AsiaStories

The young Chinese woman steps from a back room into the soft, pink light of the small brothel. She adjusts her short dress and black stockings. A middle-aged Chinese man follows a few steps behind. Under the watchful eye of the shop’s owner, the customer hands her a wad of bills — about $60.

She nods and accepts the money, flashing a strawberry tattoo on her left hand, often a sign of rebellion in this ancient culture. Transactions like this take place everyday in brothels throughout China, says Belinda Baker,* a worker who shares the Gospel among commercially exploited women in her city.

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The 40-year-old New Orleans native is careful not to say “prostitute,” a word that implies that women choose that lifestyle. “No child says, ‘I want to grow up and sell my body,’” Baker says.

Instead, poverty, lack of education and lack of opportunity drive women to prostitution as a means to provide for their families. Baker hopes to free the estimated 35,000 exploited women in her city both physically and spiritually — first by sharing the Gospel, then by offering a safe place to live and alternative job skills.

FIVE SISTERS

The Weises* are an example of the women Baker hopes to reach. Ranging in age from 18 to 30, the five sisters — Chen,* Jinjing,* Dongmei,* Liling* and Mingzhu* — moved from a rural Chinese province to start a massage parlor in a working-class neighborhood in the city. Their goal is to send money home to their families.

Baker, a New Orleans party girl and an energetic redhead, became a Christian in her late twenties after her sister told her about Christ. Because of her firsthand knowledge of the difference Jesus makes, Baker is passionate about sharing the Gospel with women trapped by exploitation and addiction.

Two of the Weis sisters, Chen and Dongmei, are Christians. Jinjing is Buddhist, since her husband and his parents strictly follow Buddhist traditions.

Sharing part of her life story, Baker tells Jinjing that she can be the first in her husband’s family to follow Jesus Christ. “My sister was the first in my family to follow Jesus,” Baker says to Jinjing. “Now all of us do.”

Jinjing smiles and acknowledges that her husband enjoyed reading the Gospel materials Baker shared on her last visit. “He told me it was very good,” the 27-year-old mother of two says. “He said I should read it, too.”

Although her husband seems more open to Christianity than he did in the past, Jinjing says there are other reasons she can’t become a Christian. “In my work, I can’t avoid men who want sex,” the young woman says. “I can’t follow Jesus completely and do these special services.”

But Jinjing never admits to providing sex to customers. “When men ask, I tell them no,” she continues. “We will never think of doing that. We want to make money through energy and knowledge.”

Her 30-year-old sister Chen, a Christian, paints a slightly different picture. “Business is slow,” Chen says. “If I could hire a girl to provide sex, I would expand [our business] to offer more sex work.”

Although Western Christians may be shocked by such an admission from a Chinese Christian, slow business can mean the difference between feeding the children or forcing them to go hungry — especially in a country where some financial analysts estimate the daily unskilled labor wage to be less than $3.50.

These economic realities, along with customer demand, pressure Chen and her sisters to consider providing sex for sale. By hiring another girl to provide sexual services, Chen explains, the shop would make more money and the sisters would not compromise their faith. Without more profits, the sisters will have to close their business and return to their home province where the daily wage is even lower.

“When these women opened the shop, I think their intentions were pure,” Baker says. “Now they are at a pivotal point. Maybe God sent us to them for that reason.”

WORTH IT

Not all massage parlors in China are dens of prostitution, Baker explains. Massage therapy, pedicures and foot massages are a ritual part of Chinese daily life. However, prostitution reaches every segment of society and runs the gamut from brothels to massage parlors, karaoke bars and five-star hotels.

“We have identified seven tiers of prostitution in China,” Baker says. “Sex is for sale on every street and at every level of society.”

On one bus route, Baker counts 18 brothels, small storefront properties bathed in the color of bubblegum and cotton candy. The Chinese symbol for “foot massage” combined with a noticeable lack of reclining chairs identifies the business as a brothel.

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Because prostitution is driven primarily by economics, Baker understands the need to provide legitimate training and livelihood opportunities for women in the sex industry. For this reason, she opened a safe house outside the city and is in the process of registering to open a bakery.

“If you had another job, would you leave this business?” Ling Tao , Baker’s ministry partner, asks Jinjing.

