Red Light District

It's hard to describe the mixture of anger and sadness and panic and greif that I felt last night walking through the red light district of Sabong. We've been doing prayer walks there every Monday but last night was more about getting to know some of the people there. The options these women face are apauling.

We met Joy and Christine. Joy is a waitress in a local turist spot and is often asked to perform sexual favors for clients. It's just part of the job. Christine is 8 months pregnant with her first kid, though she looked more like I looked at 3 months along. She will be coming to our midwives prenatal class next week.
Ellie truly lived up to her name "light source of Joy" last night as we entered one of the disco's. We wanted to talk with the dancers there. (Everyone on the prayer walk is a girl by the way). When I walked in carrying Ellie in the front pack, I was surrounded. These girls who were painted and dressed as whores all of a sudden removed their "sexy" masks and became women. They began to tell me about their children. Most of the women we met were single (most kids were fathered by tourists). Over and over I heard, my children are in Manila, their father is in America (or Germany or Australia). Oh, your daughter is so beautiful and "mataba" which means fat. :) Maybe you are saying "oh my gosh, I can't believe Jenna took Ellie into such a place!" but the truth is, when I was pregnant with Ellie and praying about whether I should bring my 2 girls to the Philippines I had a picture of me carrying her into such places and her being used by God as a universal symbol of light and motherhood. She beams a smile so big and all the women knew I was there to love them. We would talk about breastfeeding and motherhood and they would share their journey and how much they miss their kids.
Last night was also the first time I came face to face with a girl who was dressed in full prostitute outfit but when you looked in her eyes you knew there was no way she was over 13. This is where the rage and fustration came in. I just prayed my guts out, tried to smile and love on them (again Ellie broke the language barrier!) Where are their moms? How will we tell them how precious they are? My heart is so broken, and yet so grateful to know them now and to be able to build relationship with them!
One of the prayer walk teams got to chat with one of the disco owners last night and he invited us to come and do medical checks and prenatals with the dancers of his club. Please be praying as we feel like this is a God connection and we are so eager to love on these women who are so use to just being used.