(NFSJ Cafe #4, March 21, 2016 at Musashino Place)

In Feb. of 2015, Willem Botes, a South African diplomat in Tokyo, started prayer walking in the red-light district of Dogenzaka on weekends. He shared with us what he’d learned from a year of praying against the dark sex industry in Japan.

He prayed mainly for the female victims of sexual exploitation, and also for the men who are involved on the business-side and those who support it as customers. He did so both daytime and often even in the middle of the night or dawn. During his prayer walking, he met many people including prostituted women. He was able to briefly talk with them which helped him understand their situations, and tried to share his hope in Christ with them. Sometimes when he encountered a woman for the 2nd time, she said she “remembered him and his God”.

Over the year, he made a prayer route stopping at various love hotels, shops selling women’s underwear or sex toys, clubs, and even a place where he suspected women were forced into performing in AV films. They’d come out crying and devastated. He then shared this information with his church’s ministry against human trafficking and led us to pray monthly the route on Sunday afternoons, when all was quiet. He saw answers to prayer, like some establishments closing.

I was very impressed with his commitment to pray against satanic symbols seen along the route and for the victims to be set free in Christ, who can break the chains of slavery.

Willem actually completed 91 consecutive weeks of prayer walking before returning to SA. He later shared some of his experiences and breakthroughs in his self-published book “The Miracle is to Walk on the Earth”. An ebook version is available for download at a cost of US $8.00 (proceeds go to missionaries in Japan).  https://payhip.com/b/zB2w?fbclid=IwAR1KkmgFRT3qUv2Ukv7mPkW50ieEvpyjsfSrR1jaokSNcd5LrPZ4dUjFEsI

（Bonnie Jinmon）