My Refuge House

Call Directions Website Contact the organization

My Refuge House We have been providing comprehensive therapeutic residential care since January 2009. Our programming has evolved through the years to meet the changing needs.

My Refuge House is on a journey of hope, healing, and restoration with survivors and communities impacted by commercial sexual exploitation and abuse in the Philippines. Founded by members of New Heart Community Church in Southern California, we opened our doors in Cebu, Philippines to survivors of commercial sexual exploitation and abuse. Today, we are 501(c)(3) non-profit organization supported by and partnered with stakeholders around the globe to accomplish our mission of RESTORING ONE LIFE AT A TIME. We want to make a real and lasting difference in the lives of the girls in our care, and we also want to create a ripple effect of change within the wider community. We are grateful that we are large enough to see patterns and small enough to pivot. We have increased our long-term capacity, added a transitional program for girls entering young adulthood, and developed a community outreach program focused on prevention, advocacy, and collaboration/leadership with other organizations. We have also expanded and are working on formalizing our work with families. We now focus on three areas of impact: Prevention-Restoration-Reintegration.

09/17/2026

Meet Izhabella. An 8 year old with a lot of heart. Her sister Princess has already been with us waiting for her. Help us welcome her to +LIFE beyond human trafficking with open arms.

You support just such a welcome when you attend events like muchadoforfreedom or Fashioned For Freedom and when you create your own peer advocacy and support through Movement for Freedom and personal birthday appeals. Thank you.

Twenty-five years today. In my marriage and family therapy program at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, I wa...
09/11/2026

Twenty-five years today.

In my marriage and family therapy program at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, I was introduced to a word I have not been able to unsee since: re-membering. The term comes from the anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff, who used it to name a particular kind of recollection, and it made its way into narrative therapy and pastoral care from there.

It is not the same as remembering, the cognitive work of recalling what happened. Re-membering is putting back together a self, a body, a community where suffering has taken apart. The hyphen does so much work. It concedes that something was dismembered, and it insists the pieces are still there.

A lot of what I do now involves creating space for re-membering, and it is most of what I watch the girls at My Refuge House do. Not retrieving the past on anyone’s behalf, but staying close while a person or family or community puts itself back together, at their pace and in their own order.

Today a great many people are remembering. Some of us are re-membering. The second takes far longer and asks more of the people faith-fully standing nearby. Thank you for holding space with us today.

Peace, Heather
CEO, +LIFE beyond human trafficking

❤️‍🩹🫶🌏

08/28/2026

The girls of MRH gather on campus many different ways. One way is when they connect with their roots by learning and performing traditional Filipino folk dances. 🥹

Inspiration to lean in and shape the world we want for the next generations comes from many places. I am from the mounta...
08/25/2026

Inspiration to lean in and shape the world we want for the next generations comes from many places. I am from the mountains of Virginia, not too far from Dollywood. It’s the kind of place where stories get told on porches and long drives, and where a woman who sang about her own mountains became one of the most beloved people in the world. She never got embarrassed about where she came from.

“It’s just a mountain, I can move it.”
— Dolly Parton, Light of a Clear Blue Morning

She wrote that song while walking away from something that had a hold on her. Not a triumph song, but a leaving song. The girls we walk with know that walk. I would venture to suggest we all do.

Nobody moves a mountain alone. We always hope the stories we share from +LIFE beyond human trafficking inspire you to know that you can always be part of a world where dreams are still possible. Mountains can still be moved.

🫶 Heather Bland

Kinda chic to have an unplanned matchy matchy day at the office. 🤣🤩
08/22/2026

Kinda chic to have an unplanned matchy matchy day at the office. 🤣🤩

Samantha is pictured here sharing her prayer during MRH chapel hour. She’s nervous and excited starting her last year of...
08/07/2026

Samantha is pictured here sharing her prayer during MRH chapel hour. She’s nervous and excited starting her last year of Senior High School.

Would you like to be a Restoring Partner who supports ongoing care through regular contributions? Restoring Partners also receive details each month about some of our more personal stories like this one. It’s a closer look at what’s happening at MRH.

Text “firstfridays” to 50-155 to become a Restoring Partner and we’ll send you this month’s story. 💙

I recently heard myself tell our 13 year old that bad stuff is going to happen. Some of it big and terrible, some of it ...
07/31/2026

I recently heard myself tell our 13 year old that bad stuff is going to happen. Some of it big and terrible, some of it small, and a lot of it out of our control. When we name the hard feelings, find our allies, and lean in with a tiny bit of faith, gratitude, or curiosity, we usually find our way to a new perspective and deeper sense of support. We feel more creative. More connected.

July 30 is World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. It’s a heavy day, and we want to spend it talking about connection, because connection is the antidote.

Exploitation counts on isolation. On girls being unseen. On the world feeling big and anonymous.
Our summer has been proof of the opposite. Childhood friends turning up in Denver the same time we were there. A Houston church we met in Colorado. A North Carolina church checking in on us in Cebu. Students half a world away rallying books and prayers. Founding members, former staff, new pastors, an old friend of my mom’s. People finding us. Us finding them. Over and over.

It really is a small world. Thank you for helping make it a safer one for our girls.

~ Heather (CEO, My Refuge House)

Be a builder of community and a world without human trafficking +LIFE beyond human trafficking: text “notip2026” to 50-155

Salamat kaayo. Amping. đź’™

07/23/2026

Savannah wrote a poem. We hope you might feel as inspired and touched as we do.

I am a girl.
I am a girl that love God and God love me.
I am a girl that is so special with God.
I am a girl that only know my own story.
I am a girl who can make my story new.

Thanks so much to a friend of our CEO’s family for connecting us with Crosswind Church of Denver and to Pastor Ramon Ra...
07/13/2026

Thanks so much to a friend of our CEO’s family for connecting us with Crosswind Church of Denver and to Pastor Ramon Ramon Navarro for creating space with his congregation to hear about +LIFE beyond human trafficking today! Also grateful for the support from Sa Bie (our former social worker at MRH) who now lives in Denver and is continuing to be a catalyst of hope and healing here.

It also felt poetic to give a shout out and to share our film created by BIONIC GIANT only miles from their home base.

We continue to be inspired and fueled by a global village of care. If you’re in the Denver/Boulder area and would like to connect in the next two weeks, please send us a message. 🫶

ps. Check out Heather Bland as a of ANTHILL 🤩

Address

2275 Huntington Drive
Arcadia, CA
91108

Telephone

+16267881674

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when My Refuge House posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Organization

Send a message to My Refuge House:

Shortcuts

Share

Category