Transformed, inside and out...

This trip I decided to take a step back from the street work as my main focus this time round is to be in the communities. There are quite a few SAW’s (Serve Asia Workers, like me) here at the moment and all of them are involved with SO (Sinilikway Outreach, the street-based part of work here) so there isn’t the need for me to be as involved as I was last time. But I decided to still join SO on Wednesday and Friday nights when they go out on the streets so last Friday was my first visit since I’ve been back. We headed out in the MUPT jeepney around 9.30pm, after the team meeting, and parked up in one of the back streets.

Our first stop of the night was to visit the MIST (Men In Sex Trade) who work on the corner of Illustre Street. These are straight guys, some even have wives and children, who work as call boys. There were only a few of the usual group on the street corner so we chatted with them for a while then headed down to Jollibee (the Filipino version of McDonalds) where some of the street youth tend to gather. There were around 8 young boys, maybe 10-12 years old, hanging out so we talked with them for a bit and they laughed at us while we danced to some loud music that was playing. From there we walked down to the park, where the homeless families live, and spent about half an hour chatting and invited them to a dvd viewing at the team centre on Monday, they’re going to be showing the Passion of the Christ. The SO team pick them up from the park and drive them to the centre where they hang out, have snacks, watch the film and then talk about it after.

Around 11pm the team walked up to the street corner where the GIST (Gays In Sex Trade) ply for trade. It was a busy night and around 12 of the GIST were there, some who I recognised and some who I hadn’t seen before. They guys I knew all pranced over to welcome me back and there was much air-kissing and laughing as we exchanged news. They call me Britney Spears (I think from her fat days in rehab!) and we were just talking about her when a big black 4x4 pulled up and two of old the girls (guys) I knew hopped out. Thinking men in the car were customers I didn’t really turn around but the guys, one white, one Filipino, got out of the car too and seemed to know some of our team. The driver, an American, introduced himself and said they were from a church in town who also do a lot of street work. Not customers at all! A young Filipino guy, got out of the back of the car and I did a double-take as I recognised him as one of the GIST whom I’d known pretty well from before! But gone was the long hair, short skirt and make up and in front of me was young guy in jeans and T-shirt with short hair and glasses! The transformation was amazing! The GIST always dress as females (or She-Males as they call themselves), even during the daytime so we never see them dressed as guys. As the former-She-male (I’ll call him XY), chatted with his GIST friends I talked with the driver, an American guy, (I’ll call him Steve) he told me how they’d been working on the streets with the GIST for a while sometimes the GIST even went to their church. I bet that created a bit of a stir… How many churches would be able to cope with a bunch of gay, cross-dressing teenage boys coming to a Sunday morning service? Food for thought indeed…

One day, shortly after I’d gone back to the UK, XY had turned up on Steve’s doorstep in floods of tears and had sat in his front room sobbing, Steve didn’t go into the reasons but he said that XY had had a pretty traumatic life. He listened to XY and asked him what he wanted to do. XY said he didn’t want to be this way any more and wanted to change, that he wanted to accept Jesus Christ as his saviour and be changed. Steve said to XY that if that was what he wanted he should go ahead and do it, so he did! They next day he was filled with the Holy Spirit and the day after that he was baptised, XY cut his hair, stopped wearing make up and started living as a guy, and here he was, on the streets on a Friday night, just like before, only this time not working, just with a bible, chatting with his old workmates. The transformation was amazing and his face just shone. I was almost speechless…

I spoke with XY after I spoke with Steve, I was so pleased to see him! I think he was the GIST that I’d spent most time with on my last trip, I’d been a bit disappointed when we’d got to the street corner and he wasn’t there so it made it even better! The difference in XY physically couldn’t have been more different if he’d had grown a second head and turned blue! The XY I’d known before looked like a girl (more convincingly than most), was self-conscious, quite shy and always seemed a bit worried (he had every right to be, the GIST are often abused, verbally and physically) The good-looking guy that stood before me wore no make up, had short hair and a quiet confidence and sense of self-assurance. We hugged (it felt weird hugging a guy out here, it’s very different to hugging a guy dressed as a girl!) and grinned at each other while he told me how he was now, how he was still the same person, just different. But happy…

I’ve been thinking about XY a lot this week, how he’s been transformed, inside and out. How his decision to accept Christ in his life has made such massive changes, not just in his appearance, but in every aspect of his life. He’s completely walked away from his old life, stopped working in the sex trade, no longer lives and dresses as a woman, and now lives in a house run by the church. He goes back to the street corner every week to see his old friends and old work-mates, but this time with a bible instead of lipstick… It blows me away… It’s just like when Jesus called the disciples, they were fishermen, sitting with their nets, and Jesus said to them ‘Follow me’ and they left their nets and followed him.

It also makes me wonder what kind of church it is that can accept someone so very different and love them just as Jesus would have done. I think I might like to go there and see for myself. What kind of church welcomes these people that dress as women and sell themselves on the street, spends time with them, doesn’t judge them, clothes them, feeds them and finds a safe place for them to stay? And not just the ones that come to know Christ. That sounds like the kind of church I’d like to be in…

But, in spite of all the happiness and excitement that I feel for XY as he starts his new life, I can’t help but feel a real sadness. I know that XY’s case is exceptional. I know that for every XY there are so many others that won’t have the same opportunity to walk away from the sex trades, that necessity/ poverty will keep them there. It’s so hard to imagine what it must be like for them, the MIST especially, to have no choice but to sell yourself on the streets in order to feed yourself and your family. I thank God (and with a newfound gratefulness) that I’ve never been in that position. That I’ve never had to worry where my next meal was coming from, or if there was going to be a next meal. I’ll never know that kind of desperation. But my heart grieves for them…

I know that XY’s life isn’t perfect now, I know that moving off the streets and changing his appearance is just the first step, that there’s still going to be struggles, hardships and it’s not going to be easy. But he took that step of faith, and the real transformation is only just beginning…

Doing this kind of work throws up so many questions, and constantly challenges the way that I think. For most of the questions I don’t have the answers, but I’m leaning that it’s OK not to know or always understand. Some of the questions and situations you come across you just have to wrestle with. The absolutes that I thought I knew back home just don’t seem to apply here, the game is different, the rules are different and the players are just trying to do the best they can.