Update Letter

So I was asked to post my most recent update letter, so here it is. I know it's got some repeat information, but I hope it's not boring!

Well, even though Rahab’s House has been here and opened for almost eight months now, we are still trying to develop trust within the community. Right now, we go to one of the local karaoke clubs every week day and hang out with them while they play cards. We were hoping that by just hanging out with them we would be able to develop a sense of trust and show they that we don’t want anything from them. After three months of going almost every week day, we learned something very very important: the girls at the clubs think we hang out with them and bring them food because we are trying to bribe them into coming to our salon. When we found this out, I have to tell you, it was a bit of a shock. It really took me aback that after all this time, we had no idea that our attempt to give them cheaper (and slightly better) hair and make-up was being translated in their minds as a bribe.  So we decided to come up with a new plan where we invited the girls to a corner restaurant and bought them lunch, just an opportunity to talk with them.

Last week, we had a team from Korea visiting, and in attempt to get them involved in some outreach, we held our first karaoke lunch. We ordered enough food for forty people, but to be honest, the Khmer staff and I really thought that was really wishful thinking. But God was really good! We ended up having so many girls and their kids come during the course of two hours that we ran out of food. At first it made me nervous that we ran out of food, and was pretty sure that we would have some angry karaoke girls on our hands but they ended up being fine with it. Most of them sat down and ordered a drink so they could hang out with us. A few made jokes and left, but on the whole, everyone was really receptive to the whole thing. At the end, the girls were requesting food for next time. Next time! A week ago they thought we were trying to bribe them (and I’m sure some still do) and now they were trying to make plans for another hang out. Words cannot even begin to describe my excitement.

Since the community is still trying to decide whether or not they trust us, it has been exciting to watch the little progress every week. A month ago we had one message parlor that did not want us going onto their campus. After meeting the owner, he gave us open access to the message parlor and even helped facilitate classes for the girls while the team was in town. We’re hoping he will allow us access twice a week on his campus to teach English so we can reach more girls. One of the other message parlors has always been welcoming to a point. They allowed us to host monthly lunches on their campus, but last week the manager was recommending that the girls come to our salon and actually came in herself! That was huge. Finally there was one message parlor that would never grant us access to even pass out fliers for our clinic. We’ve always been turned away. They would take maybe 6-8 fliers and say they would pass out them to the girls, but that there weren’t many there, and then ask us to leave. Last week one of the managers seemed so annoyed that we were back, he let us go see the girls. I was expecting maybe twenty, after all they always told us there weren’t many. When we got in back there were close to fifty or sixty girls. They were shocked and excited to see us. I was stunned. I had no idea that it was such a big operation. When we were getting ready to leave one of the managers flagged us down. She was usually the one that rejected us, so I was expecting to get in trouble. Instead of getting angry, she asked when the next clinic would be and asked us to come back and let her know when it was so she could go.

There has been an outbreak here that has been killing children under the age of seven. As a result, most schools have shut down. Although they’ve figured out what was killing the children, and a vaccination, the schools are still closed. About three weeks ago, we had a different team from Korea visiting. While they were here, we had a large number of children start coming to their classes. We figured it must be related to the outbreak. After asking around, that’s not the case. These kids live near us, or a kids of karaoke girls and have nothing to do during the day. So we thought we’d see how things panned out. Well, it’s been three weeks since the kids started coming and they are growing in number, even without the teams, they are coming. Children we have never seen are suddenly here. And not like five or ten, we’re talking thirty or more. We’ve been talking on and off about starting a Kids’ Club since I got here; it’s good for the community, most of the karaoke girls have at least one child- why not? Well, to be honest, we really don’t have the means to maintain one. Things have changed within the last three weeks though. With the kids coming every day, even without a team, we decided we needed to do something. So as of this morning one of our Khmer staff and two of our girls that don’t go and study in the mornings are now running a Kids’ Club for an hour half every morning.  Since I am in charge of everything school related and outreach, I am working to help the girls get this up and running. With really no notice, the girls did a great job with the kids today, and we are working on a plan for the rest of the week. I think it’ll be good. It’s going to take some time to get it all in place, but then I think it will be good.

Wow. I know that is kind of a lot. I tried to condense. Sorry it is so much. I really need to be better about writing more often.

There is so much going on, and so much changing. God is good and He is faithful, but honestly it’s exhausting. A week ago, I was in tears about all the changes. Don’t get me wrong, I love to see how God is moving, but with such little staff, and such limited finances, it’s a little overwhelming sometimes. Since our American house mom has moved back to the states, there have been adjustments to the new house moms. During the day, the girls were coming to me with their questions while I was trying to teach the English classes. Trying to manage the girls, their schedules, market runs, drama in the house, outreach to the three different message parlors and the karaoke club and preparing for/interacting with the visiting teams and teach  has been a little overwhelming. I kept being reminded that it was all temporary, but that is a lot of temporary things at once. But God is good, and things in the house are calming down. The girls have more structure which helps, the teams are gone, and we’re getting into a rhythm with the outreach. So that is all good. And I’ve started going to bed earlier, which is really good. J

If you’ve made it this far into this letter, thank you. Sorry it’s so long. So let me wrap this up for you.

Our director, Steve, and his wife, Lygia, will be moving back to the states in November. We already have his replacement, Laura and she is amazing! We get along well and I think we will work well together. But if you could be in prayer for other staff we are going to be hiring. We are looking to hire counselors, teachers, and we’re going to be opening a training facility and a home for the girls so we will need not only locations for both of those facilities, but staffing for them.

Also, we have two girls that need heart surgery. One of them is part of our staff. Because of the type of surgery, they both need to go to Thailand for the operations. The girl in our program has known for most of her life that she has a hole in her heart, and the funds for her surgery are almost all raised. But Sauvry (our staff) was just diagnosed about two weeks ago. If you wouldn’t mind praying not only for the funds for her surgery, but for her as she is still trying to process all of this.