We want to wish all women a Happy Mother’s Day! To those who have children, those who have adopted or fostered children and those who have not raised children in their homes but have had a major encouraging impact on those who needed to feel a mother’s love, thank you for all you do to bring love, hope, kindness, compassion and encouragement to the future generations.

People may not know what you do or have done, but God knows and great are your blessings. Praying women around the world feel God’s pleasure and love. To those who struggle, who may feel lonely or depressed about past mistakes or neglect, God will make it good. He can do anything, has done everything to show you HE will make a way, HE will make it good, just turn to Him. Have faith. We send our love and gratitude across the miles from sunny, rainy, hot Cambodia.

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! You have set Your glory above the heavens.” Psalm 1:1

PRAISES

-Our God is majestic and above all holy, pure and good.
-Don and the team from Northwest Christian University with the leadership of Troy & Dawn Dean arrived safely yesterday. Good to see old friends here again. They came bearing tons of supplies, talents and gifts. Thank you!
-The girls at the Agape Training Center ( ATC) are loving their work, Ken sent some new samples in with Don for them to try. We will be adding to the staff there within the next few weeks. Pray God brings the right girls and staff to grow this project of hope and life. The girls are thrilled to be able to bring their babies to work with them where they will be well cared for, one less thing for them to have to worry about.
-We have a new roof on Rahab’s House 1 which was tested by a huge storm just as it was completed. It passed the test, everyone slept dry and well that night.
-The girls staying at Rahab’s House 1 have a TV now to watch and practice their worship and traditional dance rountines by.
-A teen girl who lives about a km up Rt 5 told Dr. Carla, ” I thank God for what He has done through Rahab’s House. Before I would never come to Svay Pak for anything, this was a dangerous place, no good happened here. Now I can walk down the street and come here to study English, Khmer, computer, keyboard. I would never think this could happen here.” She had to quit school to take care of her family when her mom and dad died a few years back. She is now able to pick up her schooling where she left off. She has hope to improve her circumstances. She always has a big smile, shyly darting about the building going to different classes. Thank you, God.
-Isaac is feeling better, there has been a terrible flu going around. Now some teachers have it. Please pray they feel better fast. In this heat and humidity, it feels so worse.
-The school in SP has hired 17 new staff and adding classes to accommodate all the kids who are so excited to come to school everyday. I and hear them now, loudly -yet a lovely sound- yelling….I mean repeating their lessons. They are so little, such a big noise!
-Chim’s daughters wedding was very beautiful and fun. Praying their marriage is a blessed one. Being a chef, Chim made sure the food and service was amazing! That’s how she, Nary, and the moms and girls that make the meals at ARC do it every day. ARC one of the best places to eat in Cambodia, as well as RHSP, Bunthan and team deliver same great food served with love .
- The Pink Room is being accepted at more film festivals, one being in Ireland. Nefarious has been released for purchase.
-Ratanak Foundation is having our swamp in the back of the 2 Rahab Houses drained, reconfigured for drainage and filled in with clean dirt so will be a usable space. It’s rousting out some rather large rats and snakes, please pray they stay out of the houses and there are no injuries from bites or falls as it’s turning into a really large pit. The sidewalks that were around ti have fallen in as well as part of the large patio section we recently added to help enlarge the kitchen at Rahab’s 2. When the work is done it will be a great usable space for the community as well as ridding us of a big health hazard.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving present your requests to God.” Philippians 4:6

