Baking at the RAP Home

At the RAP Community home we are always trying to ensure that the environment our young women live in is contextually Cambodian. However, the one area where we have a bit of ''Western influence'' is having a Western oven. This was deliberately done to encourage our young women who liked baking to gain different life skills and experience using an oven. Over time, our young women have made a variety of baked goods and our staff and the other young women have had the pleasure of taste testing!.

Lois encouraging one of our young women

Recently, Lois who is an international worker that volunteers at RAP normally helping us out on administrative functions, is also an avid baker in her spare time. As such, she has spent some time teaching some of our young women how to bake from scratch. This is a far cry from my lazy style baking which involves using Duncan Hines cake mixes. But the reality is, baking from scratch is more contextually appropriate and useful for the young women to learn all the ingredients and the quantities needed to make all the desserts. One of our young women SL has really excelled in this area on her own initiative and often in her spare time is now coming up with her own baking creations as she goes on the internet to research recipes and then experiments in the RAP kitchen. It has also been a great way for her to learn more English as she will chat with Lois on different ingredients and quantities. She now has her own recipe journal making notes of all the different recipes and has already making adjustments to existing recipes to perfect the taste! I think that's a sign of a good cook or baker!

Making muffins

Making Bread

To date, SL has made muffins, chocolate chip cookies, bread, pancakes, crepes and even donuts. On one occasion, SL and another young women contributed their own funds to make donuts for their friends at the shelter they previously stayed at. Such generosity using what little they have, speaks to the heart that God is cultivating in them as they seek to bless others.

Donuts 

Chocolate chip cookies anyone!

Muffins

Making  Pancakes

With such baking enthusiasm, we are gaining weight tasting all these baking delicacies.:-) But its for a good cause! How can we resist? One's gotta do what one's gotta do!

More importantly, through these baking exercises, we see self confidence, initiative and creativity being released in SL as she enjoys this ''hobby.'' This is what we desire for each of the young women who stay at the RAP home, that as time goes by, they will each discover their own passions that reflects their individual personalities, talents and gifts that God has given to them. Our role is simply to facilitate and provide opportunities to support and nurture their individual giftings and achievements so that when they leave the RAP home, they leave with a deeper understanding of not only who they are in Christ but a deeper understanding of why He created them and a deeper realization that they can do immeasurably more than they could ever imagine!