Jinjing shrugs and looks skeptical. “Maybe,” she says.

Baker hopes many women will leave prostitution once the safe house and bakery are up and running.

“One of the shop owners has already asked if I will hire her 15-year-old daughter to work at the bakery,” Baker says. “She hangs out at the brothel on school holidays, but her mother doesn’t want her involved in sex work.”

Baker explains that her work isn’t just about providing job skills. She wants “every single girl” to hear and receive the Gospel because they are “worth it.”

Referring to her past, Baker says, “My sister thought I was worth it. She could have written me off, but she didn’t. She shared the Gospel with me.”

But reaching 35,000 women single-handedly is more than just a challenge. Without help, it is impossible. “Our greatest need is messengers,” Baker says.

Therefore, Baker enlists Chinese students and house church leaders to work alongside her. She also uses short-term workers from the U.S. to prayerwalk, distribute gift bags and share the Gospel.

CLOSED SHOPS, BOARDED DOORS

While Baker’s greatest need is messengers, her best strategy is prayer — not only for those she hopes to reach but also for Christians with the same passion to see commercially exploited women come to Christ.

“One of my prayers is that Christians will feel the same desperation for these girls that they have for their own daughters,” Baker says. “I look at mothers in America who would literally put their bodies over their teenage daughters to protect them … and I wish they felt the same way about these girls.”

Baker and Tao continue to prayerwalk the city and share the Gospel in brothels and massage parlors. Although they’ve met few women willing to walk away, a number of shops have closed after some owners and employees prayed to receive Christ.

Preparing to prayerwalk one particularly notorious street, Baker explains, “This is a seedy section. The street literally glows pink.”

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However, she finds many shops closed and doors boarded since she was there nine months ago. She is amazed that only three brothels remain open.

Baker’s team prayerwalked the area for at least two years, and the street is a consistent prayer route for one of her ministry partners. The team also used photos from the area to encourage prayer from advocates in America.

“Now I don’t see any pink lights,” Baker says. “I don’t even see girls in there.”

“That’s good,” she adds. “No disappointment here.”

*Names changed.

A white-haired American woman sits in the corner seat of the train as it rattles along its tracks through the skyscrapers and the slums of a large city in India. Kathleen Jones* chats with a street boy hawking nail polish, a friendship she has acquired during her frequent train rides.

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At the end of the line, Jones weaves through the throngs of people in the station and out into the sunlight. She keeps a steady pace along trash-covered sidewalks and across busy streets until she reaches her destination: a small, dilapidated building, partially obscured from the street. It’s a brothel.

A woman runs out to greet her and, taking her arm, pulls her excitedly toward the others waiting in the shelter of the building’s overhang. Women crowd eagerly around Jones as she distributes eggs for their lunch and gives them each a welcoming hug and a smile of friendship.

Jones comes to this brothel five days a week to share Christ’s love with the women working here. She is 69 years old and has been working in the red light districts of India for over three years. With four children, 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren at home in the United States, coming to India was not an easy decision, but Jones says she knew it was what God called her to do.

“I am living proof that God can use anybody at any age,” Jones says. She has no plans to pack up and head home any time soon.

Jones serves through the ministry of Rahab’s Rope, a faith-based nonprofit organization fighting human trafficking in India through prevention, rescue and aftercare.

“My heart just broke for [the women here],” Jones says. “It seems that God has just put a burden in my heart for women in need.”

In society, Jones says, “these women are scum of the earth. No one wants to talk to them, be their friend, associate with them. They are outcasts.”

She spends time with them, offering her friendship and teaching them basic knowledge and practical skills, since most have not had the opportunity for education.

“They don’t see anything beyond where they live, how they get to where they work and their workplace,” Jones says. “They don’t know the possibilities that are out there in the world: They don’t even know how big the world is because they have lived in such a limited and controlled environment.”

Many of the women were sold into the sex trade at a young age by a family member. About half of the women in Jones’ ministry have been trafficked from India’s neighboring countries. None of them come by choice.

“Once they get in, they can’t get out,” Jones says. “They have no skills; they have no education; they have nowhere to go.”

Though the women do not earn very much money — just over two dollars a customer — they make far more by working in the brothel than by doing any other kind of unskilled labor.

