Beautiful Shadows

Hagar is all about each client’s individual journey to restoration and wholeness.

What struck me this week is the creative means that Hagar uses and the awareness that clients display of the journey that they are on.

I attended a photo exhibition this weekend for several Hagar girls who had undertaken a photography workshop. Tim and Deborah from Ireland volunteered to teach the girls about photography and give them an opportunity to express themselves through various assignments; and raised funds for the girls’ cameras. The photos on display were striking.

The photo here is of a one of the girls’ mothers in the field that she works. She told us that the photo depicts the strength of the Cambodian people -  her mother looks out over the field with hope toward the future. Another photograph she took was of her shadow. She said that her shadow is like her past. Sometimes she tries to hide from it. It might not seem very pretty but God sees it and it is beautiful to Him. Logan will be involved in a fundraising event to auction the photos online…so watch this space!

-Karen

In other news, we are enjoying biking to and from work on our push-bikes! We work at the main office for Hagar in the NGO district, about 15 minutes ride from home. There are about 35 staff at the main office, 10 of which are ex-pats. I am pictured below with Vatanak - she is the CEO's executive assistant, so I work closely with her.

Recovery is Messy

After being at Hagar for only 5 weeks, one of the things we have realised is that working with broken people is extremely difficult and often painful.

Recovery at Hagar is messy. The mess isn’t simply something that happened in a girl’s life, it IS the girl's life.

The mess is self-contempt, hopelessness, bittersweet pregnancies and children born of abuse, calls from family asking you to go back to the brothel to earn money so you can feed them, flashbacks, post traumatic stress disorder, STDs, being in love with your trafficker... 

It’s the boy at Hagar that won't make eye contact, who stares at the wall most of the day because he was raped daily by a foreign pedophile.

It’s the girl who left Cambodia for Malaysia, to get the best job in the world, who returned home raped and pregnant.

It’s the 3 children at Hagar that can't go home, because their trafficker is out of prison after 3 years and has moved back in with their mother.

It’s the girl who runs away from the girls shelter regularly to sell her body but keeps coming back.

  

Recovery is often one step forward and two steps back, yet our skilled team... armed with hope, full of love, and fueled by passion and commitment, are seeing some beautiful things happen.

Within these complex situations, there are some incredible stories of hope and restoration.

Last week I had the privilege of visiting one of Hagar’s foster families. They are a loving family, rice farmers, living on a dirt road in rural Cambodia about an hour from Phnom Penh. They have taken in, loved and cared for 5 kids "The "Vorns" -  3 brothers and 2 sisters, between the ages of 9 and 16 for the last 3 years.

Their mother died when they were very young, and their 18-month old sister died a few months later.

Their dad was a drunk and couldn’t care for them, and the kids were found living in a field with no food, little water and having never attended school. They were brought to Hagar, and undertook an intensive rehabilitation program. They had to learn how to live, eat, communicate -  even get used to living under a roof. 

Now they are clean, healthy and know they are loved. 

They have hope. They attend school, and are part of an acceleration programme. Both older boys want to become doctors when they leave home. It was awesome to meet them, and I was really humbled by the situation. They live a simple but happy life. We ate with them, followed up on how they are doing at school and vowed to return with a soccer ball as their ball was flat.


It's the stories like this that keep the team going. You can view more stories of hope here 

Love restores and empowers in even the worst situations. We understand more of that now.   
- Logan

photos

1. Our Apartment
2. Phnom Penh at Dusk
3. Super 15 at Score Bar
4. S21, Genocide Museum

Sensory Overload

“Ottdei orkhun!” (“No, thank you!”) we find ourselves saying at least 6 times each a day to the tuk tuk drivers that call out as we walk along the streets near our house or near work. Continuous Traffic (mainly “Motos”) weaves its way around us as we cross the street, absorbing the sights and smells of the street food vendors, or the large open drains, and we wipe the sweat from our foreheads in the 33 degree heat of the day. This is Phnom Penh.

Our noses, eyes, brains and hands are overloaded with so many new experiences – it’s crazy and overwhelming but we love it. We know that we will settle in as time goes on and for now we are enjoying every day and the new things that it brings.

We have been here two weeks now. Within our first week we had moved into an apartment (link here -  Our apartment ), found ourselves a tuk tuk driver (the lovely Mr Kim), eaten amok almost every day, discovered $1.75 meals at a local restaurant, started work at Hagar – and had been given a lot of work to do. Logan had played a game of touch with some expats, we had checked out the local markets and of course we found a great place for a morning coffee AND somewhere to watch the Super 15. Our second week saw us setting up our apartment, accidentally walking into our first non-english-speaking Khmer BBQ restaurant curious as to what food was going to turn up in front of us, trying out the local gym “Muscles”, catching up with our friends Sam and Katy Ng, attending ICA church and a cell group and Karen was this morning at a girls’ time of discussion and prayer at a park on the riverfront.

Our first weeks at work have provided a similar sensory overload as we come to grips with our roles. Hagar faces challenges as a growing NGO and the two challenges that we are providing capacity in are marketing and fundraising (Logan) and governance structure and processes (Karen).  We have a sense that our skills and availability will be of real use to Hagar, we are going to be very busy, and we can achieve a lot in the time we are here.

Any sense that our roles were overwhelming was quickly put aside when we visited Hagar’s shelters this week with Sue Hanna, another Kiwi, who has worked with Hagar for 7 years.  She took us to the boys’ shelter that currently houses 15 boys who have been sexually or otherwise abused (some rescued from paedophiles). We met Boret, who runs the shelter and the house mothers who look after the boys.

She took us to the girls’ shelter that is next to the school that Hagar runs. We heard that there are girls as young as four in the shelter, and Danet (a quiet yet strong woman who runs the shelter) introduced us to one girl who acts as the arbiter of disputes in her ‘home’ (a home includes 6-8 girls of various ages and a house mother; the shelter is comprised of several of these homes) and if it can’t be resolved, she takes the dispute to the house mother. The big girls help the smaller ones and they operate as a family. We saw the housemothers laughing together in the kitchen and enjoying each other’s company as they prepared the evening’s meal.

Sue took us to the women’s shelter that is behind Hagar’s trainee restaurant and on the same premises as the career pathways unit that Hagar runs. We heard that at one time there were girls there, aged 12 and 13 with their babies. They’d skip up the drive when they arrived home from school and fetch their babies from Hagar’s early learning centre. We met the 15 case managers and a few of the 12 counsellors who have their offices at the women’s shelter premises.

Many of Hagar’s clients are also in care with wonderful foster families, or in group homes that Hagar supports.  Also, Hagar’s House of Smiles provides residential care for orphans with intellectual disabilities. Currently, Hagar has over 350 clients. Hagar is about restoring dignity in such a way that clients can stay in or return to the community, rather than be dependent in the long term. 

We were struck by the commitment, strength and capability of Hagar’s staff.  We were also impacted by the fact that some of the staff we met are ex-Hagar clients – people who have survived and who have walked the journey of restoration. By the end of that day, we were blown away and more determined to see Hagar continue to grow in its mission and work.