We had the most wonderful event this week that really blessed everyone. A team of twelve women from Saddleback Church (Pastor Rick Warren, author of the Purpose Driven Life) visited Night Light. After spending a night with us doing outreach in the bars, they wanted to do something special for the women. They arranged a party at a restaurant the Thais love, paid the fee normally women get for a night of "work" and invited them to join us for an evening of fun. It was really FUN!
What a sight to see a parade of women from the bars coming into the restaurant and watch their eyes light up when they received flowers, hugs and other lovely gifts. One of the women, who is actually a "girly boy", had a birthday that day so we celebrated that as well. I've never sang happy birthday quite like this - part Thai and part English. There were smiles everywhere and several women actually wept when it was time to go.
The life of a bar girl is very hard. They are required to work six days a week and have fourteen customers (sexual encounters)in order to meet their monthly quota. In addition, they must get customers to purchase drinks and there is a quota for this as well. They are heavily fined if they don't meet these quotas, are one minute late, miss due to illness...the list goes on and on. It was such a gift to give them one night free. Best of all they loved being in the company of women who really cared about them as persons, valued by God and precious in his sight.
GREAT NEWS - one of the Thai women who lives with me in the volunteer house prayed to receive Christ. Salvations, healings, deliverances are happening every day!
Your prayer support is such a blessing - SUSAN...Friday, November 16
