Last week we had an amazing opportunity at the bakery project. The longer we are in Thailand the more ministries we are becoming familiar with enabling us to network more, tapping into our resources here. YWAM-Youth With A Mission, is very involved in the Pattaya area and operate the Tamar Center, a bakery in the city employing only girls that have willingly come out of the prostitution industry or living on the streets and completed their discipleship program. YWAM is disciplining these ladies and then offers them several job training opportunities, one of them being bakery skills.
After almost a year of working in the Rayong Prison Bakery we feel like we really haven't had that much progress with the girls there on a spiritual level. The language issue is our biggest obstacle. The girls know that Molly and I are Christians, we have given them tracts in Thai, books at Christmas explaining the story of Jesus birthday, asked them for prayer requests....
An American friend volunteers at the Tamar Center in the office and she introduced us to Khun Khack that is the head chef at the bakery in Pattaya. She has an awesome testimony. Khun Khack left her small village in northern Thailand after her husband left her with two small daughters moving to Pattaya to find employment in a bar. The first night in town she inquired at many bars looking for a job and no one would hire her, that in itself is pretty unbelievable, there are 100's of bars and 1000's of ladies employed there. After walking the streets of Pattaya for most of the night, searching for some sort of job, having no where to go, she fell asleep on a sidewalk outside a business. The next morning when the shop owner came to open up she found Khun Khack asleep. She offered her breakfast and listened to her story offering her a job training program. She had providentially fallen asleep right outside the doors of the Tamar Center!
After several weeks she gave her life to Christ and 8 years later is managing the Tamar Center bakery, training other girls saved off the streets to bake while disciplining them. She has taken the good news back to her village and has seen all of her family members come to Christ. I met with her and told her of our work at the prison bakery and she was eager to come and share her testimony with the girls while teaching them cake decorating. Cake decorating is something the girls had expressed an interest in learning months ago.
It was such a great day. Our girls loved Khun Khack's infectious personality and were so attentive as she taught them how to do some basic cake decorating while sharing how Christ has changed her life. She could really relate to the girls, she has a history of drug usage and many scars on her wrists where she had attempted suicide, while growing up Buddhist in Thailand. She can reach the girls in a way that this white, Christian girl from America never could!! We hope to team up with the Tamar Center in the future having their ladies come share their baking expertise but most importantly their love of Christ!
