We now have Sons!

Earlier this year we started a new program working with ‘ladyboys’, male transsexual sex workers known in Cambodia as '3rd sex'. They are a completely unreached and highly ostracised population in Cambodia. Generally they only come out after midnight, due to the blatant social discrimination they face, which at the very least includes insults hurled at them from passers by if they venture outside in daylight hours. We conducted outreaches with these boys in the early part of 2010, and as a result started Sons project. We invited these boys to join Sons if they wanted to end sex work and earn alternative income. Thanks to a partnering business from Europe, we were able to offer them jobs making hand-made leather buttons, and have since added another small business to this project, silk screen printing. Their attendance has fluctuated, with a high attrition rate, but also a number of steady participants throughout, who have begun implementing huge life changes. The boys have been attending creative and educational programs, including music classes (we have a plan to form a worship band with them in the future) and literacy classes. We have had wonderful male volunteers working with the boys to show friendship and loving care, and the boys have chosen to attend our Friday church where most of them have become Christians. Two of the boys who became Christians a few weeks ago have made the decision to take on male identity once again, and end their promiscuous lifestyles, as they seek to follow Jesus. We are very blessed by them and thankful to the volunteers who have impacted them so much with friendship and unconditional love and acceptance. We see God is at work in their lives in a beautiful way and give him the Glory for this.