July 23, 2019
July 23, 2019
Dear friends,
VIDEO UPDATE ON OUR NEW BUILDING
Please watch the video below for a great aerial view of our new property. The video was shot from a drone by a friend of ours who was visiting us from Iowa. Thanks Jonathan for the footage!
SPECIAL SERVICE AT A LOCAL PARK
This past Sunday many of our folks traveled to a park located very close to our new land where we enjoyed having our morning service as well as lunch afterwards. It was such a blessing to hear the singing, testimonies, and the Word of God preached!
During the service we had the opportunity to hear Ly share a testimony of how he came to know Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour. Many of us have shared the gospel with Ly over the past two years but he has always been afraid to get saved. We praise the Lord that he accepted the Lord about two weeks ago! Ly’s adult children and his wife have all been saved and faithfully attending church for some time now and it was through the testimony of his son’s changed life that Ly finally came to see his need to be saved. Ly has already been shunned by those in his village and has been told that he is no longer welcome to participate in any social events due to his decision to become a Christian. Please pray for Ly and his family to be be a bright and shining light for the Lord in their very dark and hopeless village. I have been told that several villagers are watching the example of the believers and are beginning to ask serious questions about why those who follow Christ tend to live in peace and experience great joy. Pray that the believer’s daily example will result in a great harvest of souls.
SreyGe was saved through our Phnom Penh Children’s ministry when she was just a young teenager. For a couple of years she was faithful and involved in the outreach ministries of the church. Sadly, at the insistence of her parents, she made the decision to marry a nonbeliever and her life over the past four years or so has not been an easy one. For some time she moved to a village quite far from Phnom Penh but this past month she returned to live in Ondong Village located about 40 minutes from our church. Brother Vannak and some others have been working with her and encouraging her to return to a life of fellowship with the Lord. We were so happy to see SreyGe and her husband, Nat, in the service this past Sunday morning. Please pray that SreyGe will be faithful to the Lord and that her husband will see his need of salvation and be saved.
When our morning service was over many of us met over at the new property for a time of prayer and rejoicing at the progress that has been made on the new property. It was such a blessing to join hand-in-hand and ask God’s blessing upon the new building. Please join us in praying that we will be able to complete the building with no further hindrances. We are still in need of the funds to complete the auditorium. If you would like to have a part in helping to see this project completed, please contact me for further information. We are so thankful for those of you who have already helped!
This past week our friends from Iowa helped us to move 10,000 bricks by hand! It was a great blessing to see their zeal for the Lord. They were a great example to the unsaved contractors who were standing around watching them work so hard!
The Lord has already provided the funds for the foundation, the ground level slab, the pillars, and the second level slab to be poured. Lord willing, we will be taking up a special offering to purchase bricks in about three weeks. We estimate that we will need about 100,000 bricks in order to complete the current phase of our building project. It is our hope and prayer that the national believers will be able to give the entire amount needed to purchase the bricks. So many of our people live from day-to-day and literally have no disposable income, but we believe that they are planning to give sacrificially to the Lord in order to see their church building completed. Please help us pray that God will supernaturally provide money to our people so that they might be able to joyfully give in the offering.
Because of God’s grace,
Dave, Debbie, Joshua, and Jason
It was a blessing to be able to participate in the outreach in Preah Vithear Province this past week. We are so thankful for our friend (pictured in the top left) who purchased this piece of property as well as built this building in order to provide a permanent location where we can meet in this village. 
The commute to this particular village takes five hours one way. Thankfully the roads are pretty good, at least for the time being. Each week five of our folks travel there to go soul-winning, disciple new believers, hold a church service, and share a meal with the new believers. 
We had a wonderful time together as between sixty and seventy of our folks joined together this past Saturday for a time of soul-winning that we call “Highways and Hedges.” Highways and Hedges soul-winning is when we go to a village where we have no existing contacts and simply go door-to-door, seeking to share the gospel with all who are willing to listen. Of course many folks are not willing to listen to a presentation of the gospel but they are willing to at least take a gospel tract. It was a blessing to later hear reports from our folks of contacts they had made and to see their burden for the lost in the four villages that we attempted to cover. Debbie and I have a prospect we met and whom we are hoping will be open to meeting with us again in the near future. 
