Two Monkeys

We received this cryptic message from our Cambodian Director the other day: “The little monkey is now at the safehouse with the big monkey; they are very happy.”

Insiders know what he’s talking about. Let me explain.

“Monkey” is the nickname of the girl that’s featured in our prison visit video. Perhaps you saw it at http://www.vimeo.com/15407704.

In that video, you see Monkey’s little sister. She was living at the prison where her mother is incarcerated for human trafficking of children.

It took the intervention of a human rights organization. But the “little monkey” has now been set free and is reunited with her big sister.

Currently, we are looking for a foster family in Cambodia to raise this precious little girl. Pray that we’ll be successful.

With the holiday season upon us, consider giving the gift of freedom. We are purchasing a $70,000 parcel of land for a permanent home for our second safehouse in Cambodia. We need $200,000 for land for our Thailand operations. And $180,000 is needed to start construction of the Cambodian facility. Every dollar you give to these projects is a long-term investment in freedom. And few gifts are more precious to give.

Flood Disaster

Special Message from Stephanie Freed, Executive Director


Hello friends—I am here in Cambodia with the Rapha House Kid’s Club Program Manager, Chris Wheeler. You will be hearing more about this prevention outreach project in the near future. In an effort to combat the selling of children into slavery, we have targeted an area of the capital city where children are highly trafficked. The slums of this district of the city are hard to describe. Thousands of people live in situations of extreme poverty and desperation. 
 
Yesterday morning, it began raining. This is not uncommon this time of year. It is the end of monsoon season here, and we often experience hard tropical downpours. The strange thing about this rain is that it did not stop. The storm lingered all morning, and we found it difficult to see while driving through the city on our way to the prevention project area. Before we knew it, we were driving through deep water. We noticed a current running through the water and realizing that the situation was growing dangerous, we pulled our small car off the street onto the higher ground of a gas station. Unable to sit in the car in the stifling heat, we exited to stand on the higher ground alongside hundreds of other people who were already mid calf deep in water. Just a few feet from us, down in the street, it had become a river where people were walking waist deep in water—evacuating with their belongings carried on their heads. This surreal scene escalated as we watched a baby in a large mixing bowl floating past, being navigated by his father.  his kind of flooding here in the streets of Phnom Penh has not occurred in more than ten years. 




We found ourselves trapped only for a few hours in this very unsanitary water which was a mix of rain, river and sewer, but many families in the city lost everything they owned—which was little to begin with. Many of the families we work with in our prevention project live in meager bamboo and cardboard homes which washed quickly away taking the little food that these families had. 
 
I know that I cannot adequately explain the desperation which many children in our area are facing right now. We are facing an emergency need for food and medicine. Please consider helping us in this real time of urgent need. Working in a grass roots effort, we will be able to get the food and medicine directly to the people who need it. 
 
Navigating mud and water yesterday, Chris and I walked down one alley where naked children begged us for something to eat. One mother carrying a baby approached us and, with tears in her eyes, thanked us for providing their family with some rice. Please help us be the hands and feet of Jesus to these desperate people.

Check It Out!

Our latest video

Prison Visit

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Sopheap: A Re-entry Success Story

I first met Sopheap many years ago on my first visit to Rapha House. She was living there with her siblings.

We didn't find Sopheap, she found us. She sought us out when her father was preparing to sell Sopheap's younger sister to traffickers. Maybe you remember seeing the story of Sopheap's sister. We showed her rescue on DVD.

Now Sopheap is living independently with her husband and son. She also cares for her younger brother and another sister who recently reintegrated from Rapha House.

Sopheap was our very first micro-credit project. She faithfully repaid her loan and owns a small clothing shop in the marketplace.

During my last trip to Cambodia, I approached Sopheap about becoming a wholesaler distributor to other business owners in her area. It seemed like a real opportunity for her and a good way to provide employment for our reintegrated girls, if this project succeeds.

We don't know if it will, but here's the latest. Sopheap took our seed money and went to Phnom Penh to shop for items that she thought business owners in her area may want. She returned home. And within two days, she had sold everything that she bought!

We're smart enough to know that one success doesn't build a business. But we're also smart enough to back a winner. Sopheap is a winner. So we're going to provide her with business coaching and the financial resources to see if we can build a wholesale distribution business that will provide economic opportunity for other reintegrated girls to come.

