Getting ourselves organized.

This afternoon I headed out to have a look at our other building project. Actually a remodeling project. The Transitional life Skills program is a program that gives girls seeking the leave the sex industry skills that will provide them an income and in the long run work that will be a blessing to them rather than destroying them. (There is SO much more to this program but I wont re write it all here – see project description on website) Ratanak is funding the refurbishing of an old shop building into a store front for the products made by the girls in the program, Clothing, bags table runners and wall hangings are among the many products. In addition the girls are being trained in food preparation and will operate a small café/ tea room (An English version of a coffee house!) on the upper floor.

The interesting and unique thing about this new venture is that there will be a display and education center teaching tourists about Child exploitation and sex slavery issues. This is the first public educational project of its kind in the country. The Shop is superbly situated right beside the national museum and fine arts training center. It's on a street unofficially called “Art St.” since it is full of painting and carving shops. It is a great place popular for tourists. It is hoped that it will act as a retail outlet for the product produced by the girls as well and a training center as they serve the public.

The building is nearing completion and the move in/opening should be within a month, I think. Two women from Ontario, with lots of business savvy and experience, arrived yesterday to assist with set up management training etc. They will be followed shortly by the two building finishing teams that will be working in Svay Pak. Beth (Ratanak Strategic planning – Ontario) is already on the ground here doing orientation and setting things up to facilitate the teams as they work.

Meanwhile Sotheary (Project manager – Cambodia) and me are making sure things run smoothly with the film crew. And Stew and Sue Mckecher (Ratanak Reps Saskatchewan) are here for several months doing orientation and training of new reps working with new reps… so things are pretty busy.

With all of this activity it is easy to forget the spiritual side of things… you would think. Well, not right now. We are dealing with very considerable spiritual issues that leave us with no doubt at all re the principalities and powers with which we contend. There is a need for you all to be praying for our safety and protection as we move forward in what is very clearly an extremely spiritually hostile environment right now.

So we push on seeing the hand of evil all around yet over and over again being witness to Gods changing power in lives. We are privileged to work under the shadow of Gods wing as he moves forward into the darkness.

Update on "L"

Re up date on "L".
"L" is one of the original child victims of a Canadian pedophile for which many of you have prayed for years. She has developed into a wonderful and charming young woman of faith. She is on the leadership committee chosen by the girls in the rehabilitation / foster care program. She has come so far. Our intention was to have the film crew accompany her up the Siem Reap where she and the other girls are going to do a community development project on Saturday. I am just amazed by these kids!

Anyway, "L" regained consciousness in hospital last night and one of the first things out of her mouth was " I'm still going to Siem Reap". These kids are my heros! I still don't have info on her diagnosis or if she will in fact head north on Saturday. But things sound a bit less worrying - at least she is responsive. So please continue to pray for her. It seems like there are problems at every turn right now . Pray for safety and protection for all of us.

More later
Thanks. Brian.

Urgent prayer request.

Ok so the video is not up loading - not that I am shocked.
Meetings today planning the filming of the documentary. All went well. We are working to tell the story of what is happening here while still protecting the identity of the smaller kids the dignity of the older ones who wish to participate. Its s a careful and delicate balance.

Prayer requests.
URGENT – Pray for “L”. Wonderful Christian girl . Likely to be one of the key girls in the documentary. After our morning where we discussed her she, this evening, has suddenly fallen seriously ill. Got a call about 20 min ago indicating she is in hospital unconscious- staff are very concerned.

Also Don the director of NewSong is incapacitated with back pain. He is really struggling and has not slept for days.
We are feeling very attacked!
Please pray for us.
B.

Arrived safely.

Arrived hare safely. Got our stuff unpacked. Went to Lucky market to get some food to keep in our hotel rooms.
Beth Lauer, our strategic planner from Ontario, arrived on the same flight to start prep and set up for three Ratanak teams arriving in Mid march through to mid April.

I took Cheryl and Mike, the reporter and cameraman, out on a quick Tuk Tuk tour of Phnom Penh so they could get oriented. Then out for supper with the Ratanak admin/training team. Now off to bed. Sorry for such a dull blog but I can hardly keep my eyes open.
Blessings.More tomorrow.

Brian.

New Sanctuary Renovation Photos: Update

The Sanctuary renovations are taking shape and you can start to really see the different rooms - classrooms and main sanctuary - being finished in these pictures! If you scroll down to January 11th, you can see how far the building has come along from the last update pictures.

The Khmer Mind

Do not think you can see into a Khmer's mind. You can't. A few examples:

1. Many streets of Phnom Penh are narrow, just enough room for 2 cars to meet if there are cars parked at the curb. From 4 P.M. to 10 or so the no. of cars, motos, tuk tuks, wagons and street vendors is unbelievable. SO-- you would think that drivers would try to facilitate the flow of traffic. NOT SO. A guy in a car will come along and stop in the street right beside a parked car ( we call it double parking ) even though there is a parking space 1 car length ahead. He then proceeds to leave his car there for as long as it takes him to do his business at a store immediately beside him. This stops all traffic going one way and things back up and back up and back up. The funny thing is no one thinks this is stupid.

2. We went to a project the other day for a 9A.M. appointment. Upon entering the building a very nice young Khmer receptionist asked us who we wanted to see. We said " Helen ". Helen is the director of the project. We were asked to sit down. We waited and waited and waited- finally, 40 minutes later, the receptionist got up came over and said to us " Helen is not in today ". Go figure why we couldn't have been told this at the start.