PRAYER POINTS

-God knows exactly what we need, so we pray He will see to it that we receive. We have been blessed by God with more than we ever hoped or asked for. Initially we prayed in 5 years to have one ARC with 24 girls. Look at all He is doing here! Praise be to God.
-It is yet again another holiday in Cambodia, celebrating the King’s birthday. Please pray for travel mercies and the schedule rotations so everyone has time off, cooperation, patience, grace.
-Clay will be speaking a Bethel Church this week end in WA. They are launching their anti trafficking awareness and justice campaign.
-As always, prayer for our older teens and reintegrated girls. For the team at RHSP ( Rahab’s House Siem Reap). Word is getting out…don’t let your working girls go to RH, they go for make up or shampoo or study, then they want to quit karaoke work! YES, thank you God. We need to get prepared quickly with excellence for the girls leaving. They need counseling, education, jobs. We want to get another ATC ( Agape Training Center) in Siem Reap very soon. We don’t want them to feel the only recourse is back to the karaoke club and slavery, hence our Father’s Day campaign, Raise Her Ransom. We cannot place a price on their lives nor do we foster paying off the brothel and karaoke managers for their release, but it does cost to keep them out of slavery once they have been rescued or fled. Once we get connected with these children and young ladies there is a cost to provide food, clothes, shelter, counseling, education, medical care, job training, assisting the families of survivors to protect the younger ones at home, etc. There is a price to pay financially, emotionally, time wise, etc.
-For unity within the ministires and staff, all for God’s glory.
-For several sick and needy family, staff and friends.
-For God’s wisdom and strength in all we do to serve Him and His people here and there.
-For the leadership here and USA, for God’s encouragement, wisdom and strength to be clearly evident.
-For evil to be bound from all AIM ministries, staff, girls, families, supporters, prayer partners, the other NGO work partners, churches, everyone.
-Several confidential requests.

Thank you for your faithfulness, kindness and generosity to what God is doing through AIM. Praying you feel His pleasure with you in a powerful way this week.

Bridget Brewster

Oak Hills Church, Folsom, CA

1100 Blue Ravine Road  Folsom, CA 95630

Join leaders in the Greater Sacramento Area to take up the issue of child exploitation and strategize it’s demise.

Speakers from Agape International Missions, Run 4 Courage and The XY Project will galvanize local men to engage your heart and your hands to fight modern day slavery. Connect with other men who are battling for the innocent.

A MUST for our 2000 men enlisted to Raise Her Ransom!

Run For Courage

The XY Project

The Grace Network

Featuring AIM’s Clayton Butler,

speakers from International Justice Mission and Shared Hope International

with Special Guest Poet and Musician Micah Bournes

and human trafficking survivor Khurshida Begum

…and the unveiling of SOLD human trafficking walk-through exhibit

View the schedule below for times and registration information!

FRIDAY MAY 11th Community/Bethel Event

7:00pm, Bethel Fellowship Hall

Clayton Butler Agape International Missions “Solution Resolution: Committing to be God’s answer to Injustice” w/ Special Guest Micah Bournes

SATURDAY MAY 12th City-Wide Men’s Breakfast
8:00am, Bethel Fellowship Hall

Mike Hogan-IJM/Clayton Butler-AIM
Registration REQUIRED: http://richland.bethel-church.org/blog/ministries/men/ Community/Bethel Event

6:00pm, Bethel Main Auditorium

Linda Smith, Founder and President Shared Hope International
w/ Special Guest Micah Bournes

SUNDAY MAY 13th Bethel Church Worship Services

9:00/11:00am, Main Auditorium

Mike Hogan International Justice Mission “The Unfamiliar Passions of God” w/ Special Guest Micah Bournes

She applied herself in her academic studies because she wanted to learn to read the Bible.  Not only did she learn to read it, but she began to memorize it. She learned the entire chapter of I Corinthians 13, and recited it at morning devotions.

“Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” 1Corinthians13:6-7

Mi continued to apply herself and was selected to enter vocational training at Bloom Café, a bakery and coffee house where ARC graduates can gain life skills and make a living. Now she creates beautiful cakes, and has even created cakes for the Prime Minister and the King.

With a full time job at Bloom Café and earning enough to support herself and her siblings, Mi was reintegrated to live with her aunt.  In December of 2010, she wrote a beautiful letter expressing her gratitude and love to her Agape Restoration Center family.  The following is an excerpt from her letter:

I desperately miss all of you Mom and Dad also older and younger sisters in ARC too. I hope and wish all of you miss me too. I was so happy when I lived at ARC.