This past week the steel security gates were installed on the new property. We had hoped to have them up about a month ago. However, the contractor seemed to operate on a little different time frame than we did! 🙂 
This past Sunday morning and evening we honored our mothers. It was such a blessing to hear several of the young people publicly read the poems that they wrote to honor their mothers. One of the young ladies, Srey Nak, presented the plan of salvation in one of the stanzas of her poem. We were all touched to hear her tearfully and unashamedly plead with her mother to accept Jesus Christ as Saviour. 
It was a particular blessing to hear Borey read the poem that she wrote to honor her mother. Her mother, Channy, came to know the Lord several years ago through the consistent love and appeal of one of the soul winners here at the church. After she was saved I remember Channy sharing a testimony of how she used to curse and yell at the soul winners when they attempted to share the gospel with her. One day she actually asked them why they continue to go to her house even though she treats them so badly. They told her that they keep sharing the gospel with her because God loves her and desires for her to be saved. It was their love for her that the Holy Spirit used to help soften her heart to receive the gospel. Over five years ago Channy died from liver failure and today is with the Lord. It was touching for me to sit on the platform behind Borey as she read her poem, and look past her to the picture of her mother on the wall. The picture includes the faces of six of our former members who today are in Heaven. The picture is a great reminder to our church that we are to remain “steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” because we know that our “labor is not in vain in the Lord.”
Sunday evening in our Married Couples small group it was a blessing to hear Ming Thach share some of her salvation testimony. She shared how that forty years ago, with her hands bound behind her back, while standing in the execution line of the Khmer Rouge, she pleaded with God to save her from impending death. She admitted that she had no idea Who the true God was. She knew in her heart that the things she had been worshiping were not truly God. They were gods that had eyes but could not see. They had ears but were incapable of hearing her cry out for help in her time of need. God did save her from the executioner’s axe that day, and for the next forty years she desired to know the God Who had created her – but she had no idea where to find Him. What a blessing it is to remember that it is God Who seeks out the lost and places within them the desire to know Him. He is faithful to create circumstances that lead the unsaved to a place where they are willing and ready to accept the gospel as is it brought to them by Christians who are obedient to Christ’s command to take the gospel to the lost. One day several months ago she sat in her home all alone. In despair she held a handful of pills and contemplated how she could get up the courage to take her own life. She was tired of the day-in day-out struggle just to survive. Her religion had provided her with no real answers and she wanted to end it all with the hope that she could maybe be reincarnated and start all over again – perhaps her next life would be better than her present life. As she sat all alone several of our folks from the outreach in StungMeanChey knocked on her door as they were going door-to-door with the gospel. After meeting with her on several occasions she came to understand that Jesus Christ was not only her Creator but He also had sustained her throughout her life making it possible for her to live long enough to hear the gospel. She came to believe that His death, burial, and resurrection had provided the only way to pay for her sin debt and place her in right standing with God. With great joy she shared how that she no longer desires to end her life but now desires to live for the Lord Jesus Christ! Thank the Lord for the power of the gospel to save anyone who is willing to “turn to God from idols” and “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” 
We love seeing the young adults and teens in our church serve the Lord by reaching out to the children in our neighborhood with love and with the gospel. Seyha, the young man pictured above, was reached as a young person through the Phnom Penh Children’s Ministry and today leads the teen class of our children’s ministry here in Phnom Penh. 
This past week we enjoyed a special time of fellowship with some of the married couples who are part of the church. Their joy and love for the Lord was evident as we spent the evening together.
One special aspect of our time together was when each couple stood up front and expressed their gratitude to each other and to the Lord for the marriage that they are enjoying. What a joy it was to remember that though most of our folks have very few material possessions, yet they possess the joy of the Lord and constantly look to Him as their Sustainer and the Source of their joy.
