June 26, 2016

June 26, 2016

Dear friends,

We had an awesome weekend! However, before I tell you about a few of the things that happened, I invite you to watch this short video that we shot on Friday morning this past week. It was our privilege to host Pastor Chris Chadwick and his daughter, Judith, for their missions trip here to Cambodia. In this video he gives his impressions of what he has seen here in Cambodia and in the ministry.

CELEBRATION SERVICE

Every six weeks or so we have a special service here in Phnom Penh where we enjoy special music, testimonies, Believer’s Baptism, and lunch together. For many of our people it is the highlight of their month.

We were blessed to have around 300 folks in this service Sunday morning. It’s always a huge blessing when the day is over and everything has gone smoothly. In the video below you can hear one of the opening congregational songs as well as one of our small groups singing during the service.

Immediately following the service we had a time of fellowship. Many of our ladies got up very early Sunday morning to prepare food for the potluck. A special day like this c0uld not happen without many people working together for a common cause. We thank God for the great group of national ladies who have been saved and who desire to be a blessing to others by serving!

BELIEVER’S BAPTISM

The highlight of our Celebration Services is having the opportunity to witness new Christians follow the Lord in Believer’s Baptism. Here in Cambodia believers are often not persecuted when they simply make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. However, when they take the step of obedience to publicly identify with the Lord Jesus Christ through water baptism, that is when the persecution begins. In this picture you see our friend, Navy, getting baptized. She has been saved for about a month or so. When she returned home from church several of her neighbors openly mocked her for being baptized. Thank God for the twenty-two new believers who were baptized. PLEASE PRAY FOR THEIR CONTINUED SPIRITUAL GROWTH. 

I asked one of our national leaders, San, to preach for our special service. He preached a very good message on Living Faith vs. Dead Faith from the Book of James. The Lord allowed us to lead San to Christ ten years ago and see him trained for ministry. He oversees the Psa Tricht church (two hours from Phnom Penh) as well as the village ministries that take place during the week in various villages surrounding Psa Tricht.

It is always a blessing to see children desire to be in church! Thank God for the teenage workers who willingly and cheerfully conduct Junior Church for them during the adult service. Mrs. Has and others have done a great job of helping to train our teen girls to serve the Lord.

Perhaps the most overlooked ministry in many churches is the nursery. We are very blessed to have national ladies and teen girls who serve every week on a rotating schedule. I walk through the nursery every once in awhile just to check it out and see how things are going. I can tell you that it’s not always a cakewalk for the workers!

It was a blessing for Phan, Sakhan, and Nigah to all sit together in the service. All three of them are blind. They all love the Lord and love to be at church. Nigah owns a business here in Phnom Penh with around ten employees. Phan and Sakhan are retired. Thank God that there is a church where they feel welcomed and connected with other believers. Phan and his wife, Lon, shared their testimony of salvation during our service and we were all blessed to hear him clearly proclaim his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his resolution to never return to the darkness from which Jesus saved him! PLEASE PRAY THAT THESE THREE BELIEVERS WILL BE A BOLD WITNESS AND THAT WE WILL SEE OTHER BLIND FOLKS COME TO CHRIST.

NEW ADULTS SAVED THIS PAST WEEK

There were five Cambodian men who were saved this past week throughout our various ministries. I have pictures of four of them.

HokWa and his wife, Ran, were born in Vietnam but they have lived in Cambodia for many years. Several folks have been reaching out to them with the gospel for quite some time now. After listening to preaching on the mp3 player that our church lent to him, HokWa came to understand and believe that Jesus is God and that he is a sinner in need of salvation. He got saved on Saturday and was in church Sunday! Lord willing he will follow the Lord in Believer’s Baptism soon. PRAY FOR RAN TO BE SAVED. She came to church with him but she’s not quite convinced of her need of salvation as of yet. She’s a bit of a tough cookie…

Dara’s in-laws received the assurance of their salvation a couple of months ago and are a part of the Psa Tricht church. Since then they have been diligent to bring their adult children to church. Their daughter, ChanLy, was saved a few weeks ago and Dara trusted Christ as his personal Saviour this past week. They were both planning to be baptized this weekend but were unable to attend the service due to sickness. They plan to be baptized soon.

