Gary Wilkerson: Hi, I'm so glad you guys are here today. I'm Gary Wilkerson with the Gary Wilkerson podcast. We're in for a really good story today, Holly, we are so happy to have you with us. Nora, thank you for coming with us today. You're from Cambodia...

You've been there for 10 years now. Tell us a little bit about your ministry there in Cambodia. You're working with, what's the name of the ministry?

Holly Dziedzickie: Girls' House of Refuge.

Gary: Girls' House of Refuge. Tell me, what is that?

Holly: God told me to open a home for women, for young women. So I did and then he would choose and bring the ones he wanted to, so he ended up bringing girls that were pregnant or girls that got raped and different girls. Also, just really poor girls. I started getting a name for being willing to take drug addicts, being willing to take alcoholics, being willing to take traumatized girls that are all knocked-up or pregnant. Nobody else can help them. Other Christian organizations in the country would call me and say, "Hey, will you take this girl?" Or, "Hey, there's this girl. This person's trying to sell this girl, this little girl, 14, 12, whatever."

I would take those kind of girls. Also, with women's ministry, you're drawn to women. When you go out in public, girls are drawn to girls. They want to share the gospel. We'll go through the whole Bible in a year at my house. They want to practice what they're studying. It's really cool because they're baby Christians so everything's new, which I love that because it's just really innocent in a sense.

Gary: You still lived in the home where the girls come in now after 10 years?

Holly: Yes. We all live together.

Gary: That's in Phnom Penh?

Holly: Yes, in Phnom Penh.

Gary: You have Nora with you here today. Did you first meet here when she came into your house or did you know her before? How did you meet Nora?

Holly: I met her because one of my girls, she's the cousin of one of my girls that lives with me. My girl posted, she was in this hospital that wasn't great and her hand was cut off and everything. She said, "Can you pray for my cousin?" I was like, "What's going on, honey?" That's my girl. Personally, called her and talked to her. I wasn't in country at the time. I was in America. I called my staff and I said, "Can you go meet up with our girl's cousin and see what's going on, what happened?" Right within a couple days of me sending my staff, I flew in and then went. I actually dropped of my bags and went straight to the hospital to go meet Nora because we had already started a relationship to help her out.

Gary: Tell us a little bit about how she ended up in the hospital.

Holly: [foreign language]

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: There was a guy and he did really bad things to me.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: He wanted to kill me. This guy had done things. He had kidnapped her before, and he had stolen her virginity and a lot of things had happened to her. He was stalking her. Nothing ever happened to him and then later on, he figured out a way to meet up with her. What he did was, because he's a businessman and really rich in their village. He's the richest. He had her cousin say, "I'm going to give you this business motocard thing. I'm on my way to a business trip, will you tell her to come pick up this card from me."

Her cousin told her, "Go meet this guy and pick up this card." "Where do I meet him?" She said, "Out in the middle of the field really, off a dirt road, as place that's really secluded and just get the card because he's in a hurry. He's got to go." It was 4:00 in the morning, mind you. Cousin is a seller of chickens. They get the chickens from this guy. You know what I mean? It's all village kind of thing. That's why she went to go meet him but when she went to meet him, he doused her with battery acid.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: After the acid, she turned around to run.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Then he had a butcher knife. She heard the sound of the butcher knife and then he started hitting her head.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: She put her hand up to block it then the butcher knife went through her right hand.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Also, on her arm. He was hacking.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: And he grabbed her hair.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Then she fell on the ground.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: He started saying, "After I kill you, I'll leave."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: He started hacking her hand because the knife was dull—

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: When he said that he was going to kill me and then leave then I thought okay, well, I want him to go.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: When he said he was just going to do this and then go, then she actually didn't fight all that much. She put her hand out and let it go.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: He put his foot on her arm and he grabbed the hand and he started hacking.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Blood started squirting out.

Holly: That was from her head, from her arm.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: He stood over me for about three or four minutes.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I closed my eyes to make him think that I was dead.

Holly: Then after that, he left.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Then I opened my eyes and I could barely see but I saw that he wasn't there.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I didn't know what to do. I was all by myself-

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: -and it was so quiet in the field.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I was laying there.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I was laying flat. I was just looking up at the sky.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I said, "God, please help your child. Please."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: All of a sudden, there started to be light.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Something lifted me up.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: And I was able to walk.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I felt like I wanted to sleep but somehow there was strength and I don't know where it came from.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: It helped me to see. I could see what I need to get because the battery acid had gotten in my eyes.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I was able to see the phone in my purse

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: -and I was able to call my cousin.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I was really tired, and I laid back down-

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: -but when I laid down, that time, I was actually laying on thorns and an anthill.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: They came out and they bit me all over. She has scars all over her back from the ants and the thorns.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Maybe five minutes later, they say sister but it's really cousin, came.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: When she came, I was able to sit up.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: She didn't lift me up. It was God. He was lifting me up.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I was able to go on the moto.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: And we went to the doctor that was really near there.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: -but the village doctor, they're like, "We cannot help her." Because they won't take you if they think you're going to die in the village because it's bad karma to think that the ghost is going to be around haunting the hospital, so they won't take you.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: They didn't wrap. They just said, "We can't do anything about your hand." Mind you, she picked her hand up with her-- She had her hand with her.

Gary: She brought her hand with her. Did they wrap it or anything? Did they do anything at all?

Holly: [foreign language]

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: No. They just stuck a bag on it because they were going to drive her to Phnom Penh. They didn't want blood in their car.

Gary: How far is where she was living?

Holly: About two hours.

