Production, Planning and Praying

At the start of this blog we want to say Happy Birthday to three special people who are another year younger this week. First of all our friend Julie celebrates on Tuesday with her family and friends in New Zealand. Because our birthdays are only days apart we always celebrate together and we will do this once you return to Cambodia! We then have three birthdays in my family; mine on 1st November, my eldest brother Jonny on 2nd November and my younger sister Rhoda on 3rd November. Happy Birthday Julie, Jonny and Rhoda, have a wonderful day and know how much we will be thinking of each of you on your special day! My brother in law and sister in law also celebrate their 19th wedding anniversary this week, congratulations Philip and Kara.

Happy Birthday to all of us

We had a lovely weekend in Kep celebrating the wedding of our friends Kristen and Be Be.  The location was Jasmine Valley, an eco–friendly resort and the setting was just breathtaking.  The ceremony was held in an amphitheatre with greenery all around us and under a beautiful blue sky.  During the night we woke to a severe thunder and lightning storm but the rain stayed away and the wedding was just perfect for the happy couple.  Kristen and Be Be we were honoured to join with you and your family and friends to witness you becoming husband and wife and we pray you know God’s richest blessing in your married life. 

Mr and Mrs Leang

We enjoyed the company of our good friends the Hutchinson family, we live very close to each other but with each of our busy lives don’t get to spend as much time together as we would like.  Normally we call with Colleen when we or a team member have a medical complaint which we need advice on. Thankfully it’s not too often and we do prefer to get together on a social basis. There is one word to describe our journey back to Phnom Penh – epic!  We left at 1:30pm in the rented van we were travelling in and arrived in Phnom Penh at 8pm! The journey usually takes 3 ½ hours.  Before we had even left Kep Adam realised there was a problem as only hot air was coming out of the air con vents.  We pulled over and the tank was filled with water. A few minutes later we were at a garage where the mechanic discovered the pipe completely cracked.  I don’t want this story to be as long as our journey so after 2 stops at garages and 5 pit stops to refill the water tank we made it back to Phnom Penh.  The Hutchinson children Sophie and Sam aged 10 and Tobey aged 8 were amazing and didn’t complain once about how long the journey was, not even once asking ‘’are we there yet?’’ We just laughed it off and as night approached we joked about how all of us would manage sleeping in the van!  We will never forget our epic journey back from Kep and thank you Hutchinson family for allowing us the pleasure of your company over the weekend!

Epic car journey

our friends the Hutchinson family

On Monday a new addition joined our family of the four legged variety, a toy poodle that we named Meg.  At first we thought she was five months but then discovered she’s actually only four months old.  Already we are both besotted with her and as you can imagine Meg is a pampered pooch!  As I was taking devotions in the Early Learning Centre yesterday we brought Meg with us and she loved being passed around the staff for hugs and lots of cuddles.  As we have never owned a dog before we are asking advice from friends and family with regards training and so far so good!

our wee Meg

Love was in the air in Freedom Project this week as we have been working on our first order of wedding invitations.  Sarak and Sophea get married next month and asked if we would design an invitation that would be different to the traditional Khmer style.  Following a discussion with the Bride and Groom we created a sample wedding invitation for both sets of parents to view and give their approval.  Sarak is a Spurs supporter and he choose blue and white for the design but the parents asked to replace the white with pink as in Cambodia like many countries white is associated with mourning.  So this week has involved many trips to the print/photocopy shop where we purchase the cardstock for the cards we make; we are thankful to have a really good relationship with the manager there.  She was very accommodating with us and they cut the entire card and the ‘’you are invited’’ tag saving us so much time.  A production line was established and we are grateful for Margaret’s help on Tuesday and Jane’s help on Friday.  Margaret is a member of our church and along with her husband Zoran are spending their retirement ministering in Cambodia.  Margaret’s heart is caring for those currently working in Freedom Project and for those who will join us soon and she volunteers 3 mornings per week making cards and practicing her Khmer with the staff.  Jane is from Newtownards and is visiting our friends Jonny and Jill for two weeks.  Back in the UK Jane works with Tear fund and serves on the Missions team within her church.  In her spare time Jane makes cards and crafts so when Jill knew about her visit to Cambodia asked would I be interested in her spending some time in the Freedom Project craft room.  Jane spent Friday morning with us getting to know Skim and Channak and was a tremendous help in the production line adding the flowers, hearts and stickles to the invitations.  We are thankful we didn’t put Jane off as she is coming back on Monday for a full day where we will spend some time working on the invitations but she also can teach the girls some new crafting techniques.  I did ask Sarak if it was alright for me to post a photo of the finished invitations on the blog and he said, ‘’of course’’.  We have 370 to make for 1st November and when we finished work on Friday we had 204 completed so we are over halfway there!  The girls and I have been so happy to make these for Sarak and Sophea and are really pleased that they are both delighted with the finished product.