“A lot of them would like to get out [of their work in the brothel] but they have families to support,” Jones says. “They get trapped by the money because they couldn’t go wash floors and make as much money as they make in the brothel. That becomes a problem: It perpetuates the situation.”

Jones tries to teach the women about the hope that is free to them in Christ. Since many of the women are practicing Hindus, their only hope for a better life lies in an almost endless cycle of rebirth. Jones fights to show them hope for this life and for eternity.

“There’s as much hope for them in Christ as there is for [any of] us,” she says.

A huge part of the ministry is meeting the basic needs of the women, Jones says, reaching them physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. She could tell the women that Jesus loves them and walk away, or, as she says, “I can go out there and I can spend time with them and I can show them that I love them by trying to teach them and improve their lives in some way. That speaks more to them than what I say.”

Jones ultimately wants the women to know they are loved without any strings or conditions, without anything required of them in return. Deep and unconditional love comes only from Christ.

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For more information about the ministry of Rahab's Rope, visit

Rahab's Rope

“There is not enough that I could give them and do for them that would really change their lives without Christ,” she says.

Though it is hard for Jones to be away from her family, it is harder to see the women trapped in a situation from which they feel there is no escape.

Her own heart daily breaking for the hurts and hardships of the women, Jones has chosen a tough ministry. But, Jones says, “There’s not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for letting me be here.”

*Name changed.

“I can’t believe we did that,” I exclaimed, “but it was so much fun!” I had prayer walked through the Red Light District many times over the past six months, teaching English to a group of young women each week. We tried to make relationships with these girls, but they often seemed closed to us.

But when our team heard about a group of short-term workers from the U.S. coming to help us for a few days, we prayed that God would use the them to open doors for us in the Red Light District. My friend, Lynn Andolini*, specifically prayed for a sweet spot on one particular street where we’d been working.

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So I headed out with Bethany and Carol, two of our visitors from America. We began our time with prayer, asking God to show us whom to talk to, to guide our steps, and to open the doors that He wanted open.

Praying over each bar that we passed, we walked the road. The girls normally stood out in front of the bars at this time of night, putting on their makeup or just waiting for customers. But tonight it was strange, almost eerie, because even though the doors were open, no one was out. Bethany, Carol and I continued walking and praying, thinking God might already be working to close the bars down.

When we crossed the street to begin heading back, we approached one Karaoke bar, where I noticed the head man standing in front of the bar. As soon as we reached to the door, a sweet young woman named Rutana* came out to greet us. She seemed excited to see us, and we realized our visitors had talked with her the night before.

We spoke to Rutana and her boss about offering English classes to the girls in the bar. The girl’s boss kept trying to talk us into staying to sing Karaoke, so we decided to throw caution to the wind. We asked Rutana to sing with us, and she was allowed to stay since we were paying customers.

We sang American songs from the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, including artists like John Denver, Frank Sinatra and the Carpenters. Singing in the Karaoke bar was fun and also gave us an opportunity to talk to Rutana while her boss was away.

Rutana had been working at the Karaoke bar for two months, but she did not like the job. She really wanted to study cosmetology but needed to work to earn money, since her family couldn’t afford to send her to school. When we asked Rutana if we could pray for her, she got excited.

“Are you Christians?” she asked us. She shared that her grandmother used to read her the Bible when she was little. When I learned that she still had the Bible, I encouraged her to read it. Rutana seemed happy to meet us and even invited us to teach English in her apartment.

What an answer to prayer! Lynn had prayed for a sweet spot, and Rutana’s name in Thai means sweet.

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You can help reach women in Thailand's red light districts.

Contact heartweavers@gmail.com.

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Next week, we called Rutana to follow up, but the city was experiencing a lot of flooding. When the waters started to recede, our team went to the Red Light District to try to help and to check in on Rutana. The other workers at the Rutana’s bar told us she had gone home to her village because of the flooding.

We tried to contact Rutana several more times over the next several weeks, but each time she wasn’t there. On our most recent visit, we learned that Rutana moved back to her village permanently.

Rutana’s move is a great praise because many Christians live in her village. We continue to pray that someone from Rutana’s village will teach her about the love of our God.