English Camp trip to the War Museum
"Lower Mountain" It's more like a big hill
Heng and I
Traditional Khmai Costume
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Pictures
English Camp trip to the War Museum
"Lower Mountain" It's more like a big hill
Heng and I
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Pray
I will be speaking at the church here in Siem Reap on Sunday morning. That will be sometime after 7pm on Saturday California time. Please pray for me! I will be talking about the life of Moses and using chapter 34 of Deuteronomy.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Old Friends
July 29, 2009
We're in the middle of English Camp now and it has been a blast! The only problem that I have is that there are too many people that I want to talk to but I have to choose to hang out and talk with one person at a time. Nonetheless I have been able to have some really good conversations so I'll summarize them here.
Sambo is an evangelist who lives here in Siem Reap and attends the Psah Luhr church. He has a heart to reach out to the rural areas of Cambodia. He takes his moto down muddy dirt roads to remote areas to share the gospel with people. Next week he will be moving to the Preah Vehea province which is along the northern boarder where Cambodia meets Thailand.
Dara and Sopheak are two young men who have been good friends of mine since my first trip to Cambodia in '07. They are trying to finish high school which can be quite difficult here due to the corruption in the education system and so by American high school standards they are a few years behind. Because they were taking their exams they could not attend the first few days of EC, but now they are done and it is very good to see them and hang out with them. The results of this exam will determine if they move on to the next grade.
Akphirun is another good friend from my first trip to Cambodia. He speaks excellent English and has served as a translator for the camp for the past three years. Last year I was able to visit the private English school that he and some friends started. The government allowed him to open the school under the condition that he does not teach about Christ there. Despite this limitation some of his students have begun attending his church and he brought five of them to EC this year. They have not trusted Christ as their savior yet but it is so encouraging to see them here.
I should get back to hanging out with the students, I will have more stories later.
Prayer Requests:
- For God's hand to be protecting Sambo, his wife, and his young daughter as they move and bring the gospel to the villages.
- That Dara's and Sopheak's would receive exam scores based on their merit and not on the lack of bribe money paid to the proctor.
- For the salvation of Akphirun's students and more opportunities for him to share Christ despite government regulations.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Siem Reap!!!
We accomplished a lot in Poipet with the Copelands. We moved in enough stuff that they were able to move into the house and stop paying for a hotel room. It was amazing to see that house transform from an empty space into a fully furnished home. We left early this morning and arrived in Siem Reap at 11 in the morning. We went to the house of a local church worker, Phearum. He has been instrumental in the organization and excecution of the English camps here in Siem Reap. After that we spent the afternoon hanging out at the church jamming and singing worship songs with Phearum, Moch, Pheaerum Phnom Penh, and Chena the leader of the girls dorm in Phnom Penh. We are getting ready to have an authentic Cambodian dinner cooked by some of the church ladies and a Khmer bible study after that. English Camp starts on Monday. I wasn't really looking forward to it because English Camp is always pretty grueling. But now that I'm here I am actually getting pretty excited because I'm slowly meeting all my old friends. If there is any place in Cambodia that feels like home it is the church in Siem Reap.
Prayer Requests:
- Safe arrival of the remaining short term teams coming for English Camp.
- Good gastro-intestinal health.
- Awesome reunions with friends in Siem Reap.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Poipet
1324 Wednesday, July 22
En Rout to Poipet, Cambodia
Since we got back to Phnom Penh from Field Forum we have been spending a lot of time with the students at the dorm. The guys at the dorm spend a lot of time obsessing over their motorcycles or motos. It is pronounced with the emphasis on the t. They spend a lot of time cleaning them and applying sheets of colored adhesive plastic to change the body colors. There are even tinted colors that give the head and tail lights a smokey look. It seems like guys are very similar no matter what country they live it. When we have dinner we all sit on the floor with a bowl of rice and scoop up stuff from a variety of dishes in the center of the circle. Overall the taste and appearance of the food is very typical Asian except for the sour soupy dishes which are common at Khmer meals. This morning I made fried egg in bread (you know the kind that was in V for Vendetta) for the dorm guys, I think the liked it. They were rushing off to classes so they just grabbed them as they were going out the door so I didn't really get any feedback.I'm on the bus going to Poipet now. It's about an 8 hour drive but it has been going by quickly. As per standard procedure for bus drivers the horn has been going off about every 30 seconds and I'm wondering if its pointed forward at the road or directly into the cabin of the bus. But the constant use of the horn has probably helped us to avoid accidents as the bus constantly crosses the dividing line on the two lane road to pass slower vehicles. A lot has been changing in Cambodia including the extent of paved roads. The main road running through the center of Poipet is now a nicely paved, four-lane road. This helps the flow of traffic and decreases travel time since cars and trucks do not have to snake through the numerous gaping potholes that once dotted the road. However this also presents a great danger because the low incidence of traffic accidents was due largely to the speed of the vehicles. Now that the road is paved people are driving much faster and not at all safer so more and more people are being injured and even killed on the road.