When I returned home I started to face so many problems, but I try to be strong in prayer to God for His intervention and encouragement for me to do everything well. Although being at home there’s many struggles, yet they motivate me to be firm and strong and persevere in dealing with my life circumstances. Every day when I come back from work I teach the poor kids in my community how to read and write so they can live good like other kids as well.(She uses her own money to buy the teaching supplies.)

I sacrificially lay out my life style to help those kids like ARC helps me no matter how trivial my problem.  Now I can help others, and I do it with everything I have and all of my heart.”

Summary

The Pink Room follows the journey of Mien, and other young girls in the turbulent world of sex slavery. Mien grew up in Svay Pak, just eleven kilometers outside the capitol city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a vast and vicious epicenter of child sex slavery. At a young age she enters life in a brothel, and her virginity is sold at a high price.

She is held captive, raped and sexually tortured 12 hours a day. Even when help is within reach, obstacles that appear too great to conquer squelch her dream of freedom.

This is a story of redemption, ordinary people who become unlikely heroes, Cambodians rising up with compassion to take back their country and a town’s process of rebuilding from the inside out. The Pink Room shows passionate determination in attacking the complex issue of human trafficking with an even more complex and diverse response of rescue, restoration, reintegration and prevention. Mien gives hope in the midst of a blinding darkness. In a world where it is estimated that there are over one million children held captive and sexually abused, a flower blooms in the heart of Cambodia.

Upcoming Events

May 12-20: No More Traffik On Our Streets – Belfast, Ireland  http://nomoretraffik.com/

June 7-10: Breckenridge Festival of Film – Breckenridge, CO http://www.breckfilmfest.com

Awards

***WINNER “Audience Award- Best of Fest” at the Women’s Independent Film Festival – LA
***WINNER “Outstanding Documentary” Sacramento International Film Festival
***WINNER “Best Documentary Feature” at the 2012 Women’s International Film Festival – MIAMI
***WINNER “Best in Category” at the Women’s Independent Film Festival – LA
***WINNER “Best Director” at the Women’s Independent Film Festival – LA
***WINNER ” Best Cinematography” at the Women’s Independent Film Festival – LA

This year’s Thrive Conference at Bayside Church aims to Reintroduce the American Church to Jesus.

With amazing worship like Lincoln Brewster and Phil Wickham along with powerful speakers such as Pastor Ray Johnston and president of Compassion International, Dr. Wess Stafford, this three-day conference is packed full of wisdom and encounter.

Don Brewster will speak at breakout session “A” on Thursday the 3rd at 1:30pm entitled, “Stop Sex-Trafficking without Spending a Dollar.”

Visit the website and register today!

Agape has been invited to take part in a pre-screening information session about how to get involved in anti-trafficking efforts. Take this opportunity to partner with us to bring awareness and the hope of Jesus from the UC Davis campus to the world!

Contact Karen Moser at krmoser@ucdavis.edu for more information!

AIM will be present at the South Placer event at William Jessup University. Be sure to register and join us as we pray for freedom and salvation!

Register Today!

National Day of Prayer Breakfast

Thursday May 3, 2012 7am-9am

William Jessup University

$6-15

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12

Good News!

We serve a mighty God, we praise Him for using us!

-God continues to do miraculous things through His people at ARC, Rahab’s House in Svay Pak and Siem Reap, throughout the churches in Cambodia and VietNam. He is working in amazing ways through our home office in Roseville to bring hope to trafficked girls in the USA. They are working on a plan with other organizations to use what has been working in Cambodia to the Sacramento area.
-Our staff was protected with safety and blessed by time with their families for Khmer New Year.
-Bethel Church from WA will be working in Svay Pak next week. They will arrive Tuesday.
-Ken Peterson & his team from Apricot Lane ( a boutique chain of ladies clothing)  are coming over next week as well  to work on the details for the AIM Training center in Svay Pak.
-Our own Jamie Ballard will be leaving AIM at the end of the month to marry the love of her life and move to NV. We will miss her, we are not praising she is leaving but excited God has provided a great husband  for her, a great wife for him, and to see how God will use her in her new home. We welcome Renee Love on staff. We worked together at Adventure Christian Church in different compassion projects we did there. She was a volunteer for Don’s work there, at AIM and now she’s on staff in Roseville.
-For our staff, volunteers, supporters, prayer partners, family and friends.

