Open Arms Cambodia

Sonflower Salon

Hi Folks,

After a very busy day the Sonflower Salon was officially opened last night.

The Open arms team excelled as they always do and worked into the night to make sure the people at the opening were fed and watered, again well done team you’re the tops.  At the end of this month we are taking them all on a well-deserved retreat for three days they can swim, eat and be totally blessed by some wonderful people who want to sow into their lives.

Sonflower will start the first trainee next week and we are having meetings to start the pamper days for the guys and girls in this area.

It’s a very weary place at Open Arms today but its onward and upward thank you for your love and prayers and support, we love and appreciate you all.

Grahame, Sandra and the Open Arms team.

Hi Folks. With lots of teams coming through the Restaurants and the Salon plus the setting up of Sonflower Salon and the training of self-care for those involved ( it will open next week pictures coming) it has been a very full on week .

The guys as usual handled it with the grace and care that they give each individual.

By three this afternoon it was quiet the shops were spotless and everybody was just chilling out, Suzy was experimenting with some new recipes she’s a clever clever girl and the girl were shampooing each other’s hair they asked pop and I if we wanted a leg massage well Pop never has anything like that and what transpired in the next thirty minutes had them crying laughing.

First they said Pop has more hair on his legs than his head but when one of them went to manicure the finger that is cut off to the knuckle well that broke it, the girl who did it never laughs well she couldn’t stop it went on and on how beautiful is that. It is now an hour later and they are packing up to go home and it’s still going on.

What really gets us is when we thought we count love these kids more something happens and we seem to see them as they really are and the best way I can explain is through this song. SOMETHING SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL SOMETHING SOMETHING GOOD ALL MY CONFUSION CHRIST UNDERSTOOD ALL I HAD TO OFFER HIM WAS BROKENNESS AND STRIFE BUT HE MADE SOEMTHING SO BEAUTUFUL OUT OF MY LIFE , and that epitomises these young women that we have the privilege to serve with.

I just wanted to share that little thing with you and thank you so much for the support that you all give us.

Be totally blessed and have a wonderful weekend. Grahame, Sandra and the Open arms Team.

Hi folks

Open Arms is moving ahead with the plans for the Sonflower Salon in the red light district, please pray and we go ahead and make a safe place to pamper many of Gods neglected and rejected children.

Just an update on the Side Walk Café, it is going well but we need a lot more trade to make any profit or just to be self- sufficient.

Its takes a tremendous amount of cleaning as it’s near the road but the guys seem to be happy doing it they sometimes wash the floors five times a day or more, quite frankly I couldn’t be bothered.

The most popular is still the Panini and New York Cheesecake with the Hamburgers coming a close second , the girls are getting much quicker and we are happy to say that we were needed to hire another staff member and we hired  a little single mum that we have recently trained.

The Tea Room has hosted many functions and this week the girls have a reservation for 24 baked chicken dinners and 24 for High Tea they are already counting the money hahahaha.

Poor kids they had an incident with a team that just wouldn’t go home or stop smoking  they also had two people who just wouldn’t pay they just up and walked out go figure that one anyway  we have  put some security in place, it’s all learning and we are happy to see them stand up for themselves.

If you live in Phnom Penh why not stop by and have a look and taste, they tell us the cakes are wonderful and the meals even better, we have just added a White Chocolate Mud Cake (Jenna put on the menu a mad cake so you can image how that brought the house down, also we have Pasta Salad, Ham, Egg and Potato salad and it’s all yummy.

Blessings folks and thank you so much for your prayers, love and financial support as we see many young Cambodian  trained and in top employment.

Grahame, Sandra and the Open Arms team.

Hello

Hi Folks well it’s so very lovely to be here in Australia and to be cool, as ever the young people are doing extremely well in Open Arms Cambodia.

The beauty school had taken in six more young people since we left and yah we have just started our first boy he came to do tailoring but when we did the interview he said what he really wanted to do was hairdressing so said go for it, you should have seen his little face light up.

Today the training centre in World Vision started we are feeling so very proud of the Open Arms team the first thing they wanted to do was to pray with the new girls we are so happy that they have their priorities right anyway they had a wonderful morning there were twelve girls, our girls were giving world vision WOMEN some advice of how to set I all up I had to laugh, they speak like little old women sometimes very cute indeed.

The housekeeping and Khmer cooking course kicked off today with four students Deakson is doing the training and she is like a mother hen with them it appears that she has taken to it like a duck to water, poor old Deakson I’ve got her all birdy with hens and ducks hahaha, (I’ve got the giggles but Grahame just can’t see the humour) anyway she’s just a lovely lady and she tells me she has been with seven years not six I stand corrected.

The Tea Room and Side Walk café are powering on the girls are still laughing and enjoying their success again they make me laugh when they tex and say we made $80.00 bucks today wherever did they learn that language.

We are slowly moving along with our plans for the new salon and are making inquiries to do a children’s play and education area in a couple of the shops nearby it’s just an idea as yet BUT IT’S A GOOD ONE we will keep you posted as we go along.

Heaps and heaps of blessings we are so grateful to God for His amazing Grace to keep doing this wonderful work and for putting you all in our lives

Grahame, Sandra and the Open Arms team.

Just have to brag on Open Arms team, This afternoon they had a High Tea for 21 people and really we thought that we wouldnt  have any customers the streets are nearly deserted, anyway two of our favorite people in Cambodia Patrick and Carole Kelly the directors  EMPOWER CAMBODIA (look it up they do wonderful work here ) rang to say they would bring a team of nine for coffee and cake then we also had customers and everybody came together I didnt really know how they would handle it but not a problem they just did with such joy and cleaned up with  the same heart we are proud tired old peopel tonight but yah yah one week off. Blessings everybody xxxxx