In America we have a saying, "April showers bring May flowers". I always thought of this saying as a perfect description of our trials in life. Sometimes we will go through some of the darkest showers we’ve ever seen, but after the Lord reveals to us a garden we could never have dreamt up on our own. In Cambodia it’s more like “March sun bring April heat” and it lives up to every word. I’m still trying to figure out what the biblical reflection of this saying is. I have no idea. Mostly because it is far too hot to think about things so for now I will sit in front of the fan and stare at things until the end of May. haha.
I just have to say, we are very happy in life. We moved into our new house with a community of friends and ministry and we partner with an amazing organization, Water of Life, that has no shortage of passion for Jesus and the Khmer people. The Lord has truly been revealing our garden to us. We started assisting WOL in February and they have made us a part of their family ever since. Our next door neighbor (as in we share a wall and a balcony…neighboring Khmer style) is the Calvary Chapel Cambodia pastor, Kurt Kula, and he shares our vision in training up village pastors to lead their villages. Curtis and Kurt are constantly brainstorming ministry opportunities for different provinces and focusing on discipling the leaders. Curtis is very encouraged to keep pushing forward in Svay Rieng and even maybe expanding out to another province (Please keep that in prayer). Please keep these men in your prayers. The Lord is building strong relationships between Curtis, Adam and Ti with the Khmer pastors, but it does take a very long time and a lot of perseverance to keep these relationships strong.
Speaking of Svay Rieng, the March pastors conference was amazing! A missionary friend in Water of Life, Matt, joined Curtis, Adam and Ti to help teach through the book of Acts. Our focus these last couple of months at the conference has been to implement Inductive Bible Study (IBS). The purpose of this program is two-fold:
To teach pastors and Christian workers how to study the Word.
To motivate them to teach in a systematic way in order to better feed their people.
We have been seeing great progress in these pastors’ understanding and lifestyle despite the lack of a formal education, the hurdle of poverty and a Buddhist engrained culture. I know I have said this before, but I am in awe of the Holy Spirit. There is no other way we could establish a honest friendship with these guys other than through the Holy Spirit and a lot of God given time and patience for both parties. We don’t even speak the same language for crying out loud!
We are currently working on becoming fluent in Khmer. Curtis and I have made it our goal to study and practice our broken Khmer as much as possible these last couple of months. We have 3 khmer classes a week, 1 hour each. Our awesome Khmer teacher, Solomon, has decided to volunteer his mornings to give us extra tutoring classes for reading, writing, and speaking as a blessing. I have to tell you about Solomon for a second. He, his amazing wife and beautiful baby son live at Children of Hope home with Katherine and the kids.He helps manage COH so Katherine doesn’t lose her brain, he is a member of the CC Cambodia church and he just graduated college and is becoming a judge… I have to stop here for a second. The Cambodian government is very very corrupt. It made the list of top 10 most corrupt countries in the world. You can get away with anything with a bribe. So to have a strong Christian man in a high government position is HUGE for the Kingdom of God and of Cambodia. Please keep this man and his family in your prayers, being a man of good character is an uphill battle here… so this awesome guys with his crazy busy schedule is taking time and extra time to teach Curtis and I Khmer. Did I mention he is awesome?
You guys are probably wondering what I am doing over here, right? Well you will just have to read the mid-month blog to find out! Ha!
We love you guys dearly and definitely miss our church, family and friends, but the Lord fills all voids. We are praying for you guys constantly. OH! Also HUGE shout out to our Menifee church community!! They cancelled church this last Sunday and replaced it with Service Sunday. I’m overwhelmingly proud of those churches being servants to those in need. Curtis is always saying “Don’t sit there and ask what the church can do for you, but get up and ask what you can do for the church/body.” We are a living and breathing body of Christ meant to go out into the world and shine!
Until next time :) God Bless