Prayer Requests

-For our staff to keep fighting the good fight in faith, for perseverance, strength, patience and wisdom.
-For the different campaigns the USA staff is working on to raise awareness and funds.
-The Pink Room will be showing in Sacramento, LA, South Dakota, and other festivals throughout the year, that more people will become aware and realize they can make a difference. View HERE!
-For wisdom and provision to keep the different areas of the ministry growing in God’s will and purpose.
-For  funds for printed materials to reach the people in the provinces, and help those new in Christ to grow in knowledge of the truth.We in the States take for granted all the materials so readily available to us, the many free Bibles given out in churches every weekend.
-For the families of reintegrated girls to encourage them in their dreams they have chosen for their lives and to stop wanting them to seek sex work for survival. Our social workers work tirelessly to change their hearts. Please pray for God’s intervention. Please pray for the girls to remain strong in their faith, trust Jesus and not give in to their parents’ demands to sell themselves.
-For all the organizations working for the rights and justice for all children and adults throughout the world, for us to leave our egos and pride at the Lord’s feet and work together. We do work with many organizations in this spirit and pray God protects that.
-For a few confidential requests. For family and friends battling disease and financial hard times.

Feel free to leave encouragements for Don, Bridget, Clayton, AIM US Staff, AIM Cambodian Staff, and our treasured girls!

CLICK ‘LIKE’ IF YOU PRAYED WITH US!

Julie and Director of Trade of Innocents, Christopher Bessette

Those of us who attended the symposium heard from a distinguished panel of speakers on the topic of human trafficking including how law enforcement and non-government organizations (NGO’s) such as AIM partner to fight against the issue. Special Agents from the FBI and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children discussed their strategies for investigations and shared cases of successful rescues of girls and the prosecutions of their traffickers.

It was amazing to see the number of people, NGO’s, attorney’s, law enforcement, professors and students who have joined together to fight human trafficking by becoming more aware of the issue.  The truth is that the crime of sexual exploitation is a global issue and many people in the U.S. think it doesn’t happen in “my city,” when it is.  At the end of the symposium, I left with new resources, contacts and encouraged to know that God is in the middle of this issue, as overwhelming as it is.

With the local problem of sex-trafficking and the international reality that it affects most nations, many people ask, “Why is AIM focused in Cambodia?”  Our founders, Don and Bridget Brewster have first and foremost been called to Cambodia because it is internationally recognized as the place where child sex-trafficking is the most culturally accepted and widespread. Basically, Cambodia is where child sex-trafficking daily ravages the most lives in the world. 

Don and Bridget are immersed in the village of Svay Pak which became notorious as a destination village for pedophiles looking for very young girls.  At one time brothels in Svay Pak lined a main street and young girls were advertised in the open.

The village is being transformed, many brothels have been shut down but Cambodia continues to largely accept the sexual exploitation of young children.  We continue to fight this mentality as we develop relationships, bringing a new awareness to families that their children are to be protected and valued as precious gifts.  Through the Church we are training villages the traps of traffickers.

Our hope is that, by honing our strategies and ending child sex-trafficking in the most notorious place on earth, we can replicate these programs everywhere. One of our next steps is training US Foster-care programs on aftercare for rescued girls.

More of that in the coming months!

There is still much work to do and it is only through your financial and prayer support that we will succeed.

Read more about the film Trade of Innocents, at their website HERE, or our post on AIM in the Movies HERE.

~Julie Harrold