While I am in Poipet I will be helping the Copelands unpack and clean up their house in preparation of moving back in. I visited the Copelands for the first time two years ago. Kent is a surgeon and his wife Chrissy is a nurse. During their last four year term they helped to build and run a trauma center where Kent would treat injuries and sicknesses and witness to people in the process. They left for a year-long home assignment in the states and handed the clinic over to the government who is now running it. They just returned to Cambodia a few weeks ago and so they have a lot of preparations to make before getting settled in again. The Copleands have 5 children: CJ, Amber, Beth, Kendra, and Katie. They are all very well behaved and they always call me Mr. Jonathan. They didn't do that so much at Field Forum this time, maybe because they were not in front of their parents all the time. But I still think they are awesome because they always laugh at my jokes... well most of them. I'm looking forward to spending the next couple days before the Siem Reap English Camp with them.
Prayer Requests:
En Rout to Poipet, Cambodia
Since we got back to Phnom Penh from Field Forum we have been spending a lot of time with the students at the dorm. The guys at the dorm spend a lot of time obsessing over their motorcycles or motos. It is pronounced with the emphasis on the t. They spend a lot of time cleaning them and applying sheets of colored adhesive plastic to change the body colors. There are even tinted colors that give the head and tail lights a smokey look. It seems like guys are very similar no matter what country they live it. When we have dinner we all sit on the floor with a bowl of rice and scoop up stuff from a variety of dishes in the center of the circle. Overall the taste and appearance of the food is very typical Asian except for the sour soupy dishes which are common at Khmer meals. This morning I made fried egg in bread (you know the kind that was in V for Vendetta) for the dorm guys, I think the liked it. They were rushing off to classes so they just grabbed them as they were going out the door so I didn't really get any feedback.I'm on the bus going to Poipet now. It's about an 8 hour drive but it has been going by quickly. As per standard procedure for bus drivers the horn has been going off about every 30 seconds and I'm wondering if its pointed forward at the road or directly into the cabin of the bus. But the constant use of the horn has probably helped us to avoid accidents as the bus constantly crosses the dividing line on the two lane road to pass slower vehicles. A lot has been changing in Cambodia including the extent of paved roads. The main road running through the center of Poipet is now a nicely paved, four-lane road. This helps the flow of traffic and decreases travel time since cars and trucks do not have to snake through the numerous gaping potholes that once dotted the road. However this also presents a great danger because the low incidence of traffic accidents was due largely to the speed of the vehicles. Now that the road is paved people are driving much faster and not at all safer so more and more people are being injured and even killed on the road.
While I am in Poipet I will be helping the Copelands unpack and clean up their house in preparation of moving back in. I visited the Copelands for the first time two years ago. Kent is a surgeon and his wife Chrissy is a nurse. During their last four year term they helped to build and run a trauma center where Kent would treat injuries and sicknesses and witness to people in the process. They left for a year-long home assignment in the states and handed the clinic over to the government who is now running it. They just returned to Cambodia a few weeks ago and so they have a lot of preparations to make before getting settled in again. The Copleands have 5 children: CJ, Amber, Beth, Kendra, and Katie. They are all very well behaved and they always call me Mr. Jonathan. They didn't do that so much at Field Forum this time, maybe because they were not in front of their parents all the time. But I still think they are awesome because they always laugh at my jokes... well most of them. I'm looking forward to spending the next couple days before the Siem Reap English Camp with them.
Prayer Requests:
- Safe travel
- Good conversations with the Copeland adults and children
Kim Bui
I met Kim last year at Field Forum and I was later involved in a few ministries with her that summer Cambodia. I visited her house and helped her with an English tutoring session that she provides for a group of Vietnamese students from the churches she works with. She also invited me to attended their youth camp. I saw her again at Field Forum this year and talked with her about the current direction of her ministries here.
