1/15-1/28

Hey, I hope your day is going good, heres a little update of Cambodia

First of all, just given overview of what our ministry is, every day we drive about an hour to an hour and a half away from our base to go to villages in the middle of nowhere. I’m talking about red dusty dirt roads where there’s no grass out there and just flat and all fields except for a little village here and a little village here. we work for villages and Monday throug Thursday we go to a separate one each day, then on Fridays we stay back at our base and clean the house and prepare for the lesson next week. In the morning at each of these villages, we teach a kids English and then a Bible story and then we also act out the Bible story. Half of my team is working with kids while the other half is doing construction on a house or on a new base that they are building. in the afternoon, we do another group of teaching English and Bible lesson because here in Cambodia, half of the kids go to school in the morning and half of the kids go to school in the evening so we just flip-flop with their schedule. And also in the afternoon we have Bible studies with some of the parents of some of the kids.

I don’t have too much to say, I’ll just give you some highlights.

My biggest highlight so far was I had the opportunity and the privilege to help out with baptizing two people. Through the Bible study, they came to know Christ, one started believing six months ago and one became a believer three weeks ago. In the same bible study, we were told that one of the women there was an eighth level Buddhist, which in that village was the highest Buddhist you can become, and she came to know Christ, and now living for the Lord. Anyhow one day these two women wanted to get baptized so then they told us and I had the privilege to help out with the baptism. Before they got baptized they wanted to take off their Buddhist bracelets and something they have worn since they were a child. it was a string around their waist that starts very little and then as they get older and bigger, they just keep adding onto it. Before they got baptized. They both cut them off and threw away their bracelets. This right here shocked me, because it just shows the power of what Jesus can do in someone’s life. These women have devoted their entire life to Buddha but now Jesus came and just gives them more peace and comfort, and something they have never felt before and they’re like yes I want to take this rather than the thing I’ve devoted my entire life too, and these women were probably in their 60s or 70s. Such to go 60 or 70 years devoted to one thing and something comes along and you just change. It just shows that the gospel is worth it, and that the whole inside of you can only be filled with the Holy Spirit and the other things of the world everybody tries to do.
Another highlight was we had the opportunity to go to Angkor Wat, which is kinda like a wonder of the world, to me, the temples weren’t the thing I was focused on because it’s just weird going to Temple knowing that in the past people have come here to worship false God, and they still are worshiping these false God and me it was just like a whole bunch of stones. The thing that injury was the monkeys running around in some of the ruins, and the trees growing through the walls and breaking them down. Like I had to think, how cool is this, that God’s nature destroys the things that are not of him. The trees were just crushing down walls and they were massive too.
one more highlight I have was one time we went to the night market and we got rolled ice cream and since I’m in Asia I had to try the whole fish eating your feet, so that was a very interesting experience and we laughed a lot.

There are some crazy stories I get to hear every day because of what God is doing in villages in the past and what he is still doing, like on a weekly there are a couple people that come to know the Lord, which is so phenomenal and every time I hear of someone I just picture just all of heaven rejoicing. I’ve heard various stories of people who have not been able to walk and then just like that in Jesus’ name they could walk. One of the churches that we go to there was a guy who was a devout monk, who once again devoted his life to Buddhism, but found Jesus and realize that it is worth it.

There are a lot of stories that I hear from our ministry host on the way to our village every morning and it is just so encouraging and encourages each and every one of us on the daily of what the Lord is doing. I’ll be praying for you guys and I hope you guys have an amazing day.