Don Brewster talks at Adventure Christian Church, where he once was pastor. (Photo: Bryan Patrick / bpatrick@sacbee.com)Sunday, January 20, 2008
By Jocelyn Wiener - jwiener@sacbee.com
The Sacramento Bee (California, USA)
Lincoln couple gave up all to fight sex trafficking.
The first time Don and Bridget Brewster learned about child sex trafficking in Cambodia – from a "Dateline NBC" television special – they wept openly.
The pastor and his wife had just returned from a brief trip to the Southeast Asian country to help support their church's mission. The heat, open sewage, abject poverty and hopelessness all conspired to make Bridget miserable. They both assumed they'd never return.
But the television program left them horrified. As many as 30,000 children as young as 5 and 6 were being sold as sex slaves to adult men. Many of those men came from the United States.
How could the Brewsters, in good conscience, do nothing?
That was four years ago.
Bridget and Don, a former advertising executive, did some research on the issue, then flew back to Cambodia for a few weeks to meet with advocates and child victims. They learned that the country desperately needed safe places for rescued children to live and recover.
Don, now 53, and Bridget, 55, tried to think of someone who could start up such a shelter in Cambodia's capital city of Phnom Penh. They prayed about it.
Then, while celebrating their 14th anniversary over a fancy Italian dinner, Don looked at Bridget and Bridget looked at Don. And they knew.
So three years ago, the couple sold their 1,500-square-foot home in Lincoln and almost everything in it. They said goodbye to their friends, their congregants at Adventure Christian Church in Roseville, their four adult children and eight grandchildren.
And they moved to Cambodia, to try to make things right.
The couple are now helping run a shelter serving 39 young girls, as well as a community drop-in center for other girls and their families. The children receive intensive cognitive therapy, education, medical care, voluntary spiritual guidance and unconditional love. Many have grown up without consistent access to food and are shocked to receive three meals a day.
In the spring, Don and Bridget will accompany five of the girls from their shelter to Los Angeles to testify against an accused American pedophile named Michael Joseph Pepe. News reports on Pepe's case support the Brewsters' account that Pepe, who is in his 50s, was arrested for raping and torturing at least three young girls.
The monthly budget for Agape International Missions – the 19-year-old Rocklin-based organization through which the Brewsters work – is $60,000. Don and Bridget make periodic trips to the states to help raise money and have been amazed at people's generosity. One couple handed them a check for $75,000 after they spoke at a church.
The other day, Don sat in a cafe at Bayside Church in Granite Bay, meeting with a couple potential volunteers.
Don, with longish gray hair, plastic-rimmed glasses and blue flip-flops, leaned over a polished wood table, showing the women pictures of the girls.
He described cases of children being raped and tortured by one pedophile, then passed on to another. Sometimes the girls' families are complicit, he said. Others get tricked. All are mired in poverty. In some poor villages, he said, every girl can expect to be sold into prostitution by age 10.
Kim Jacobson, Bayside's international volunteer coordinator, said she wishes there was a way to reach out to pedophiles and make them understand the error of their ways.
"Of course, the first reaction is 'Let's kill 'em,' but my heart also breaks a little bit for them," she said. "How could they be so dark inside as to think it's OK?"
Don can't feel sorry for them, he said, though he knows someone should.
"It's too hard when you see what they've done," he said.
Last year, someone offered to sell Don two 5-year-old girls. Another time, a brothel told him they had at least 36 children available for rent – two apiece for himself and 17 friends, if he wanted.
Kaign Christy, the Southeast Asia regional director for International Justice Mission, a faith-based human rights agency based in Washington, D.C., describes the Brewsters' shelter as professionally run and nurturing. He says the couple made a significant difference in the lives of juvenile sex trafficking victims.
"They just deserve to be held up as two people who left their comfortable homes in California and literally sacrificed everything to bring relief to these victims of just unimaginable crimes," he said.
Don and Bridget are more circumspect. As scrutiny increases, they say, more of Cambodia's child prostitution simply goes farther underground.
"Is it better? I would say probably it's better," Don said. "But it's still very bad."
Eventually, the couple hope to create two more centers in rural parts of the country, then leave the shelter and drop-in center entirely in the hands of Cambodians.
Hope, they say, wells up in all sorts of ways. They see it when a little girl realizes that she's not "dirty" or worthless, that she has a future and potential and something to hope for. They see it when a child hugs them or tells them that she finally feels beautiful.
They see it in the transformation they have undergone since that night they switched on the television set and wept. Back then, after all, Cambodia was the last place on earth they'd wanted to go.
The pastor and his wife had just returned from a brief trip to the Southeast Asian country to help support their church's mission. The heat, open sewage, abject poverty and hopelessness all conspired to make Bridget miserable. They both assumed they'd never return.
But the television program left them horrified. As many as 30,000 children as young as 5 and 6 were being sold as sex slaves to adult men. Many of those men came from the United States.
How could the Brewsters, in good conscience, do nothing?
That was four years ago.
