selling my body was the only way? As every man walked by me I thought about the anxiety the girls must feel before “being selected.”
What would it feel like to not be seen as a person with value but as a way to satisfy a “need”. There is no difference between me and those women and yet I found myself between two men who were there to minister to the men. I was safe and all of these girls were not…
As I looked around the brokenness covered me like a thick blanket. I felt suffocated.
“Lord, Lord, Lord….no no no…”
That was all I could pray as I watched more men leading girls away. One of the men from my group drew my attention to a song called “House of the Rising Sun” that was coming from one of the clubs. The song is about prostitution which was ironic but even more ironic was that the song, “Amazing Grace” can be sung over it because it has a similar melody. So our group of three we began singing Amazing Grace with the song about prostitution.
Going into the evening I had prayed that I would not be overcome with anger towards the men but that I could see them with His eyes and realize that they are a products of brokenness. I thought about that as we sang the lines, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
Ah! There is HOPE!
Really, none of us are deserving of grace. It is easy to place judgement on outward evil, such as these foreign men paying to have sex with the Khmer girls. But I realized that there is hope and there is forgiveness. God wants to give redemption not only the women but to the men. These men are broken and hurting and they need Jesus as much as any of us do. A lot of the men we talked to that night confessed to feelings of loneliness and hurt, not that that excuses their behavior but they have intense voids. Nothing can fill the emptiness and brokenness expect for Christ.
I left that night of ministry with a new urgency. An urgency for the women, an urgency for the children, an urgency for the men to find restoration and healing but ultimately an urgency to share Christ. That is where is the power is. My prayer is that God will raise up the men in Cambodia and that many will come to Christ, causing change in their culture that currently allow such atrocities to take place. Thank you Lord, that you have and will continue to move.
“Look among the nations and be see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days,
that you would not believe if told.”
-Habakkuk 1: 5