This past Tuesday evening we enjoyed a time fellowship with some of the singles in our church. Debbie and I rarely have the opportunity to be with them outside of our regular church services and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing them have a great time together. The majority of these young adults come from families that do not know the Lord. They are often pressured by family members to abandon their faith in Jesus Christ or at least live a life that is less committed to a walk of obedience. 
This past week Michelle marked her three-year anniversary of serving the Lord here in Cambodia. We have had the privilege to be a part of her life for many years and it’s been a great joy to see how she has joyfully yielded to God’s call upon her life. The impact of her investment into the lives of the young girls in our church will only be revealed in eternity. Recently these four young ladies began attending church, in part, due to the love and acceptance that they have felt as they have come to know Michelle. 
We are trying, on purpose, to meet the families who live in and near the village where we plan to relocate this next year. It was great to get to spend some time with Sinath recently and to hear her once again express her joy that there will soon be a church near her house. She came to know the Lord a few years ago while being incarcerated for a crime that she committed. However, when she returned home a few months ago there was no one to help disciple her. She told us that she has been praying that there would be a church in her village. We are looking forward to getting to know her better as Debbie and I plan to soon begin discipling her in the Word of God. 
We are so thankful for the generosity of a godly older Cambodian lady from Long Beach, California who purchased land in Preah Vithear Province and then built a simple building that provides an adequate place for our folks who are a part of that village outreach to meet for church services. For the past many months we have been meeting in the home of one of the believers, and the people are so grateful now for the Lord’s provision of a proper building that is more centrally located to their homes. Most of the new believers who are a part of this outreach are under heavy financial debt due to unwise decisions they made prior to being saved. Sadly, most of the families who live in this particular village, whether saved or unsaved, are facing eventual eviction and loss of their personal land and possessions as their debt has risen to a place that they can no longer manage to even pay the interest on the loans they took out several years ago in order to try and simply survive. It’s troubling to learn how many of them have been deceived by loan sharks who demand exorbitant interest rates. Imagine spending nearly your entire income just to pay interest payments month after month and at the end of two years owing the exact same amount that you borrowed. Humanly speaking there is no hope in sight for most of them. 
This past week I met with some of the men to discuss the timing for the start of our Christian School. It would seem that many of them are burdened in regard to their responsibility to train their children in the “nurture and admonition of the Lord.” They have come to the conviction, on their own, that they can not continue to allow their young children to be exposed to the many influences that are found in the public school system. In several of the villages where our folks live, drug abuse and immorality is rampant even among junior high young people. In their mind, it is no longer simply a matter of combating the lies of evolution and idol worship that is blatantly forced upon the young people. In fact, the young people have been sustained by the grace of God and most of them are standing for the Lord, and just like the three Hebrew children have refused to bow to idols. They believe it is now a matter of physical safety as many of the youth, even in the most remote parts of this country, are falling to drug addiction and other related vices. We are not in a position to begin an actual school but we are taking steps to begin a “learning center” that will serve, Lord willing, as a precursor to a future school. 
It was a wonderful blessing for us to have our regular Celebration Service a couple of weeks ago and to see thirty-eight folks follow the Lord in Believer’s Baptism! Despite the weather being unbearably hot, we enjoyed hearing a number of special songs by various groups in the church. So many of the folks diligently work to make these services a special time.
During the service we had the privilege of dedicating eight babies to the Lord. One of the blessings of having a young church is that we have a constant influx of babies being born. While it can present certain challenges logistically to have a number of babies present at church at any given time, we are excited to think about the potential that these children have to make a significant impact in Southeast Asia for the gospel if they are properly trained by godly parents. As a church we desire to work together to see these eight couples continue to grow in their knowledge of, and obedience to, the Word of God. As they pass truth on to their children and their children grow up in the church, we anticipate seeing a great host of faithful young couples who have known the Lord from a very young age and who are equipped to make an eternal difference in this part of the world.
Discipleship is a very important aspect of the Great Commission and I am thankful that it continues to be among our top priorities here in Cambodia. Whether we are helping to ground new believers in their faith through the public preaching of the Word of God during a church service, meeting together in a small-group context, mentoring our Bible College students in the classroom setting, or meeting with new believers one-on-one, we believe that the making of disciples is an aspect of the Christian life in which every believer ought to be passionately involved.
