Letter from Stephanie

This is a letter from Stephanie Freed, USA Director and Founder of Rapha House, explaining how this whole ministry began. This was actually written a while ago, but it still offers a great overview of our story.

Welcome to Rapha House! My name is Stephanie, and I’m the Rapha House USA Director. I became involved with this ministry in 2001, when I first heard of girls in Cambodia being sold into sexual slavery. My father, Joe Garman, had traveled to Cambodia, and while he was there he was able to teach at a Christian leadership seminar. While he was teaching, some men came in the back and tried to force a young girl who was there to leave with them. Naturally, this created quite a bit of commotion, and he was forced to stop teaching and ask what was going on. The translator informed him that the girl’s parents were angry that she had become a Christian, and so had sold her to these men. They were there to collect what was, in their eyes, rightfully theirs—a girl whose parents had exchanged her freedom for a fistful of money. After that experience person after person began to tell my father of similar stories. In villages all over Cambodia, girls were being taken and forced into slavery. They were being trafficked.

When I first heard that story I found it difficult to believe. Surely the villagers had been exaggerating, because there was no way that so many people were having their lives stripped away from them. I could not let the issue lie, and so I began to do my own research. What I discovered changed my life.

Human trafficking is the third largest criminal industry in the world and is growing rapidly. It is a multi-billion dollar a year business, and the majority of its victims are women and children. People are sold for labor, sex, and even their body organs. It is estimated that millions of girls live as sex slaves, most of whom live as prisoners in brothels where they have no chance of escape without outside help.

In October 2002, I made a research trip to Cambodia to try and figure out a way in which I could become involved with the solution to this horrifying problem. It was on that trip that I was able to witness a slave retrieval, and I felt as though God was clearly showing me that He wanted me to be directly involved with helping these girls. While on the same trip I was able to encounter a group of Cambodians who were also passionate about seeing this terrible industry come to an end, but lacked critical training. Upon my return home, I sent out a mass appeal letter to anyone I thought might be interested in joining in helping these girls. The response I received showed that Christians were ready to help in any way that they could. And so Rapha House was born.

Today Rapha House runs a safe home in Cambodia where girls who have been rescued can come to live. At our facility they receive an education and the chance for healing. The home is run by an entirely Cambodian staff, and the USA branch exists to support them in any way that we can, including fund raising and educating people on the issues of human trafficking and sexual slavery.

Thank you for your interest in our ministry. Millions of girls are still waiting to be freed, and it is the involvement of people like you that can help make their freedom a reality.

–Stephanie Freed

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