Kim is a Vietnamese Missionary from Canada who has been working in Phnom Penh for several years training students within the Vietnamese Christian community and working to protect and rescue girls from sex trafficking. She is now been called to a growing tourist town five hours north of Phnom Penh called Siem Reap. There she will work with a team of three other Vietnamese women to plant churches in the Vietnamese villages in and around Siem Reap. However she is concerned for the safety of the team and herself because of the lack of a male presence. While she is there she will put into practice an evangelism method called the Church Planting Movement. This method centers around short, easy to remember and recite, stories from the Bible. To begin, a short testimony of two minutes is given followed by the story of how God the creator made the world. Evil forces and spirits are explained to be angels who were good and created by God but fell and now work against him but he still has power over them. The Ten Commandments are part of another story that shows mankind's inability to be perfectly good. The sacrifices of Israel demonstrates the price and penalty for our sins. These stories set the stage for Jesus who is the fulfillment of the law and the sacrificial system. Kim says that this method has been particularly effective in Cambodia and the surrounding countries because it answers questions that the people have about the origins of the world. Fear of the spiritual world is also deeply rooted in the cultures of this region so for people to hear that spiritual beings were created by God and are under his control brings great comfort to them.
A positive outcome of the activities of the Non-Government Agencies fighting against sex trafficking in Phnom Penh is decreased trafficking within the city. Since I was here last year there has been a noticeable drop in the number of brothels lining the streets. However, traffickers are now moving to other parts of the country such as Siem Reap. This is part of the reason that she feels she is being called to this city despite having to leave many students who love her and will be very sad to see her leave Phnom Penh.
I will meet with Kim in Siem Reap when I go there for English Camp and I will have a chance to talk to her more there.
Kim is a Vietnamese Missionary from Canada who has been working in Phnom Penh for several years training students within the Vietnamese Christian community and working to protect and rescue girls from sex trafficking. She is now been called to a growing tourist town five hours north of Phnom Penh called Siem Reap. There she will work with a team of three other Vietnamese women to plant churches in the Vietnamese villages in and around Siem Reap. However she is concerned for the safety of the team and herself because of the lack of a male presence. While she is there she will put into practice an evangelism method called the Church Planting Movement. This method centers around short, easy to remember and recite, stories from the Bible. To begin, a short testimony of two minutes is given followed by the story of how God the creator made the world. Evil forces and spirits are explained to be angels who were good and created by God but fell and now work against him but he still has power over them. The Ten Commandments are part of another story that shows mankind's inability to be perfectly good. The sacrifices of Israel demonstrates the price and penalty for our sins. These stories set the stage for Jesus who is the fulfillment of the law and the sacrificial system. Kim says that this method has been particularly effective in Cambodia and the surrounding countries because it answers questions that the people have about the origins of the world. Fear of the spiritual world is also deeply rooted in the cultures of this region so for people to hear that spiritual beings were created by God and are under his control brings great comfort to them.
A positive outcome of the activities of the Non-Government Agencies fighting against sex trafficking in Phnom Penh is decreased trafficking within the city. Since I was here last year there has been a noticeable drop in the number of brothels lining the streets. However, traffickers are now moving to other parts of the country such as Siem Reap. This is part of the reason that she feels she is being called to this city despite having to leave many students who love her and will be very sad to see her leave Phnom Penh.
I will meet with Kim in Siem Reap when I go there for English Camp and I will have a chance to talk to her more there.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wet!
I am at the end of my third full day in Kampong Som and it has been raining non-stop since we got here! I love the rain but there are a few unfortunate consequences to having it all the time. One being the cancellation of beach day. We are only a few minutes away from some really nice beaches but many were unwilling to go in the rain. True, one an expect to be wet at the beach whether it is raining or not but the experience is somewhat different when the sun is obscured by a layer of thick gray clouds. Another disadvantage to all the rain is the inability to hang dry any clothes. This creates a problem when I only have 4 shirts with me and they take two or more days to dry. But I have been managing and I really like the rain despite its downsides.
Besides the rain Field Forum has been great. I have had an awesome time with the youth ministering to them and spending time with them and coming up with games for them to play. The messages that have been presented every morning fit so well with the theme of what I was planning to teach the youth. God has been at work leading me and leading the speaker before we came to Cambodia to bring us to the same focus. Also, since this is my second time to Field Forum I have been able to connect with the kids really quickly and pick up right where we left off last year. I feel much more effective coming back for the second time.
I have also been able to have awesome conversations with most of the missionaries here. Dave and Doris about how they decided the appropriate level of living conditions for the people they are ministering to. Boon Oy and Chun Thon about their experiences in bringing Christ to the Jarai tribal group. Kent and Chrissy about the direction of their medical ministries in Poipet. Chris and Julie about finding a balance in interfaith dialogue. Jeff and Heather about the progress of their leadership training center. Joyce about the progress that the B'nong believers are making in building their conference center. Seoth and Syna about growing up as a Cambodian American and then responding to the call of God to return to Cambodia as missionaries. Holy about how God lead her to pursue her passions and how he is using them to further his Kingdom here in Cambodia.
Prayer Requests:
- Praise for good devotional sessions with the youth. They responded well and engaged in discussion.
- For good conversations and good connections with the youth and their parents.
- For time to do devotions and be still and silent before God
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