Cambodia 2

I wanted to share a couple more things with you all from my time in Cambodia a week ago.

Unit 51:
We broke ground on the community center for the village and I had the chance to see the progress the families were making with their chicken houses and organic gardens. I was very encouraged by these things. There are now fruit trees and vegetable gardens scattered throughout the village.

Prayer of dedication for the community center
As I met with the brigade commander there he expressed great encouragement about how the living conditions and attitudes of his military families was improving.

We also had a couple of teaching opportunities with our leadership families.

Unit 14:
In addition to the amazing story I shared with you already I am very encouraged about how organized the Christian leaders are at the brigade.

They have appointed a shepherd for each of the 12 military family subdivisions surrounding the unit. They meet regularly for prayer and training.

The shepherds of Unit 14
I met with the new incoming commander and shared with him our joy in helping them get clean water to the families in the brigade. He of course is elated that we are helping them this way as it shows his superiors that he is taking care of his men. The truly wonderful thing about this is that his Christian troops are initiating this project.

I can’t express enough how encouraged I am by the growth of these young believers.

Village Witch Doctor becomes a Christian

We were invited to the home of Captain Savorn, which is located at a small jungle village in northern Cambodia. Captain Savorn is our main contact at the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Unit 14. For almost 2 years now we have been training and discipling him as he leads the Christian officers in this area.

We gathered under Savorn’s home (typical Cambodian stilt house) with more than 30 of his neighbors to share with them our faith. Savorn has been speaking with them about Christ for some time now and has led several to the Lord.

Captain Savorn to the right of me.

One of the guys with me, an American from Oregon, spent a few minutes outlining what faith in Jesus looks like and then Sareth, our national leader who was translating, clarified further. When Sareth was finished speaking he asked if there were any questions regarding faith in Christ. One man stood up and said that he only had one question, “How do I become a Christian?”
While no “invitation” was given, it was clear that the Lord was moving in the hearts of these people as more than 20 responded that same way! Sareth spent another 30 minutes further explaining faith in Christ and then led them in prayer.

An older woman got up after this and said she wanted to share her story with us. She began by telling us she was the village witch doctor. Up until about 3 weeks ago she was the spiritual go-to person when people were ill or had demons that needed to be controlled. She would use idols, charms, incantations, and natural medicines to cure people and control bad spirits.
One evening she was called to a villager’s home to help someone who was having terrible stomach pains. She performed her usual routine of things but was not able to cure the person. As she returned home she contracted terrible stomach pains herself and began trying everything she knew to get rid of the pain but nothing was working.

Former witch doctor

After some time she called her son to come and pray over her. (Captain Savorn had led her son to the Lord some time ago and she was aware that he was now a Christian.) Her son prayed over her but still she was in great pain. Not knowing what else to do the son called on Savorn to come to the hut to help. (Savorn relates that as soon as he entered the hut he could tell that this woman was under spiritual attack.)

Both Savorn and the son then prayed over this woman and she was instantly healed! They related to her the gospel and she accepted Jesus as her Lord. They immediately began destroying the idols and charms that she had been using knowing now that they were evil.
As I pondered her story later it seemed obvious to me that this event had prepared the people in the village to hear the good news. When a spiritual guide destroys all her idols and charms and becomes a Christian it has a huge impact!
 

Just for Fun- That is a washing machine.

Jumping Food

“We are thinking about starting a jumping food business.”I laughed and laughed when I heard this from our military Christian leaders at Unit 51 and 14. We had been discussing creative ideas for micro businesses when they told me about their idea for a frog farm. One of my goals while I was in Cambodia this time was to connect with the three community leaders we have been working with to get an updated report on how ministry is going. This was the first time I had seen these men in several months due to our trip back to the States this summer and boy, how I had missed them.Each of them had a time to share about what the Lord is doing among the men and families of the different units, and I have to tell you that I have 

never been more encouraged by what I heard.
I heard story after story of growth and maturity among the military believer, stories of how officers who were once against the Christians are now giving their lives to the Lord, stories of provincial governors calling military villages “model

communities”.

In the case of Unit 51

where we are implementing our first CUP (community uplift program) project, we are seeing a tremendous

change happening. A community where you once would see trash everywhere, men getting drunk all the time, spouse

 abuse, and a general lack of hope and motivation is now being called a “model community”.

They have already put in 53 organic gardens, 2 water wells, and new sanitary toilets.
We are helping them by supplying 50 families with starter chickens, but they are responsible to build and prepare their own chicken houses that must be built to certain specifications. Thirty-nine are already finished. It is amazing to see them take ownership of this project. It truly is a “Hand-up” and not a “Hand-out”.

Unit 14 is probably the most organized ministry I have seen there so far. Capt. Savorn has 13 Christian leaders he is training, one for each sub-division of their unit (as shown written out in the picture below). 

13 Leaders for all the sub-divisions
Their community will be the location for the next CUP project once their leaders have been discipled and are showing maturity.
There is however a water supply project that we are considering helping them with so that they can start with some organic gardens. This unit is near a mountain that has water coming down all year but is about 1000 meters from the camp. I am helping them engineer a plan to get the water to them. (This is right up my alley with the engineering training I received while in the Navy SeaBees)
We are going to need about $1500 and a good GPS device which I will be able to use on future projects.

We continue to be excited about ministry here, as you can tell! 

Rockies Game

Take me out to the ball game at Coors Field in Denver.

Thank you Leo and Susan for the great seats behind homeplate!

Summer in the States

Here is our schedule for traveling in the states this summer:

30 May - Thailand and fly to San Jose Ca.

June 6th - 25th Denver, Co area.
July 4th – 9th northern Ca.
July 21st – 28th southern Ca.
The in-between times we will be in San Jose and then we fly back to Thailand Aug. 9th.

We would to get time with those of you who might be in one of those areas. Let us know.

1.3 Billion People

India: 1.3 billion and growing by 28,000 per day!
4 times the population of the US in 1/3 of the space with 28 states that all have their own language and people groups.

“A bomb was planted in front of our house when we first came here and started our small church.
Luckily, a dog came by and picked the package up and moved it away from the house before it detonated. The dog was blown to pieces but we were safe.”
Amid much opposition this small church has thrived and today pastor Sam Abraham is coaching more than 35 church planters in the region of Himachal Pradesh, a northern Himalayan state of India.

Pastor Sam Abraham and his daughter

This was our first trip to India and we were met with enthusiasm as we cast the vision for these pastors to reach out to their police and military men. They, like most in Asian nations, have always been fearful of reaching out to these powerful people but after seeing what is happening in their neighboring nations, got really excited about beginning a focused and networked military/police ministry. 

Pastor Lamech: Chennai police station visit

We held two different pastoral vision casting/training conferences this trip with more than 50 pastors and were also to meet several active duty police and military personnel. 

They are already asking us come again for more training and coaching! 

Myanmar

More than 22,000 people were killed, says the government, but the top US diplomat in Burma warned that without speedy action that could top 100,000.

Please pray for our brothers there. As you know, we were just in Yangoon a few weeks ago and are concerned for these dear brothers as they try and survive a difficult time recovering from this devastating cyclone. We have not heard from our contact Aung yet but are trying to reach him.