Back in the Bode Again

"Take it easy. Take it EASY!" Came from an overly anxious Bella sitting on the back if my moto as we drove through the streets of Siem Reap doing outreach. This was quickly followed by a quiet chorus of "Oh please don't kill me. Oh you're going to kill us..." As you can imagine, her confidence in my driving abilities is overwhelming.
Okay, yes I almost tipped us over once, but in my defense, we had a dog chasing us down the road jumping up and trying to bite us. And what help do I receive as I am trying to steer us to safety? Bella flailing around on the back of my moto yelling "It's going to bite us!!!!!" As she kicks her legs up repeatedly kicking my arm controlling the steering. But yeah, sure, I'm the one going to kill us...
Coming back from being home in the states for Christmas has had its moments. You know, it's 'This is awesome and I'm so happy to be back!' moments and of course the 'Oh my goodness I'd forgotten how scary driving in Cambodia is' moments. Well, followed by the "We might die right now" came an incredible afternoon.
For those that don't know, or have forgotten what I do, here's the short of the long of it. I work in Siem Reap building relationships with girls in the community that are currently working in brothels (aka karaoke clubs and massage parlors.) My job is to help girls in the community come to know about and trust our facility (Rahabs House) so that if a girl wants help getting out of sex trafficking she knows she can come to us and we will help in whatever way most beneficial to her particular situation. So most everyday, one of our awesome Khmer staff, Bella, and myself go out to foster these relationships.
After our harrowing drive to one of the massage parlors we frequent, we were met with an ecstatic group of massage girls. Armed with fruit we walked over to join the thirty plus girls sitting around tables. Several asked where I had been for so long and others kept saying how happy they were to see me again. Since building trust can be very challenging in the Khmer culture, I cannot even express to you the extreme joy I felt at being surrounded by so many loving girls.
We sat around and talked, ate fruit and yes I'll admit it, danced and sang (quiet loudly I might add) to One Direction. ( The best part of course being that the girls recorded me singing and dancing...always a joy to have those embarrassing moments documented.)
Fast forward a few hours. We've long since left the massage parlor and are passing out fliers that night to the karaoke club near us to let girls know about a party coming up.
We strategically go into the club just after the bulk of the girls arrive, and just before the bulk of the johns come. Usually we are admitted to pass out fliers and told to hurry up. This time, we weren't told to hurry. In fact the "ice moms" that usually sell the girls and are the ones who admit or don't admit us in, engaged us in conversation! When we went inside, a girl ran up to me and gave me the biggest hug and had apparently been asking everyday when I would be back. As we stood there hugging, some men came in for girls. My heart sunk. We were in SO much trouble. We are NEVER supposed to be in there while there are customers. If we see them, we've already messed up. And here we were, in the middle of the room with girls surrounding us.
But God was so good! Not one girl near us made a move to get the attention of the men (as is their job) and none of the guys seemed to even notice our presence. As a result, the manager and the "ice moms" didn't care we were there while customers were there. When we tried to leave, all the higher up staff stopped us so we could chat and catch up!
I could not believe it! For the staff and girls of both the karaoke club and the massage parlor to be so open and so eager to engage in relationship with us during work hours is truly a testament to how God is slowly turning some of the hearts in this community.
I was so blessed by the whole day I wanted to cry! Fortunately I didn't because if I had I probably would have crashed us and then Bella would never get on my moto again and then where would we be?