Dear Friends,

Many of you may remember a significant "emergency case" resident of the New Life Center. Her name is "Wendy", and her story was highlighted for the 2001 World Mission Offering. It's quite a story, which I'll summarize briefly here:

Wendy is Akha, and she left her village in Chiang Rai (the northern most province of Thailand) at the age of 11 to escape a nasty step-father and also to find work. She ended up in Bangkok with some "friends" and worked for about two years in a street-side noodle shop. When she was about 13, she started to work in the commercial sex industry. She hated it, but truly felt she had no other options as she was desperate for income. One complicating factor was Wendy's lack of legal Thai citizenship. (Her birth was celebrated, but never registered; this was the first step in a long chain of events which prevented her from receiving her citizenship card eight years ago.)

The owner of the bar often used Wendy's lack of legal Thai citizenship as a means to coerce her into staying there. He would threaten that she could leave "…if she wanted to" but then reminded her that the police could arrest her, as she was not allowed to be in Bangkok because she was not allowed to leave her village in the first place.

Annie Dieselberg (an International Ministries' colleague, who works with women in prostitution in Bangkok) began a friendship with Wendy back in mid-1999. Wendy began to trust Annie, and expressed her desire to leave the brothel. To make a long story short, with Annie's help and the assistance of the International Justice Mission, Wendy left the commercial sex industry and entered the New Life Center back in late 1999. Her story of freedom, healing, and new life is nothing short of a miracle, and we praise God for it!

Unfortunately, a piece of the story that is far from complete is the situation with Wendy's legal Thai citizenship. Despite DNA testing, certification of her presence in the village by the "head man", and multiple attempts to present her case before the local government officials, Wendy remains stateless. Forced to stay in her village (despite her completed education, her vocational skills, her eagerness to find decent employment) she is barely surviving on the corn crop she plants and harvests for herself and her siblings.

There's a glimmer of hope in this situation. There's a new government effort to register stateless persons, and our social worker and field director have gone back to Wendy's village area to tackle her case yet again. The government officials have been really cooperative; Wendy was interviewed extensively last week, and there's hope that within the next 4-6 months she will be able to receive her legal citizenship.

But we're not completely out of the woods. There are still more documents to submit, more items to review, more paperwork to be stamped, and more "consideration" of her case. All parties involved (including Annie's Night Light Ministry, IJM, and the NLC) must now write letters to the local officials, certifying that she was under our jurisdiction at such and such a time, etc. And even with these added documents, there's no guarantee that Wendy will be granted full legal citizenship. She might just receive one of the cards/levels which allows her to live in Thailand only… and not be entitled to do much else.

Can you join with me in prayer that God works in this situation and that Wendy will be able to receive full, legal Thai citizenship? The type of status which will give her full legal rights, including the right to travel freely, work freely, obtain a passport, and get a diploma? The time is now and the time is critical. Not just for Wendy, but for many of the other children who were born in Thailand, but lack full legal status as well.

Thank you for praying with me and the other staff of the NLC regarding this important issue.

Karen