The slogan has haunted me since nearly three years ago, I first saw the alcohol advertisement plastered all over the streets of Chiang Mai, Thailand.
"Give 100% to Live 100%"
Tonight, I went prayer walking once more past the bars of familiar streets. Ladies lined the sidewalks in front of windowless, three-story buildings, neon signs and pulsing music beckoning to the night crowd. Primping themselves and powdering their faces,
their eyes were heavy with dark mascara.
It's just another night on the job.
The black spiked heels, the rich red mini skirts, the sheer, lacy tops. This is the life isn't it? Men, a sensation of power, money, pleasure, iPhones, beautiful clothes ~ what more could a woman want? Yet the emptiness in their eyes is a cynical testament to the reality of where "Giving 100%" has lured them to...
I notice the Girl in the Corner, sitting on a bar stool apart from the others. She is 19, she tells me. She has been in Chiang Mai for a year already, separated from her family. She smiles sweetly, accepts the invitation to English Class that I offer, and politely carries on a conversation with me until we exhaust her English and my feeble Thai. We part ways, and I wonder, "What brought her here? What is her story? How did she first buy into the lie that to literally give everything she is will reward her
with the life she always dreamed of?"
It's the Pied Piper of Prostitution, and its luring sound is to the tune of cash. Scripture tells us that "the love of money is the root of all evil." [I Timothy 6:10]. After an evening on the streets, I cannot deny the truth or the power of that statement. The sex trade has many faces - that of the runaway teenager looking for love, the pimp, the club owner, the child whose innocence was stolen, the customer seeking for a thrill and fleshly pleasure, the girl working "the Track" in your own city, the father who sells his daughter for a flatscreen TV, the drug addict desperate to buy the next shoot up of cocaine, and the young hill tribe woman who is obligated to make the most money possible to send home to her poor family.
The stronghold of the love of money holds millions captive.
Actually, make that billions.
It is a lie that the Enemy has used to manipulate both victim and perpetrator. It is a lie that drives these ladies to work the bars of Asian cities, even as they tell you that they hate the things they have to do. In reality, the shame is overwhelming and the price tag attached is enormous. "Why don't they leave, why do they do this to themselves?" we wonder as we shake our heads in disbelief or point a judging finger. No, for many of them, there may not be physical chains holding them here, forcing them to do what they don't want to do; but they are bound by the lie that money is the answer and
they have no better choice.
You have to do whatever it takes to make the most that you can.
So tonight they do it all over again. Give what they don't want to give - what they shouldn't have to give - in order to keep up with the Pied Piper's tune.
I want to run after her. To tell her that it's all wrong, that the catchy slogan
is not what it seems to be.
But what of us? What lies have we blindly followed, what precious things have we sacrificed to the god of money, what voice have we chosen to heed over that of our Savior's ~ and what makes us think that
in return, we will "Live 100%"?
