 |
 |
"...to encourage, inspire and give hope to people, challenging them to be honest with themselves, making room for God
to bring emotional, physical and spiritual healing...." |
| Newsletter - October 2008 |
| 1. Introduction to the Kelita Newsletter |
Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to send you some updates and news especially in regards to the Heavenly Night initiative which I am still very passionate about and involved in, aiding the young girls in Cambodia who have been rescued from the sex trade.
You will find two stories below that involve the girls at Agape Restoration Centre, the home we support. I hope you will take time to read them. Sometimes we need a healthy reminder of just how good we have it.
I am currently gearing up for Christmas dates which will focus on promoting the Heavenly Night Christmas CD and it’s message. I do have some open dates so if you’re interested in hosting a Christmas concert please let us know. Private dates are welcome as well.
The more CD’s we move the more funds that are raised for the girls. So please consider ordering yours for family, friends, co-workers, teachers, hostess gifts, paper boy, dog watcher, butcher, baker!!! I think you get the idea.
I really appreciate your support and interest in making a life changing contribution to these precious girls. To order or make a taxable donation please visit www.heavenlynight.org. All donations are tax receiptable.
On a more personal note October is a special month as my husband Gord and I celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary of which we are both proud. I of course remain ageless!
As always I love hearing from you even if it’s a quick email. We need to take time in our busyness to connect with one another and I love to do that every opportunity I have.
Peace and love,
Kelita
|
| 2. Calgary Hosts Heavenly Night Benefit Concert November 29th |
I am excited to announce that the main Heavenly Night Benefit Concert will be produced in Calgary Alberta November 29th at Central United Church. I will be joined by some great musicians and singers plus Calgary’s own Heebee-Jeebees, a talented and zany 4 piece accapella group. Anchor man Darrel Janz of Calgary’s CTV News will be our guest host.
 I am working with a wonderful team of people at Central United Church in the heart of downtown Calgary. SHINE FM is our radio sponsor and one special guy Bob Needham of Red Deer Alberta is rebuilding a truck and donating all the proceeds for the Calgary concert. Now that’s inspiring!
Last year we raised $50,000 which was so exciting! I know our economic situation is different than a year ago but I am confident you'll join us in contributing once again to help the girls in Cambodia. Tickets are starting to sell and so are Christmas CDs. To order yours or make a donation online please visit www.heavenlynight.org.
Please visit www.kelita.com for other Heavenly Night events in December in Ontario.
|
| 3. Kelita Receives 3 Covenant Award Nominations... |
...from Canada’s Gospel Music Association to be held in Calgary, Alberta on Oct. 24
Female Vocalist of the Year
Best Seasonal Album - “Heavenly Night”
Best Seasonal Song - “Heavenly Night”
Read the release: http://www.gmacanada.ca/go/site/news/C45
|
| 4. Kelita's October Alberta & BC Appearances |
October 18
October 19
October 22
October 23
October 24
October 26
October 26
|
PM concert - Bethel Evangelical Church Missionary, Carstairs, AB
AM Service - Central United Church, Calgary, AB
PM - Artist Showcase BowValley Church, Calgary, AB
www.bvccweb.ca
Co-Hosting and performing Industry Awards Dinner. First Alliance Church, Calgary, AB www.gmacanada.ca/go/site/news/C45
Covenant Awards - First Alliance Church, Calgary, AB
AM Service - Crescent United Church, Surrey, BC
Heavenly Night Benefit Concert - Ft. Langley, BC www.goodmedia.com/goodmedia/gmadmin/pim
Stay up to date by checking my tour schedule online at www.kelita.com
|
Bridget Brewster - Director of Agape Restoration Centre
Aim4Asia.org
Bridget Brewster and I are in close contact and I sent her an email recently asking her what their greatest needs are and how our donations are being spent.
International Justice Missions (IJM) has asked us to open two more centers, but it requires so much money. They plan on rescuing three times as many girls in the next year and there is no where to place them. They will either go to jail or back to the families that sold them. So they may not do the rescues.
 The economy has been terrible everywhere, as you know, so we are working diligently to maintain what we have established. The greatest need is to continue what we have with excellence. We may have to make cutbacks in our Emergency & Disaster Relief work, but really pray God will send us the funds so we won’t have to cut our aid to the severely impoverished in the provinces. This will cause more girls to be trafficked. We work on the preventative end through the churches we have planted throughout the country. So I guess the greatest need is money to maintain and then to expand as God provides.
It costs about $800 USD per month per girl at the center. This price includes the cost of house mom and other staff, rent, food, medical care, education and supplies, clothes, dance lessons, allowance, family visitation and money we spend on food or emergency needs the girls’ family may have. They worry so about their family eating, etc. So if they know their family is doing alright (enough food, siblings going to school, health care, etc), it helps in their healing process.
The girls are always amazed at the love and generosity of strangers. They can’t believe that people they don’t know care enough to send money to pay for their care and needs. They don’t get this kind of love from their own families, so they are truly so amazed at this.
Thank you so much for all you do for us. God bless you, Kelita, for working so hard for these girls. They are so appreciative and so are we. Praying this finds you well.