completed wedding invitations

This weekend is important for the future of Phnom Penh Elim as the Eldership team are meeting all day today to pray, discuss and seek God’s will as to how as a church we can minister to those in our community.  Tomorrow directly after the church service there is a meeting for all those interested in being part of the outreach team and we have been asked to come with our ideas and suggestions.  Please pray for Chamnap, Dana and David; and for the whole church that we will know God’s wisdom and clear direction for the days, weeks, months and years ahead!

 

Celebrations, Cakepops and Cupcakes!

 

I apologise if your weekly routine is out of sync because we are blogging one day early!  The reason being we are travelling to Kep today for the weekend to attend the wedding of our friends Kristen and Be.  We are excited to celebrate their special day with them and we wish them God’s richest blessing in their married life together.  Our good friends the Hutchinson family are joining us and we are looking forward to spending a few days out of the city  with Adam, Colleen, Sophie, Sam and Tobey. 

Engagement photograph of Kristen and Be

It is a weekend of celebrations as today is the birthday of David’s father; don’t worry Walter I won’t disclose how many candles will be on your cake!  We wanted to surprise Walter with a treat on his birthday and so a few months ago I enlisted the help of my younger sister Debbie who lives in Scotland.  Debbie bakes the most amazing celebration cakes and cake pops, I am glad I don’t live within driving distance or I would be calling in too often for a cuppa and cake!  Communicating with Debbie via email and Facebook we discussed flavour and design and to say she delivered the goods is an understatement!  One dozen cake pops with the Spurs logo arrived in time for Walter’s birthday and I think the rest of the family will have to wrestle with him to sample even a bite!  Happy Birthday Walter from the both of us, have a wonderful day and know how much we love you.  Debbie thank you for being a creative genius and making Walter’s day special.  For any of you with a sweet tooth check out Poptastic cakes on Facebook and trust me your mouth will be watering!

Happy Birthday Walter!

Ok, back to life in Cambodia and what’s been happening in the past week.  We thank God for all that He is doing in Phnom Penh and for the lives that we have seen transformed over the last few years.  The ministries within Elim Missions Cambodia have three stands – Elim Phnom Penh Church, Early Learning Centre and Freedom Project.  On Friday night the staff of all three ministries came together for a celebration in the Freedom Project floor of our new building.  For the majority of the staff from the Early Learning Centre this was their first visit and we wanted to share with them what the future of Freedom Project Cambodia is.  Sokim and Channak laid out a selection of Christmas cards and decorations which the girls enjoyed looking at and then a tour of Freedom Project was given.  Linda who was with us for over three weeks wanted to thank everyone for making her feel so welcome and loved during her time here and presented cupcakes for all of us to enjoy. 

The Early Learning Centre staff choosing cupcakes first

All the staff from Elim Cambodia

Everything we do in Cambodia must have God in the centre, without this everything we do has no purpose or meaning.  As a church we want to impact the communities around us, touching lives with the love of Jesus and showing compassion. On Sunday following David’s message he asked those in the congregation who want to make a difference and impact their communities to come forward and receive prayer.  As the song ‘God of this city’ was played over the church, most of the congregation came forward.  This song has become an anthem for our church and we are excited that greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city of Phnom Penh!

