Restoring Relationships

Relationships are simply the hardest part of life, especially when you’ve been hurt in them.  Victims of sex trafficking are among the most abused and traumatized people you’ll ever find.  Their pain is often just unspeakable.  How do you come back into healthy relationship with people after you’ve been beaten, raped, betrayed, de-humanized and rejected multiple times?

Renown author and professor, Judith Herman, describes what is necessary to help these crime victims begin the journey of healing:  “Once it is publicly recognized that a person has been harmed, the community must take action to assign responsibility for the harm and to repair the injury.  These two responses – recognition and restitution – are necessary to rebuild the survivor’s sense of order and justice.”  (Trauma and Recovery; page 70)

Engedi Refuge provides safety , therapy and healthy community for survivors of sex trafficking, and leads them through the process of looking fearlessly at their trauma and abuse, rightly assessing blame, accepting themselves as worthy of love, receiving love and affirmation, and then re-engaging trust with healthy people.  This process takes time and emotional courage.  It is our great joy to see victims become survivors, and to see survivors become overcomers who are learning to trust and love again.  This healing touches the most crucial relationships in society; their children, siblings, parents, partners and spouses.  Their healing is our healing.  We are all part of one another in many direct and indirect ways.

Engedi residents put it this way:   (1) “The friendships I have made are real.  I have learned what healthy relationships are like and I don’t have to look for false security and love.  I know I am worth so much more.  Engedi saved my life…it saved my babies life.”   (2) “They (Engedi) loved me unconditionally…they renewed my faith in people and offered great examples of Jesus’s love.  I was able to focus on healing and being a new mother.  I have been reunited with my family and we are actively working on repairing our relationships.”

Healing is possible………..Love is real.