Bridget and Don, a former advertising executive, did some research on the issue, then flew back to Cambodia for a few weeks to meet with advocates and child victims. They learned that the country desperately needed safe places for rescued children to live and recover.
Don, now 53, and Bridget, 55, tried to think of someone who could start up such a shelter in Cambodia's capital city of Phnom Penh. They prayed about it.
Then, while celebrating their 14th anniversary over a fancy Italian dinner, Don looked at Bridget and Bridget looked at Don. And they knew.
So three years ago, the couple sold their 1,500-square-foot home in Lincoln and almost everything in it. They said goodbye to their friends, their congregants at Adventure Christian Church in Roseville, their four adult children and eight grandchildren.
And they moved to Cambodia, to try to make things right.
The couple are now helping run a shelter serving 39 young girls, as well as a community drop-in center for other girls and their families. The children receive intensive cognitive therapy, education, medical care, voluntary spiritual guidance and unconditional love. Many have grown up without consistent access to food and are shocked to receive three meals a day.
In the spring, Don and Bridget will accompany five of the girls from their shelter to Los Angeles to testify against an accused American pedophile named Michael Joseph Pepe. News reports on Pepe's case support the Brewsters' account that Pepe, who is in his 50s, was arrested for raping and torturing at least three young girls.
The monthly budget for Agape International Missions – the 19-year-old Rocklin-based organization through which the Brewsters work – is $60,000. Don and Bridget make periodic trips to the states to help raise money and have been amazed at people's generosity. One couple handed them a check for $75,000 after they spoke at a church.
The other day, Don sat in a cafe at Bayside Church in Granite Bay, meeting with a couple potential volunteers.
Don, with longish gray hair, plastic-rimmed glasses and blue flip-flops, leaned over a polished wood table, showing the women pictures of the girls.
He described cases of children being raped and tortured by one pedophile, then passed on to another. Sometimes the girls' families are complicit, he said. Others get tricked. All are mired in poverty. In some poor villages, he said, every girl can expect to be sold into prostitution by age 10.
Kim Jacobson, Bayside's international volunteer coordinator, said she wishes there was a way to reach out to pedophiles and make them understand the error of their ways.
"Of course, the first reaction is 'Let's kill 'em,' but my heart also breaks a little bit for them," she said. "How could they be so dark inside as to think it's OK?"
Don can't feel sorry for them, he said, though he knows someone should.
"It's too hard when you see what they've done," he said.
Last year, someone offered to sell Don two 5-year-old girls. Another time, a brothel told him they had at least 36 children available for rent – two apiece for himself and 17 friends, if he wanted.
Kaign Christy, the Southeast Asia regional director for International Justice Mission, a faith-based human rights agency based in Washington, D.C., describes the Brewsters' shelter as professionally run and nurturing. He says the couple made a significant difference in the lives of juvenile sex trafficking victims.
"They just deserve to be held up as two people who left their comfortable homes in California and literally sacrificed everything to bring relief to these victims of just unimaginable crimes," he said.
Don and Bridget are more circumspect. As scrutiny increases, they say, more of Cambodia's child prostitution simply goes farther underground.
"Is it better? I would say probably it's better," Don said. "But it's still very bad."
Eventually, the couple hope to create two more centers in rural parts of the country, then leave the shelter and drop-in center entirely in the hands of Cambodians.
Hope, they say, wells up in all sorts of ways. They see it when a little girl realizes that she's not "dirty" or worthless, that she has a future and potential and something to hope for. They see it when a child hugs them or tells them that she finally feels beautiful.
They see it in the transformation they have undergone since that night they switched on the television set and wept. Back then, after all, Cambodia was the last place on earth they'd wanted to go.
5 comments:
Don and Bridget please know that you are loved and deeply appreciated of the work you do. Hope the Lord God will set up His Kingdom on this planet so soon that all the wicked things will be the things of the past. Amen. From a Khmer American living in the state of Illinois.
This is just more shit talk so chaities can get more money from bleeding hearts. Show me the proof of the 30,000 children sold into the sex trade. Talk is cheep and writing this shit only gives Cambodia a bad name. If these people realy want to save childrens lives, why dont they buy them all moto cycle crash helmets. That would really save a child.
In Nigeria girls are married of to wealthy men at the age of 13. Why are there no church dogoders helping these girls. Because they are all in Cambodia with perk safe jobs.
Thank God there are people like Don and Bridget. And shame on the fool who suggested they give crash helmets. I am married to a wonderfull man that survived the Khmer Ruge. For months they lived in the jungles trying to escape. My father in law was tied to a stake and left for dead because of his amount of knowledge. He did survive. Unless you see it hear it or are married to it, you will never know. Sex traficing is real and so are sesveral other horid acts. Before you open you hate infested mouth do your research.
I am interested in volunteering in Cambodia to help save these young children from the horrors that the child sex trade inflicts on them. I am a young Christian woman from London, England, living in California and would love to help by being involved in a mission that goes into these brothels to rescue the children that have been sold into the despicable, perverted human sex trade.
Can someone please forward this to the appropriate person/organization to guide me on how to make this possible. Thank you.
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