I introduced Grandpa Ny to you in our last blog update. It was my privilege to travel to his village this past Sunday with our workers and to meet him in person. As with many older folks here, he was not certain how old he was in “western” years. We finally figured out that he is actually 102 years old! I was the first white person that he had ever met and we enjoyed speaking together for quite awhile. As I asked him questions about his life and about his new faith in Jesus Christ there were two things, in particular, that struck me:
We were able to produce two new gospel tracts this past week. The one on the far left is entitled True Hope. The tract in the middle is entitled The Greatest Problem of Man. Both of these tracts were written by some of our national men who we led to Christ several years ago. The front covers were designed by our son, Joshua. Through a generous donation of dear friends in the Midwest we were able to print 10,000 copies of these two tracts as well reprint our tract on the right entitled After Leaving this World: Is Reincarnation True? 
As you know, with rental prices continuing to rise here in the capital city at unsustainable levels and being faced with the fact that our current lease will be expiring this next year and our rent will likely be doubled, the Lord led us to purchase a plot of land on the edge of town. So much work has already been done on the property and we are excited to see the progress even though it is not moving as fast as we would like.
There has been substantial progress made on the new property over the past week! These pictures were taken yesterday morning. As you can see from the picture, the wall is nearly completed. Very soon we hope to begin bringing in truckloads of dirt in order to raise the elevation of the property so as to prevent flooding during rainy season. 
You learned of Sinath’s situation from the video above…
This morning we were privileged to have Brother San and his family with us. San preached for our morning service and his message was timely and right on point. San and Yom oversee the work in PsaTricht village and the surrounding villages. They are a godly couple and valuable partners in the work of the Lord here in Cambodia. They are expecting another child in about three months. 
It was a blessing to have Saam and Si in the service this morning. You may recall that they recently accepted Christ. It seems that the enemy is doing all that he can to try and discourage them from moving forward in their walk with the Lord. Last Tuesday they were unable to meet for discipleship because their grandson was hit by a moped as he was crossing the street in front of their house. They had to take him to the emergency room to have scans done on his head. Thankfully there did not appear to be a concussion or any serious damage to his head. He was released from the hospital a couple of days later and sent back home. Then as they were preparing to leave the house for our service this evening he somehow stumbled and fell, thereby hitting his head once again. Apparently the fall was substantial enough that they had to take him back to the emergency room. I am certain that these two events were not random – I believe that the devil is attempting to get them discouraged. 
It was a great blessing to be able to meet Ohm Thach this evening. She was saved just a month ago through the efforts of the folks in the StungMeanChey outreach and has been faithfully attending the services there. This evening she shared with me of the joy of her salvation and her gratitude to those who spent the time and took the effort to explain the gospel to her. Dany is a student in the Bible college and had a part in helping her to be saved. 
We were happy to have SeiYak in our married couples class this evening. She is Sopheap’s mother. I remember when Sopheap accepted Christ a little over seven years ago and how SeiYak’s anger caused her to curse Sopheap and her husband, Sinath. Over the past year or so her heart has softened as she sees their godly example in their marriage and family life. She is still not willing to turn from idols and ancestral worship. I believe she realizes that the rest of her children would turn on her if she were to be saved and she is not willing to face that rejection. 
We were happy to have Johnny and Reeda in the married couples class this evening. Johnny was saved last year as Bro. Vong and others spent time with him and helped him to see his need to be saved. His wife, Reeda, told me this evening that she had never stepped foot into a church before tonight. We are hoping to arrange a time very soon to go to dinner with them with the goal of helping to lead her to Christ. 
