One Life

When I was in Thailand for the Lausanne 2004 Forum, I met the founder of Rahab Ministries which seeks to rescue women from the sex industry, share the Gospel with them, and train them in productive skills such as haircutting. She shared with me that 70% of tourists who enter Thailand are men. 70% of those men participate in the sex industry (the number one industry in Thailand). The majority of those men… are Japanese.

One night after our meetings I went to downtown Pattaya with the other Japanese Christian leaders. We ate at a sidewalk restaurant while male tourists walked the streets arm in arm with their young women/girls or even boys who they had “bought” for the night. As we spoke about mundane even stupid things, I was incensed as the group completely ignored all that was going on just a few feet away from us. The ability to just put up blinders to our eyes and feel no anger or compassion was just mind-boggling. No one suggested that we pray for the women or talk with the men. We just continued a stupid conversation.

The next morning I skipped all the meetings and spent time in Pattaya at Rahab Ministries. I spoke with them, prayed with them, and bought practically every card that the women had hand-made for support. I also made a promise – that one day I would send a CBS graduate to work at their ministry. It’s time for the Japanese Church to open her eyes to the raping of Asia that Japanese men are responsible for.

I wanted to encourage you to consider visiting their website  http://www.rahabministriesthailand.org) and buying their hand-made cards or jewelry as Christmas or birthday gifts. If we’re going to buy presents anyway, why not support a very important ministry as well? They say that shipping takes 3-6 weeks so you’ll want to order asap if you want to use these for Christmas presents. But you can always stock up for other presents throughout the year.

May God have mercy upon these women and girls who He loves.