Ministries in Pattaya

English classes are
a ministry too! During bar-outreaching,
we pass out informational cards and gospel tracks to the girls who are working
as prostitutes. The information cards
direct the girls to a near-by ministry organization called Tamar Center. Tamar is a organization that teaches English
to the girls, gives them opportunities to learn a professional trade and then
offers them jobs in that trade such as owning a salon, massage therapist,
sewing, greeting cards making, and bakery. I have been helping in the English classes this week. Which is not an easy task. Reason one being that they have an entirely
different letter writing, sentence structure, mouth sounds, and
understanding. Reason two is that
they’re coming from a tonal language to a language that is heavily influenced
with slang and accents.   Seriously, how
do you teach a tonal people how to say ‘river’ in the accent of a Belgium teach
and a Texan helper. Impossible! The poor girls were saying ‘lobar’ and
‘lever’. And they thought that each of
our accents were represented a different word. The girls were having such a hard time pronouncing their R sounds that
it would come out as an L. I now have a
higher respect for Asians who learn English. Lord bless them.