#17 - Prayer, Calling, Boldness and Being Different!

This week went past extremely fast.  Pastor Billy and Jeanne, and a team from Melbourne, Australia, visited us and the ministry.  The Australia team is among the first to involve with HHEC (village center).  It is a great privilege to meet and get to know these brothers and sisters; they have a heart for Christ and a passion to pray and serve Him at all times.  We received lots of precious advice and feedback from the team regarding the business plan for the new center.  And here’s a few things we learned from this team:

Prayer

Prayer should be our #1 priority.  The team shared with us that they have been earnestly praying for the Cambodia ministries and our family.  They shared with us that they have been praying for new workers in Cambodia to help Pastor Billy and Jeanne’s ministries for the past two/three years, which was about the time that our family moved from Chicago to Hong Kong and found Clearwater Bay Church in Hong Kong and met Pastor Billy and Jeanne.  God laying the path for us to meet Pastor Billy and putting the burden in our hearts to move to Cambodia is the evidence that God has answered their prayers.  We are reminded to put prayer and God first and put our Faith and Trust in Him before our own abilities.

  

Please pray for us: 

• to know God’s provision for the new Center
• to have wisdom to prepare the business plan 
• to have wisdom and patient to work with the local team because of cultural and background differences
• to be courage and boldness to work everyday

Calling

Pay attention to your calling and it’s always unexpected!  The team shared with us they have been with Pastor Billy and Jeanne’s ministries in Cambodia since the beginning.  It was during a prayer meeting while Pastor Billy and Jeanne served in Australia, Jeanne shared what she saw in Cambodia about the need of school and the poor children in the villages.  One of the team members gave some money to Jeanne and asked her to do something about it.  At that time, Jeanne did not have any plan on what to do, but she felt very strong that something needs to be done.  As years passed, God’s provision was amazing as now more than 200 children can attend our school in those villages.

Boldness and Being Different

We truly admired one of the team members as she is just around 20 years old, but we are overwhelmed by her faith in God.  She shared with us although she has never been to Cambodia, she has been keeping our ministry in prayers for a few years every week at their mission board prayer group.  At her age, most of her peers would probably not even attend a prayer meeting or mostly likely praying about their test scores or university admission, but knowing that she loves to pray and praying for mission and God’s kingdom on earth is really admirable.  In our culture, she will always be different; and being different is hard but we are called to be different than the world.  Are you willing to be different and walk closely with God every minute of your life?

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.”  Ephesians 5:15–16

Thomas is discussing with the team

Looking at different potential sites for the new center

Thomas is accompanying the Australia team visiting the local neighborhood

Current center in Phnom Penh

Amy is accompanying Australia team to visit
the current center in Phnom Penh

#16 - Reflection on Safety and Health

Reflection on Safety and Health

1. Safety:  

We have only been here for less than 3 months and we have read so many fatal car accidents on the news.  It is even more devastating when at least two major accidents involved Christian workers’ families.  The first family was a Christian missionary family in late May 2013 on their way back to Phnom Penh from Sihanoukville and recently another Korean Christian missionary family who taught at a Christian International school were involved in a deadly car crash (see pic below).  The parent and two of the four children were killed instantly and two children were seriously wounded.  They were moving to Siem Reap from Phnom Penh for a new ministry.   Besides car accident, don’t forget the news of the Singaporean Christian missionary who was robbed and murdered near our HHEC in May 2013 and many news on Chinese businessman being robbed and beaten.  

Please pray for the safety of all the Christian workers here in Cambodia and especially for our family as we will be traveling back and forth on one of the deadliest ‘highway’ between the city and HHEC in Kampong Speu.   

From The Phnom Penh Post on 18 June 2013

2. Health:  

If you are from Hong Kong, you probably are aware of the 9^th fatal case of the H5N1 Bird Flu in Cambodia.  A 6^th year old girl from Kampot (only 150km south of Phnom Penh) dies on July 2^nd during her treatment at the Phnom Penh Hospital.    Please pray for our health and especially Gryphon’s and Joelle’s health as they are still very young and vulnerable to many diseases.

Reflection:  

We, as believers, certainly have no doubt heaven is real and heaven door will be open for us and there is no fear when we face death.  But when you hear so many deadly news of Christian workers in this small city and disease killing innocent 6 year old, the same age as your child, it forces us to rely on God more and walk closer with God each day among all the busyness.  And it certainly encourage us to be more bold and courageous when we serve Him.  We should all learn the sense of urgency that Jesus taught us and go now to share the Gospel with the ‘unreached’ and be a witness to the ‘unreached’, even among your workplace and neighbors.

1 Peter 4, 1-7

"1 Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. 2 As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 3 For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. ………… 7 The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray."

This passage seems so simple and straight forward but it gave us a whole new meaning when we gave up our jobs to serve Him full time in this new place.  Verse 2 really hits our hearts, when we looked back we did live a life full of ‘evil human desire’ even when we are a Christian, served in church, attended fellowship & etc.  Our life are filled with earthly desire: bigger house, early and bigger retirement, children learning more music instruments. However, these are exactly what Jesus want to tell us NOT to focus on but rather for the will of God.  And verse 7 is a good reminder for us each day, be clear minded and self-controlled --> so that we can pray.

When we lived in the US, you would hardly think you will involve in a fatal car accident as long as you follow traffic regulations, and follow proper precaution like “don’t drive if you are too tired” etc…  but here in Cambodia, even if you follow all these rules, it is not up to you, as almost no one follow the traffic rules, no proper maintenance on their cars and almost all cars here were imported from the US were declared “totaled” by the insurance company.  How do we know?  We were shopping for car and we ran the VIN for over 30 cars and 28 of them have salvage titles before they were auctioned and shipped here.  They looked perfect and the mileage clocks have been winded back so they look very nice and new.  This is one of the main reason some of these cars cannot sustain its structure in a “less than fatal” crash if you have a vehicle that hasn’t crashed before. 

Please remember us in your prayers and pray that God will give you the desire to serve Him in ways you cannot imagine.

Cars shipped by containers (mostly from the U.S.)

Crashed car at the lots that waiting for car dealer to 'renew' them before selling them.
Cambodia still prefer these crashed import cars because they believe
westerner take better care of the cars (oil change, repairs) than Cambodians.

#15 - Summer School Started!

We have been so blessed with the summer classes that Gryphon and Joelle enrolled at the Logos International School, a Christian International School, their mission is to provide education to missionary's children and also sponsor local students to have high quality Christian education.  

Gryphon and Joelle have a variety of classes, e.g. bible class, music, arts, physical education, and swimming class! The teachers are very nice and patient. There are 10 of them that come from different parts of the U.S..  Joelle’s teacher comes from Oklahoma and Gryphon’s teacher comes from upstate New York.   All of them have given up their summer holiday from work and come to Cambodia as short-term mission.  They raised their own fund to attend a training course in California and then come to Cambodia.  

Gryphon also wrote his activities at school and it was so lovely to see how much they like the classes!

May God bless the teachers and the lives they touched both in the U.S. or any other part of the world.  Also, may their mission trip be an example for more brothers and sisters to serve our Lord.

May God also touchs the hearts of Gryphon and Joelle's friends at school and one day they will believe in Christ.

We are overwhelmed with paperwork, writing up a business plan and budget for the new center, evaluating insurance quotes and policies, and at the same time preparing a promotional video for our current ministries.  Please pray for wisdom and guidance from our Lord in preparing for the new ministry in the city of Phnom Penh.

Gryphon's writing of the summer school