House of Blessing Prison Ministries

The Thai Christian Foundation (TCF) is a main charity organization in the USA, for people and churches to financially support the House of Blessing Foundation (HOBF) in Bangkok, Thailand. TCF sends these donations for the House of Blessing through our direct partner in Thailand, the Pan Rak Foundation.

The House of Blessing is led by Pastor Soonthorn and they work with different Thai government agencies such as the Ministry of Justice, and the departments under this ministry which includes the Thailand Department of Corrections, the Department of Juvenile Protection and Observation,and the Department of Probation.

The House of Blessing Thailand has three ministries:

The first one is the Prison Ministry inside the prisons which consists of evangelism, vocational training, teaching English, music, and sports.

The second ministry is a half-way house in which the House of Blessing helps former prisoners who have no place to live, are rejected by their family, or cannot find jobs. In this case, the House of Blessing allows them to stay and get training as much as possible, both in social needs and spiritual needs. The House of Blessing has prepared a program for them and offers livelihood projects for them to cultivate their skills and knowledge on how to start new lives and have the chance to embark on new lives with their families.
The House of Blessing also helps prepare people for reintegration into society and helps remove stigmas. The House of Blessing staff try their best to teach and guide people coming out of prison by the grace of God, to change their lives accordingly. Also, in the half-way house many youth from Juvenile Centers and Family Courts are diverted from incarceration because of a special MOU with the Thai government. These young people are often from broken families and they do not have anyone to lean on. The HOBF helps them by promoting their education and they have a non-formal education (KOSONO) here every Tuesday to give them a chance to continue their studies even if they just finished the elementary level. HOBF also has vocational training for them to learn skills that they can use to have jobs when they are ready to live outside. This year the House of Blessing is excited to build a new home for youth on land that was recently donated.

The third ministry is the Children’s Ministry. This ministry is getting bigger because many children are coming from the prisons. There are two groups of children staying in the Mother and Children Facility. The first group are children born in prisons. This ministry happened because a lot of mothers wrote to Pastor Soonthorn asking for help because of the prison policy that children born in prisons can only stay for a year. Normally after one year, if there are no relatives to take care of the child, the Corrections officers send the little children to an orphanage where the mothers do not have a chance to see their children again. To alleviate the suffering of the mothers, Pastor Soonthorn has helped them by opening this Mother and Children facility. There are caretakers to take care of the little children and the mothers will feel secure because they know their children are in good hands. The children also have a chance to visit their mothers every month.
The second group is the children whose parents are already incarcerated and no one takes care of them.
The House of Blessing takes care of these two groups and nurtures them, sending them to school. The older ones are learning music and involved in different sports prepared for them. The staff of the House of Blessing love these children as part of their own family and believe that they are pure and need a chance to live in a society and have equal rights just like other children. The House of Blessings teaches them the Word of God according to Pro. 22:6.