Lady Boys and Love

Part 3 in a series of our time being missionaries with Wipe Every Tear.

PC: Brian Johanson

I can’t say that I had given much thought to what a lady boy was before arriving in Angeles City, Philippines.  We were here with a bunch of middle age parents and our young adult children. Our purpose was to go out to the girly bars and invite those who are being prostituted to a safe house to live.  The girls are young and beautiful and victims of an industry that is hard to even fathom.  Wipe Every Tear gives them an opportunity to get an education, which will break these chains of poverty.

Victims that I hadn’t thought about are called “Lady Boys” (This is a term that they prefer).  Lady boys have been groomed since they were very young to be women… gorgeous women.  Many were taken off the streets, some sold by family members with too many children to feed, all too young to have any choice in the matter.  Like the girls they have had to endure countless degrading “dates”, used and abused, only to get up day after day and do it all over again.   Wipe Every Tear has a house just for the lady boys who choose to leave the only life that they can remember and get an education.  Meeting a few of them has challenged my thinking in so many ways.

In my own life, I have lived in the prison of performance – wearing the mask, playing the part, trying, trying, trying to look and say all the right things to be accepted.  Freedom came when I stopped looking at all the rules of religion and found my identity in the ONE who created me.  The same thing is happening in these sweet girls and lady boys as they are introduced to a relationship with Jesus – one without strings!  When Wipe Every Tear walks into the bars they have one mission:  Just Love.  The only “love” that they have ever known up to this point has been one of performance, one that does not last.  Jesus came to give life.  As I have been praying for these precious brothers and sisters in Christ I have been confronted with my own legalism and false doctrine.  We live in this broken complex world and yet I can want quick fixes that would only work as bandaids.  The Holy Spirit moving in and replacing all the lies one by one is the only hope for broken people.  God has been working on my life for over 20 years and He is still revealing truth to me.  The lie that I fight often is that I am not good enough.  Meeting these lady boys who are new in their relationship with Christ, seeing the freedom and joy they have, has transformed me in ways I never expected.  God has wanted me to know all along that he has only been interested in my heart!

I am confident that God will bring healing and a new identity to all of His children.  I’m praising Him for rescuing those who were lost… myself included.

God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.  I Samuel 16:7

• .Part 1 Unqualified
• Part 2 Chosen