This past week Bro. Vannak and those who have been going soul winning in CheoungEk village had the opportunity to meet grandpa Ny. He is one hundred years old this year! The amazing thing is that his eyesight is still great, as is his ability to reason and remember. He told our folks that he had never heard of Jesus Christ. He knew that he was a sinner but he had no idea that his sin was a serious problem that would result in him falling under the wrath of God for eternity in Hell. He listened intently to the gospel for quite awhile as Vannak and others opened the Word of God and taught him about how the world was created by God as a place that was without sin, but that one day man chose, by his own free will, to rebel against God. This rebellion brought about death. During our testimony time this evening in our married couples class, Vannak shared that Ny’s heart is very tender to the gospel and that he seems to be understanding and accepting what he is being taught. 
As you can see from these pictures, there is progress being made on the new property. Over the past two weeks the sewer lines have been installed, the electric has been brought into the property, a water well has been drilled, the foundation of the wall has been dug, and the wall has begun to be built. We are so grateful for the way that God has used His people to supply the needs up to this point. Not only has the land been paid for, in full, but there has been enough money to accomplish all the other things that have been done as well. Over the next couple of weeks we anticipate the wall being done. At that point we will be bringing in somewhere around 450-480 truckloads of dirt in order to raise the elevation of the land. If we don’t, we could easily be flooded out during the rainy season. Each truckload of dirt will be between $15-16.
This past week we had a soul-winning conference at the church in Phnom Penh. It was a great blessing to have a few of our folks travel down from Romdeng village in northern Cambodia in order to participate in the conference. In addition to the folks in these pictures, there were three other young adult men who came as well. 
It was a blessing this past week to have the opportunity to lead Si and Saam to the Lord. For the past couple of years Saam has ridden her bike past our church in Phnom Penh as she sells potatoes up and down the streets of our neighborhood. Normally her face is covered by a mask to help keep out the dirt and so I had never actually seen her face. While Sinath and I met with her in her home and presented the gospel to her, she told us that she has been watching the people at the church and sees that they are all filled with joy. She has always desired to visit the church but she has been afraid that she would not be welcomed. 
Many of you might recall hearing of the young Muslim girl who got saved about 7 years ago as a result of the Children’s ministry in her village. When we were back stateside and visiting churches, I would often tell the story of how her strong testimony and unwillingness to compromise, even as a 9 year old girl, helped lead to her parents both being saved. She is now 16 years old and still faithful to the Lord! Tina is standing next to Debbie in the picture. Tina has been praying for many of her fellow classmates in her public school to be saved. She realizes that prayer alone is not enough – She needs to live the Christian life in front of them, and as they see the love of Christ and her consistent example, their hearts will be softened to the gospel. Because of the grace of God (the desire and the ability to joyfully obey Christ) Tina has a very good name in her school. That is why when the door was opened for her to clearly speak with her friends about their need for a personal Saviour, they were willing to listen to her. It has been a great blessing to see Theary and SreySrahs accept Jesus as their personal Saviour because of Tina’s example and boldness to live for the Lord at school! 
A couple of weeks ago I met Tina at the hardware store where he works. Since then we have been texting back and forth and have begun to build a relationship. Joshua and I had the opportunity to eat lunch with him in his home this past week. During the meal he told me that he is open to learning what it means to be a Christian. He was born into a belief system that offers him no hope of salvation, no forgiveness for sin, no relationship with a personal God, and no freedom from the power of darkness, and that teaches him to depend upon his own “good works” in hope that he will be reincarnated and have a more prosperous “next” life. We were stuck in traffic and arrived at his home 45 minutes late. His wife had to return back to the factory where she works just before we arrived as she only had an hour break. 
Hout (on the right) and his entire family were saved a little over 3 years ago. His father, Tara, is a professor and has a great testimony where he teaches. One of his students, Tearak, recently accepted Christ and will be baptized soon. Tara teaches around 900 students and has opportunities on a daily basis to share the gospel as well as try and answer questions about the Bible and what it means to be a Christian. Tara’s burden for the lost has influenced Hout to have a burden for his own people as well. Hout is a first year student in our Bible college and is also involved in the outreach to Ondong village. Several months ago Hout began learning how to play several traditional Khmer instruments with the singular goal of using music as a way to spread the gospel among older folks who are normally not willing to listen to your typical soul-winner. A ministry like this has the potential to help open doors for the gospel to spread to places that are currently without any gospel witness whatsoever. I am sure that the enemy will work overtime to get him to follow after useless pursuits that will not result in the gospel going where it needs to go. 