Want to get in on the action? Make a donation to Rapha House and mark it "Sopheap."

Religious Freedom at Rapha House

At Rapha House, we believe in religious freedom. All Rapha girls equally benefit from all our programs and services regardless of what they believe. We value religious freedom. And we practice religious freedom.

However, we understand that there is another side to the freedom coin. Our girls are also free to decide to become Christians, if that's what they want. And many choose to do so.

When they learn about the God who values them as women; when they learn about the incredible love that He has for them; when they learn that they did not cause their abuse, it had nothing to do with bad karma; then many Rapha girls choose freely to follow Christ. They learn that the Cross proves their tremendous value to God. The Cross shows how far the God of all creation will go to rescue them. And the Cross promises them a purity than no man can take from them. So our girls are freely drawn to God by the Cross of Christ.

During my most recent trip to Cambodia, I had the awesome privilege of participating in mass baptisms on two separate occasions. And during those events when hundreds of Cambodians freely chose to follow Jesus, some Rapha House girls and staff were included in that number.

Freedom is important to us because freedom is important to God.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1)

The Five Faces of Jonti

Five faces of the trafficked girl Jonti are represented in this artwork. It is a story of life and death.

The lower left background face is obscured by the large foreground image of Jonti. The obscured face represents that portion of Jonti's life hidden from our view when she was a flower girl in Thailand and worked as a beer girl in a karaoke bar in Cambodia.

As a flower girl, she woke up at six in the morning and began selling flowers to tourists and men in nightclubs and bars. She worked all day and early into the morning of the next day, subsisting on one bowl of noodles a day. About three in the morning, she would then go to bed, only to arise again at six o'clock to start her workday over.

The Thai authorities arrested Jonti and put her in jail. She was nine years old. Upon her release, she was gang-raped at knifepoint by three teens.

Eventually, she returned to Cambodia and was sold by her mother to a karaoke bar. There she worked as a beer girl, serving drinks and servicing men.

Jonti's smiling face in the upper left corner of the art piece is from a photo taken of her after she arrived at Rapha House, where she experienced safety and her first glimmer of hope. But as your eye follows her image clockwise, her face deteriorates. Despite our best efforts, Jonti did not emerge from her woundedness and returned to the streets.

The foreground image is from a photo taken by the artist when he found her on the streets again. She was invited to enter our extension program. But again, she slipped away.

Her body eventually gave out. Her parents took her to a hospital in Vietnam. And her last words are seen faintly in the lower right-hand corner of the art piece—God help me.

Her mother tells the story of Jonti's death. It was early in the morning. Jonti's father was in the room with her. Jonti began speaking. Her father called to the mother to come. "Listen," he said as Jonti faintly cried, "God help me" and then died. She was seventeen years old.

Embedded in this artwork is a cross. It represents hope in this tragic story. One is reminded of the occasion when Jesus granted grace to the dying thief on the cross. He had done nothing to merit salvation but was welcomed into God's kingdom that very day simply by turning to Christ and asking for help.

Jonti now rests beyond the reach of any perpetrator.

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See the original artwork at our gallery in Joplin, Missouri. Visit www.freedomforgirls.org for times.

You may purchase Rapha House a 16" x 21" signed limited edition aluminum print, mounted for hanging for $200.

Religion At Rapha House

People often say that all religions are essentially the same. But think how that sounds to the ears of a girl at Rapha House.

Take the eastern doctrine of karma, for instance—the inexorable law of cause and effect. So what does karma say to a Rapha girl? You got what you deserved. It was because of some sin from this or a past life that caused your abuse. The explanation is karma. So ultimately you're to blame for your own suffering.

Imagine when a Rapha girl hears about the God of love—the God who values her and is willing to die in order to rescue her. How might that sound to her ears?

It's no wonder that many Rapha girls freely decide to follow Jesus. We don't require any Rapha girl to convert to Christianity in order to benefit from our services. As a matter of fact, even the girls who don't become Christians receive the same care, education, and opportunity as those that do.

This is certain at Rapha House. Respect for others and equality of treatment are important to us. But we understand that not all religions are essentially the same. Differences do make a big difference.