Gary: Two hours. Okay.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: She thinks it only took an hour to drive to Phnom Penh.

Gary: Somebody was flying, huh? Let me back up a little bit. When she was laying there after being cut like this, she cried out to God but she didn't have any relationship with God at the time. She was a Buddhist?

Holly: She was a very strong Buddhist.

Gary: For those who don't know, Buddhist, they don't believe in any god. There's spirituality but there's no being called God so it was really odd that she would call on God, wouldn't it be?

Holly: [foreign language]

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Yes. I asked her why did you call on God if you never knew God? And she said, "I really don't know." She's looking back at it now and she's like, "I feel like Jesus was staying next to me and he helped me to call him."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: During that time, I felt like somebody was near me. I felt like somebody was with me.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: She said, "I don't know." Because the Buddhism, she thought maybe it was her mom that was already dead or her grandma but she felt like somebody was there but she didn't call on them. She called on God.

Gary: So she made it to the hospital in Phnom Penh. I saw a picture of her in the hospital. Is that in Phnom Penh?

Holly: Yes. That wasn't the best cure there at all.

Gary: But the picture of her all wrapped up.

Holly: Yes. They wrapped her up like a mummy.

Gary: Because of the battery acid?

Holly: Yes.

Gary: Then at this point, you were still—

Holly: Then they cut off more of her hand and at the time, they told her they can't sew the hand back on because she'll get cancer. Yes, that's what they told her.

Gary: Okay. But they probably didn't have the ability to do that anyway, I'd imagine. You're still in United States at this point or are you back?

Holly: No. She's in the government hospital when I landed, so I went to that hospital.

Gary: Okay. You went with the girl in your house was her cousin?

Holly: Yes.

Gary: You went to meet her? That's the first time you met her?

Holly: Well, actually, I went with my staff.

Gary: That's the first time you met her?

Holly: Yes. She was in the hospital and I met her-- The cousin that she had called, they were there and there was other people there that were dying.

Gary: Then, how did she get to your house?

Holly: That's a good story too actually.

Gary: Okay, can you tell us about it?

Holly: [foreign language]

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: At first when I walked into the hospital,-

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: -I said, "I want to help you and change the hospital."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: I told her, "We can go to a different hospital and we can heal your face." I was really worried she was going to lose her face because the battery acid was eating it away.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: At first, she was like, "No." Because she didn't know me, so she was like, "No."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Then, I would pray for her and two or three times I would come. I just kept coming.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "I started to have a feeling."-- I'm just translating for her, she started to have a feeling.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "I decided that I would go with her." Basically, she had decided to let me help her.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "When I'm with Holly, she gives me a lot of love. I just really see the love."

Gary: How long ago was that, that she came from the hospital to your house? It's been like more than years or-

Holly: No, this is recent. The attack happened in February.

Gary: This is very recently.

Holly: "God’s heal her face so much." That was my prayer. You should see the pictures of her face. God's healed her so much.

Gary: She's so beautiful inside and out. She really is. You can see Jesus in her too.

Holly: That just happened in February.

Gary: That's miraculous the power of not only inside the healing, but outside as well. I don't have to ask this question because I can see it in her eyes, but she met Jesus early on or after a while coming in your house? Where she really knew [crosstalk] she was coming [crosstalk]

Holly: Do you want me to ask her?

Gary: Yes.

Holly: [foreign language]

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "When I was living with Holly--We live with a lot of girls. There's a lot of girls at the house."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "The girls at the house, they come in and they share the word of God with me."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "But I didn't believe."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "Then, there was a day that I asked Naren, who's another sister in the house, she's actually staff, for a Bible.

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "I want to read it for myself."

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "I don't believe what they're just saying to me."

[laughter]

Gary: When you read it, that opened up your eyes then?

Holly: [foreign language]

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: "Yes, it was reading the Bible."

Gary: Last question I have for you, what does your family that's not in the house with you, what does your family think of what's happened in your life?

Holly: [foreign language]

Nora: [foreign language]

Holly: Actually, when she talks to her family-- Because she's still in hiding. This bad guy is still looking for her. All Things Are Possible is really helping us. We've already got arrest warrant out, we've been able to go to court, she's been able to tell the judges but this guy's still looking so she's still in hiding. All these conversations she has with her family is on the phone but they're telling her every time, "You've changed so much." Because just her attitude, just everything about her is so different.

Gary: I love it. It was very, very evident. I'm so thankful that Jesus changed your life so radically and now is using you to change other lives. You probably already seen this, but she's second-generation and she'll be leading people to Christ. You've probably already seen that then, third-generation and fourth-generation, they impact on Cambodia and around the world.

Holly: Just like the girls in the house that we're sharing with her. Those are that all came to Christ on their own too, that have really bad traumatic past also. They can minister to each other in ways that, "Well, God, help me. His word says this, and he did it." They share with each other like that. It's very matter of fact. It really is a blessing and an honor to be able to serve the Lord. I'm shocked every day. He loves me.

Gary: He alone is worthy. If somebody wanted to find out more about your ministry, is there any way do you have like any kind of a website or newsletters or something like that?

Holly: Yes, we have a website. If you go to www.girlshouseofrefuge.com, that'll take you right to our website. If another one comes up we're in Cambodia. We're in Cambodia.

Gary: We'll be praying for you. The last of those who are listening to your story here today that keep you in prayer and Nora you in prayer that God will use you mightily to do great things in the country.

Holly: Thank you so much.

Gary: Thank you for being here today. I really appreciate it. Love your story and I love the work you've done. Keep up the good work.

Holly: Thank you.