"Zona Norte is an official neighborhood as well as a red light district located in Tijuana, Mexico. It is the largest red-light district in North America known for its brothels, street prostitution, and illicit drug sales. Due to its proximity to San Diego, California, it is frequented by US citizens as well as locals. The district is also known La Coahuila for the name of the primary avenue that runs through it." (excerpt taken from Wikipedia)
Last Saturday we went prayer walking through Zona Norte. (for those of you who do not know what prayer walking is, it is basically walking and praying through an area.) Now, we prayer walk at Zone Kids which is when we go out into the Zona Norte neighborhood and gather kids to come to the program and basically just pray for people and the community. So I was pretty sure this is what we were in for, going to Zona Norte walking around praying and talking with prostitutes or whoever else we might find. We gathered at the prayer house here on base, worshiped, and prayed that we would be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and loaded up the van around 9 or 9:30 pm. We were off. Before we left, they went over the guidelines, rules on safety etc. for the night. They even said if you get overwhelmed we could leave. I remember thinking, "Who would get overwhelmed?"
When we got there I realized we weren't going to the neighborhood at all, we were going downtown. I hadn't been to downtown Tijuana yet so it was super exciting. It kind of looked like a mini Las Vegas only way more cheesy. Lots of clubs and really loud music everywhere. It was exhilarating. After we got out of the downtown to more of the side streets we began to run into more women on the streets. I was super intimidated. A homeless person or a kid is so much easier to talk to on the street, but these women were "working" and I felt like I was bothering them, a lot of times they were cold too, you could tell they didn't want to talk. We had to be careful anyways because they could get in trouble for talking instead of working.
As we went along, my friend Paula and I were just talking and walking when a lady grabbed her arm, and said "I remember you!" I assumed the lady did remember Paula because she had been going on prayer walks in the area before. Paula smiled and asked the lady how she was (she spoke English, praise God! I had prayed I would find someone who spoke English!) The lady very nonchalantly said "Well, this morning I got beat up." "Oh no! Are you okay? How did this happen?" "A customer picked me up last night and was high on drugs and he beat me up." She pointed to her jaw, shoulder and chest, "I am sore all through here, good thing there are no bruises." She went on to say how scared she was because she was at a different hotel than she normally works, she said she screamed for help but no one heard her. She pointed to the hotel that was behind her, "I normally work here. That way if something goes wrong I can call for help and I know people will hear me." Paula asked if we could pray for her, "Oh please! I have a son." she said. We prayed for her, all through our prayers she was so excited. "Please keep praying for me! Please keep going!" I was almost laughing! Not at her, but laughing with joy because of her enthusiasm. I really believe God appointed that meeting with her. After we walked away Paula said she had never met that woman and she didn't know why the lady said that she remembered her. I believe it was nothing less than the work of the Holy Spirit.
The night wasn't over yet though. We made our way through the final strip of the downtown area. I think it was the main strip because there were prostitutes lined up both sides of the block. I immediately felt my spirit change. It was super heavy in that place, I felt like my head was going to explode. I was just praying and praying and praying, Satan had a huge hold on this block especially. There were so many women, maybe like 50 or more just on the block.
As a girl probably about the age of these women we saw a lot was going through my head. The main thing I thought of was, self image. Most girls I know struggle with self esteem in one way or another. Imagine if your very job depended on how you looked, how you presented yourself? Nothing about who you are on the inside. Those very things are the things we as women worry and stress about. And I only stress about those things on a minimal level, what if my job depended on it? I would be in severe depression. Not to mention the competition. I would find myself thinking, "why her? why did that guy take her and not me?" Just the endless cycle of unworthiness, and not to mention if you do get a client, it's a lose-lose situation. You are either deemed unworthy or your sense of worth is taken from you.
We continued to walk and got to the corner that was heading back to the parking lot. I was trying really hard to just pray and not completely lose it when a girl came up from behind us and began to sort of flirt with one of the guys in our group. We quickly started a conversation with her. Her name was Tatiana and she was 19. I could tell on her face that she thought it was so weird for a bunch of us girls to suddenly be talking to her, I kind of felt weird too but it was worth it. She was clearly working however, and while we were talking she would pull guys off the sidewalk and flirt with them. It was terrible. Out of the corner of my eye I could see old bald men fawning over some very young looking girls. It was kind of awkward for us to be standing there while Tatiana talked to the man so we stepped away. I looked at my friend and couldn't hold it in. My friend Tania began to pray for me as the tears rolled down my face. I closed my eyes because behind us another girl was leading an old man into a car. It was so overwhelming, I didn't want to leave but I was not expecting to be taken over by so much emotion. When Tania finished praying for me, Tatiana was gone with the old man, and I felt like my heart broke.
I only felt these emotions on a small human-size level. How must God feel when he sees his beautiful daughters taken advantage of day in and day out? Some of them only get paid 60 or 70 pesos even half hour or hour which is like 5 or 6 dollars. If our hearts are breaking over this, how much more is our Heavenly Father's heart breaking?
- Please pray for Tatiana, that she would know how much God loves her. I am really praying I can find her again.
- Please pray for Gabriela, the woman who stopped Paula and I. Pray for her son too. A lot of kids get bullied in school when their mom's have this job.
- Pray for safety for all these women. It is a very dangerous job they have, violence is a daily threat for them.
- Pray for Tijuana! There needs to be a breakthrough. Satan shouldn't be allowed to have such a strong hold on this place, he doesn't have power here anymore.