With much love and many prayers,
Bridget
|
This is a very recent article from the LA Times involving a court case where 5 of the girls from Agape Restoration Centre in Cambodia were involved. These were girls I met in August of 2006, the youngest being 9 years of age. The centre has the advantage of 24 hours surveillance for those who are involved in court cases like this. The girls also receive the love, care and support of the Centre’s directors Don & Bridget Brewster preparing them for the case and then they were traveling with them to California when they first testified several months ago. I am so proud of these young girls and what they have had to go through in order that justice would be done. I thought you might like to read the story and some of the testimony from the girls which is very touching.
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-kids26-2008sep26,0,2791322.story
|
I want you to read the TRUE story of Mein who is an inspiration to all of us. Please pray for all the girls and continuation of the deep healing that they all need. Also thank God for the incredible work He is doing through the directors and staff at Agape Restoration Centre in Cambodia and for stories like Mein’s.
To read Mein’s story only makes my compassion for these young girls soar up inside me. We can all help by praying and giving our resources to this very worthy cause.
 Mein is the oldest child in her family and she felt the burden of her family’s survival was hers to bear (Image: Mein on the day of her rescue from a Siem Reap brothel, August 9th, 2008). She lived with her family in a Vietnamese community named Svay Pak just outside the capitol city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Svay Pak was and still is infamous for the sexual trafficking of girls, some as a young as five years old. Her family was living in abject poverty. “I saw the terrible situation of my family and I could not stand it; we were so poor…Everyday creditors would knock on our door and ask my mother to pay back the loans she had taken out to support our family, but we had no money to pay them back. My father was an alcoholic. He beat my mother and neglected my my younger brothers. He drank our family into debt. I could not stand to watch my mother cry. I decided to sell myself to the brothel. It was a hard decision. I was fourteen at the time."
 She was held captive in a small wooden house across the street from the brothel in Svay Pak. "When I first went to the brothel I felt scared. The brothel owner waited until she could find a foreign man who would pay a high price to have sex with me, since I was a virgin. When they found a foreigner to pay the high price they settled me in the small pink room [the virgin room] located on the second floor." This was room reserved for the rape and torture of young innocents. After her virginity and innocence were brutally stolen from her, her value became less and less with each purchase of her body. Her body was used as brutally as the buyer pleased. As this violence was heaped upon her, Mein would wonder how could such unthinkable, unspeakable things could be happening to her. She was raped and sexually tortured from 5 PM to 5 AM for six months. From 5AM to 5PM she was locked in the wooden structure across the street.
After she had been there six months a raid led by the International Justice Mission (IJM) was conducted on the brothel to rescue the children held there. Believing the lies of the brothel owner regarding the anti-trafficking police, she hid and was not rescued. She believed it was too dangerous and risky to stay in Svay Pak, so she migrated from brothel to brothel over the next six years. She felt such great despair; she was made to feel like an animal, lowly with no value. But felt she had no other recourse. She was hopeless. “I felt bored with life. I felt I didn’t want to do this anymore. But what else could I do? I didn’t have a skill and my family still depended on the money I sent to them.”
In 2006 everything changed when IJM discovered Mein in a Siem Reap brothel and she was sent to Agape Restoration Center (ARC). Through the power of Jesus unconditional love flowing through the ARC staff and programs she began to have hope and dreams for a new future. “At that time my life changed from bad to good. In the past I never had an education. Now I go to classes. I am specializing in tailoring. It is my dream to open a tailoring shop—not a big shop but by my home—so I can make money for my family.”
 During Mein’s stay at ARC the organization start to rent the very same Svay Pak brothel Mein was first trafficked. It was closed down after that raid Mein hid from in 2003. ARC has converted into a community center offering free classes, activities, and healthcare for children and adults in Svay Pak (Image: Kids from the area that girls, including Mein, from Agape (ARC) are volunteering to teach and help). The vision is to transform the community through Christ-like acts of love. The center is called Rahab’s House. Today Mein and other girls from ARC volunteer at Rahab’s House teaching classes and sharing Jesus’ love to dozens of at risk children. “For my first time to Rahab’s House, when the van stopped, I felt so scared to get out. But when I got out it was good. I saw that everything had changed. Before when I was here I was a sex-worker. Now when I go to teach the children, I feel like I am staff. I am proud of this."
Mein studied very hard on her language and math skills to become functionally literate. She prayed and worked through her counseling sessions to finally realize her value and worth in Christ. She is attending a tailoring school in Phnom Penh. She has been safely re-integrated to her family, and both she and her family are supported by ARC as she completes tailoring school. As soon as she has completed tailoring school, ARC will help her set up her tailor shop so she can help provide for herself and the family she so dearly loves.
 There’s a beautiful brightness in her smile. Not because her past has been erased, but because she realizes that her true value, her value as a child of God is not diminished by what has been done to her. “I want all girls to know the way that I worked in the past. I want them to know the brothel is not a good choice. When I worked there people looked down on me, I do not want this to happen to them. I will tell them: Choose a good way. I thank God for my new life!”
|
|
All Contents Copyright © 2008 Heart and Soul Music. All Rights Reserved. Newsletter design by Websurf Media
|
|