3. One night about 5:30 or so fire sirens started howling, people living on our street began to come out on the road and look down the street. A firetruck went barrelling by followed by at least 30 motos. It seems some people left their home and then a small fire began in their house. Of course, the gate to the house grounds was securely locked. The firemen tried to force the gate but couldn't. They shot water over the fence and through the window and managed to put out whatever was burning. Sotheary, our landlady, told us that it was a good thing the firemen couldn't get into the house. It seems that people wait around and when the fire is put out they go in and loot the place. Oh, you know how in N. America firemen have " turnout gear " they put on when they go to a fire. Well, here the turnout gear is a rubber jacket, a hard hat, a pair of shorts and flip flops.

4.One often thinks of the Khmer people as quiet, always smiling and never angry. Not necessarily so.There is a small market behind the CAMA hospital in Poipet where Dr. Kent Copeland worked before he went on furlough. It seems that one day a lady lay down in another sellers hammock. The seller did not take kindly to this and called in some " friends " with knives and swords to teach the offending lady a lesson. The lady's husband grabbed a meat cleaver to defend his wife. One of the assailants was quite large so the husband went after him first. The husband sliced the big guy's thorax and neck and sliced of a big chunk of his elbow. This guy was going to die. Kent, a visiting doctor and Kent's wife ( a trauma nurse ) got there in time, took the patient to the hospital, did surgery on him, gave several units of blood to him and saved him. Needless to say all the market people now refer to the Doctors as " good people who care for us ".

5. Last Sunday we were at a church service and a baby was being dedicated. Just about the time the pastor was going to charge the parents to bring this child up properly, people began to swivel in their seats and look towards the back of the church. We looked back, couldn't see anything, but did smell some smoke. At this time two ushers walked quickly to the front of the church, picked up a big red fire extinguisher, carried it to back, went down an isle shoving people aside, aimed this big extinguisher at the ceiling tile and sent out a hugh billowing blast of white stuff. YIKES- this billowing cloud began to spread through the church and deposit a white covering on people, the floor and chairs. At the same time many people were having some distress breathing. Needless to say the congregation beat a hasty retreat out onto the street, some of the darker skinned people had become white caucasians. Now I'm not a fire specialist but I do know that the contents of these extinguishers are to be aimed at the BASE of a fire, not willy nilly, anywhere. Oh well, 15 minute later we were told to go back in the church and the service resumed. We never did hear what caused the smoke. The baby did finally get dedicated.

A final little story about myself. The Khmer tuk tuk drivers think that I'm a comedian. Twice now I've made arrangements to have a tuk tuk go to the airport. Both times I've been able to communicate about the pickup time and the pickup place ( maung moiy { one o'clock }, knyom pataay { my house}), but not knowing the word for " airport " I spread my arms and pretend to fly around the road. Both drivers have almost fallen on the ground laughing.?????? They know exactly what I mean.

More in a couple of weeks. Stew

Georgia's Perspective

My name is Georgia Johnstone - Ratanak rep from Vernon, BC. I'm here for two weeks to put a face to names and places of projects we fund so when I speak to groups I have a first-hand account of them. It has been a very positive and enlightening (and hot) experience. I visited TASK - a facility which gives a great deal of help to mentally and physically challenged kids and their caregivers. These are children who would possibly have been abandoned due to disabilities as there is such a stigma attached - they receive physio, newborn care, nutrition counselling, a school and follow-up visits in their village.

Next it was on to CC2 - the prison for women and youth. We went out with Prison Fellowship who is doing the most amazing job of working with all of them. It is minimum security but still behind tall walls/razor wire. There were two English classes going on - one Bible study - a mechanics class - one inmate painting dirty black cement walls a light colour with a garden underneath - all thanks to Prison Fellowship Cambodia. I cannot tell you how impressed I am with the faith and dedication of the Kmer people. They love the Lord, serve him gladly and have a faith that would move mountains. Their eyes light up and their smiles are wide when they explain, with a passion, the ministry they are involved in.

We visited Svay Pak - the notorious brothel area and to see three buildings that were either existing brothels or future brothels now being used as Kids Club, church, medical clinics and schools is so uplifting. Pastor Chantha is an amazing man who is dedicating his life to this area and keeping the little girls safe - Praise God for men and women like him.

I have been out to Place of Rescue - an orphanage an hour away where my husband and I support a boy. Was so wonderful to see the kids again and I will go again today to take him a treasured toy and to say goodbye for this visit. This is my third time to Cambodia and hopefully more to come.

We have just returned from a visit to Chab Dai - an organization that has a couple of purposes but a huge part is prevention of sexual exploitation of children from the villages in all provinces of this country. They train locals in the village about what to watch for - the tricks of the trade the traffickers use when trying to get new children - who to call and how to teach the parents to be aware and careful who they talk to. Very impressive, as again, it is the Kmer people being empowered to care for their own. I was very moved by the Kmer lady, Sokah as she explained their education program. Chab Dai offers intervention, rescue, after care, legal help, human rights advocacy etc. with a hotline that local leaders can access. Foreigners do not go on these trips to the village - locals need to own it and it works!!

I leave on Thurs. will a head full of new information and a very grateful heart to Stew and Sue for all the work and time they have put in to educating me - I so look forward to telling folks at home about all I've seen and heard. Please pray for them, for this country and all the people, foreign and domestic, who are pouring their hearts into literally saving the beautiful children of Cambodia.

God Bless - in His name

Georgia