Uncovering
the beauty at the bottom.

For nearly all Thai men’s entertainment workers, their job isn’t a career choice, but one from necessity and/or hurt. We started meeting and getting to know our first Thai bargirls on a visit in 2003, then more in 2004, and are still working to help them today. Getting started took some adjustment, to say the least.

Jim grew up on a farm in Illinois, Judy the child of missionaries in Argentina. We met at Wheaton College, having both been challenged away from middle-class comfort and safety. We got together as a couple via reaching out to chronic mentally ill and others in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood. Here we discuss our introduction as young adults past the usual hurdles of fear and discomfort, into the joy of caring for folks at the so-called bottom.