End of June 2024 Update
As I may have mentioned previously (ahem!), while we’re grateful our advanced age, gray hair, and wrinkles are revered in Asia…remarks are not always diplomatic. I was trying to “top-up” my cellphone with minutes (a necessary evil here) and the techie, who looked about 12, smiled broadly and commented, “Mommy, you VERY old on outside, but inside still young!”
Yes, well. Perhaps it’s the sun.
All Asians think our lackadaisical attitude toward sun exposure is astonishing. Vitamin D is NOT a consideration. I frequently get on the elevator with a young woman covered from head to fashionable toe by long sleeves, a full-length skirt, a floppy hat with neck-protecting flaps, socks, and thin gloves…it’s 95 plus degrees, mind you. No UV ray will ever reach HER skin. I expect she uses my wrinkled example as a cautionary tale for her kids: “Look what happens if you let the sun get you!”
And no, we’re still not fully adjusted to the traffic in Phnom Penh and are beginning to think we’ll never be. It's mostly the ever-present motorcycles cutting corners, commandeering the sidewalks, oozing between cars, defying the lights, and traveling the wrong way that rattles us. I have a new Cambodian friend, a lovely, sophisticated, well-educated mom of college-aged kids who prefers to ride her motorbike rather than use the family car… because she can get places SO much faster by using the very techniques that horrify me!
As we reflect on our third month in Cambodia, we have so many things for which to be grateful, some of which are listed here.
Praises:
1) The successful completion of two seven-week training cycles of Disciple Making, one in English, and one in Khmer. Both groups, though quite different, were eager to learn and quick to put techniques into action.
2) A training trip into the “province” (read here, countryside. Once outside the city, you’re in a province, and there are many. We went into Takeo to the town Kiri Vong, a stone’s throw from the Vietnam border) to introduce Disciple Making and see some Kids of Destiny programs. We’ll return in July for a week’s training on Disciple Making.
3) The initiation of a new Khmer church-member training, which is highly attended, attentively received, and enthusiastically put into practice already…and it’s not even completed!
4) Huge thanks for the Stateside donations that allowed the purchase of an additional 100 Bibles in Khmer, some large print for seniors, and some multiple translations for youth. This is an ongoing need as we barely scratched the surface.
5) In the Dominican Republic, Pastor Jaime’s truck’s transmission is newly restored and is back making regular Manna Pack distributions to refugee Haitian believers. The Haitian churches continue to grow by leaps and bounds with new believers baptized weekly, while the Saturday Kids' Clubs expand and flourish.
6) Donations enabled us to order more Kids of Destiny coloring books in Khmer, as the demand for teaching materials is enormous.
7) Many God-ordained opportunities to meet with individuals, both “barons” (the Khmer word for foreigner, a hold-over from French occupation,) and Cambodians, who are shortening our learning curve, helping us culturally, filling in country context, offering wisdom, and providing fellowship.
Continued work deep in M________, bringing food, necessities, and in some cases building materials to Christians cut off from aid by the war and poverty. The roads to reach them are close to impassable; the team sent us videos of stopping the trucks to work on the roads so they could continue!
Thank you always for praying with us and holding us up to the Throne of Grace. This month, this is specifically what is on our hearts.
Please help us pray:
1) For WISDOM in the stewardship of God’s resources, that our humanitarian aid would ALWAYS lead to spiritual justice, that we give a “Hand-Up” instead of a “Hand-Out,” building self-reliance rather than dependency.
2) That Holy Spirit would lead us to whom He’s already whispering, those ready to receive training and put it into effect.
3) For funds to purchase 100 more water filters to be brought into Cambodia. Water in all the villages can be used for washing but is undrinkable. The choice villagers face is to spend precious resources on water (remember that tuk-tuk drivers working 12 hours a day may earn the equivalent of $3.00 to $5.00 dollars) or risk contamination and disease. We’ll be able to bring them into the country as excess luggage with a returning missionary (thereby avoiding shipping charges/ customs/taxes/ and inevitable bribes.) Corruption is standard here. A local pastor told us: “In Vietnam, the bribes are under the table. In Thailand, they are above the table. In Cambodia…it’s the whole table.”
4) For the ability to balance our schedule to provide days of rest and restoration and avoid excessive fatigue. Sometimes, there is more work than there are hours in the day…
Thank you, as always, for your support, friendship, and encouragement. They mean the world to us. Thank you for partnering with us to help people halfway around the world and entrusting us to steward your gifts for God’s Kingdom effectively.
“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”
Isaiah 46:4 (NIV)