We wrote about SreyGe and Nat in our last blog update (https://goodnewsfromafar.com/2016/06/13/june-9-2016/) and asked you to pray for Nat’s salvation. We are thankful to report that he trusted Christ this past Thursday afternoon! His work schedule prevented him from making it to church in time to be baptized this weekend but we are hoping that his boss will be more flexible with him next time. His wife, SreyGe, was reached through our Children’s Ministry several years ago and we are excited to see them both saved and with a desire to grow!

Mr. Hi’s wife, Nemol, was saved a few weeks ago and was baptized this weekend. Before moving back to Cambodia Mr. Hi lived in the United States for many years ever since he was resettled there as a refugee back in the 1980’s. He regularly attended a Cambodian church in northern California but no one had ever explained to him his need to be saved. Sadly, this is quite typical of many Cambodian churches. Bro. San and several others have been meeting with him and helping him to understand the gospel. He was saved this week and followed the Lord in Believer’s Baptism the first opportunity he was given!

THREE SPECIAL PEOPLE

We would like for you to know Srey Srahs. She was reached with the gospel five years ago through our Phnom Penh Children’s Ministry but after getting saved she moved far away and was no longer able to attend church. It seems that her parents may have moved, in part, to get her away from our church. Several weeks ago Bro. Vannak and his wife, Samantha, were able to make contact with her once again. They were very blessed to see that she still had her Bible and would often read it even though she was unable to be at church or have contact with any Christians. She is now 18 years old and has a little more freedom than when she was younger. She now attends every service that she is able to and always has a big smile! PLEASE PRAY THAT SREY SRAHS WILL BE ABLE TO GET “PLUGGED IN” TO THE LIFE OF THE CHURCH FAMILY!

SreyNite is 23 years old and was reached through our Phnom Penh Children’s Ministry. Though she lives in a very difficult situation she has done her very best to be at church as much as possible. Several weeks ago she earned a Bible through completing a 100 question lesson on the Book of Mark. Last week, while cooking, the gas can on her stove blew up in her face and left her with very serious burns on her entire face and down one side of her body. Thankfully her eyes don’t seem to have been affected. I went to visit her this past Sunday morning before our service and was encouraged to hear her say that she is not angry at God but she trusts that He knows what is best for her life. PLEASE PRAY THAT SREY NITE WILL EXPERIENCE A TOTAL HEALING WITH MINIMAL OR NO SCARING! Right now she is taking shots everyday to keep down the infection.

Last of all, we want to you meet Ta Sakrut. Mr. Sakrut is a retired Ethics Professor. For many months our Stung MeanChey workers have been reaching out to him with the gospel. He accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour several weeks ago. Almost immediately his adult children began making life difficult for him as a result of his new faith. His story would be too long to share here in this update but we are excited to see what God is doing in his life. I’ve never seen a man of his age here in Cambodia take notes during the preaching as intently as he does! In fact, a couple of weeks ago I observed him writing so much while I was preaching that I was convinced he must be writing down all the things he disagrees with. One of our men, Tara, was sitting next to him during that service. They click well together as Tara is a University Professor as well. Sometime later I asked Tara if he noticed Mr. Sakrut writing stuff down. He said that he did and he was wondering what he was writing also since my entire outline was already printed and there were no “blanks” to fill-in. Tara told me that he kept peeking over to see what he was writing – It seems that he was writing down the illustrations I used during the message as well as additional cross-references that we used  because he didn’t want to forget them. Pretty exciting stuff! PRAY FOR TA SAKRUT’S CHILDREN TO SEE THEIR NEED OF SALVATION AND BE SAVED.

Because of God’s grace,

Dave, Debbie, Joshua, Jeremy, and Jason