We began a new term in the Bible college this past week. This term we are offering the following classes to our students: Child Development, 1 & 2 Peter, Acts, Cults 2, Discipling new believers, English, and Khmer grammar and writing. In the picture above, Brother Kosal is administering a diagnostic test to the students to try and assess their ability to effectively read and comprehend literature in their own language as well as write cohesive sentences and paragraphs regarding various topics that were discussed in class. I didn’t sit in on the class but from what I heard it was fairly difficult for most of them. Kosal recently resigned from teaching at one of the top English schools here in Phnom Penh in order to serve alongside of us full-time in the ministry. Thank God for Kosal and his wife, Phalley, and for their willingness to unreservedly surrender their lives to the cause of Christ among their own people. 
We had a wonderful service yesterday as we cast vision to the congregation regarding the purpose of the church. The spirit was great and the fellowship refreshing.
The sewer lines are being put in this next week just ahead of when we plan to bring in several hundred truckloads of dirt in order to raise the elevation of the land. It is important to raise the elevation a couple of feet in order to prevent our land from flooding as the property around us is developed. We also anticipate building a cement wall all the way around the lot in order to prevent our land from being stolen little by little.
It was a great joy to be able to see SreyNak (on the left with the blue sweater) and Tina (on the right in the black sweater) serving the Lord by loving the children who are a part of the outreach in ChoeungEk! They were both reached through the children’s ministry as young children. SreyNak was reached through the outreach here in Phnom Penh and Tina was reached through the outreach in her Muslim village located about an hour and a half from Phnom Penh. As we see the young people in our church willing to invest their Sunday afternoons taking the gospel to those who are most in need, we are reminded that the future is bright and our capacity to continue reaching people and planting new churches is great! 
SreyNeang is 14 years old and was reached with the gospel through the outreach in ChoeungEk. Her love for the Lord and the joy that is reflected on her countenance is infectious. She does not live an easy life. Sadly, her mother spends the majority of her time gambling. I have no idea what role, if any, her father plays in her life. Though she is only 14 years old, this past week her family forced her to get a job working at a factory 6 days a week in order to support the family – she will be the sole provider for her family. Unfortunately this is a scenario that is repeated over and over in the lives of many young people here in this part of the world even though it is not in compliance with the existing child labor laws that are meant to protect the young people. Despite the circumstances in which she lives, SreyNeang continues to have a desire to be a light for the Lord in her very dark neighborhood. 
Brother Man and others have reached out to Chhay and his wife, SreyGe, with the gospel over the past several weeks. I had the opportunity to spend some time with him on Sunday afternoon and answer some of his questions as I shared the plan of salvation with him. It seems that his heart is very tender to the gospel right now. Man has done a great job in winning their hearts and showing them the love of Christ. Very soon Man is planning to take his wife, Kahna, to go and meet SreyGe and spend some time with her. 
These two teen young men and their sister seem to be very open to the gospel. They live in ChoeungEk and have had the opportunity to hear the gospel through Brother Man and those who are serving in that village. I had the privilege to meet them Sunday afternoon and it was very evident to me that Man had won their hearts! Because the cults and false religion is so very prevalent here, it often takes a lot of time and patience for the lost to see the difference between the gospel that we are striving to preach from the Word of God and the “social gospel” that is being peddled here by NGO groups and hirelings under the guise of Christianity. 
We have written about the outreach in Romdeng Village on several occasions. It is a blessing to see what God is doing in the lives of those who have been saved. Each week a team of workers from Phnom Penh, StungMeanChey, or PsaTricht travel nearly 6 hours one way to reach Romdeng. Once they arrive there they disciple the new believers as well as seek to share the gospel with the lost. There is a good solid core of adults who have come to Christ and who are taking a strong stand for the Lord and we are blessed to see their burden for their lost family members and friends.