You’re the God of this City, you’re the King of these people, you’re the Lord of this nation

You’re the Light in this darkness, you’re the Hope to the hopeless, you’re the Peace to the restless, you are

There is no one like our God, there is no one like our God

For greater things have yet to come, and greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this City

As the church eldership team meet next weekend please pray for Chamnap, Dana and David that they will sense God’s guidance and clear direction for the church and all the ministries within.

In closing I must thank our good friend Jill for cooking us a delicious roast chicken dinner on Sunday.  We are very  happy you were in your element in our kitchen and we are happy for you to borrow it anytime!  We are grateful for the friends God has brought into our life in Cambodia and thank you for blessing us Jill 🙂

Thank you Jill

 

Hands and Feet

 For anybody that knows me at all over the last three years, you will know that I have always championed my close friend and fellow pastor Chamnap. It is an honour to spend time with him watching his development, from a person with little confidence in his own ability to have his title of Pastor, to someone who not only hears the voice of the Holy Spirit but acts accordingly. I thank God that Phnom Penh Elim is blessed to have a man such as him for a time like this.

On Sunday past Pastor Chamnap got up and completely left each of us searching our hearts for answers to why we aren’t doing more. Cambodian men are not openly emotional, but the images that the Holy Spirit put in Chamnap’s heart leading up to him bringing God’s word left him speechless and in tears! It was one of those moments were God got all of our attention together. We as a church are looking at ways to impact communities of people who are being abused by society, circumstance or foreign influence. Last Sunday the Holy Spirit got us as a church, now we need to press on.

You know we all can do more; those in need around you are not going to be helped by anyone else it’s up to you. I felt so guilty on Sunday there are so many people I walk by, yes we help people but nowhere near as many as we should! The job is never done whether you are at home or abroad, there are people hurting near you in your circle of friends. There are people with no money with absolutely nothing living in your area, what are you going to do about it. There are people being abused in many different ways, so do you turn a blind eye or just hope that someone else will do something.

It doesn’t matter what someone has done or what mess their life is in Jesus would not have walked by. Look at the woman at the well, Jesus knew all about her. She was a Samaritan, Jews hated them, and she was a lady and had a reputation having had 5 husbands and now a live in lover. I can just imagine the gossip that would fly around the church (sadly) instead of helping her to find what her life had been missing. Reaching out instead of condemning. How many of us condemn instead of reaching out, when we do that we break God’s heart.

The most exciting thing about this story to me was the reaction of the town’s people, because Jesus had accepted her, they came to him seeking repentance. You see it’s really simple God wants us to be his hands and feet, we are supposed to reach out to the poor, to the needy, to those that have made mistakes big or small.

If we sit in the comfort of our own Christianity and don’t reach out to a world that is lost, we are actually worse than the Pharisees. My challenge to you today is to get out of your comfortable life and go change the world by helping the one. Shine Jesus in your actions and not just your words.

Friends I know you probably are all helping so many, and it’s me that’s letting God down, but you can never stop, never feel you’re finished. You’re not, run your race with style right to the end, that is the reason we exist to change lives by living like Jesus did and would!

Guest blogger Linda

It was my pleasure to travel to Cambodia on the 23rd of September with our new Elim mission’s director Paul Hudson. The journey was seemingly endless!  We arrived on the 24^th and after a quick freshen up and a cuppa we headed out to see the new Elim centre.

The building is just amazing. It has plenty of room to facilitate the growing needs of the church here.  It has three floors; the ground floor houses the pastor’s office, Sunday school and conference rooms. On the second floor, right in the centre of the building is a large meeting room. I was struck by the fact that the people meet in the centre of the building to worship. It is so well presented and will seat over 200 people! It just looks amazing!

This is my second visit to Cambodia. It’s amazing to see just how much the church has grown in such a short space of time. To see how individuals I met back in January have just grown into their role here. I think of Dren our tuk tuk driver in January but now an integral part of all that is going on in the church. He, his wife and little daughter all attending church together, committed to the work here and growing in faith together. That is awesome.

On the opening night the heavens opened with rain so heavy it was like a monsoon. Very quickly travel became very difficult. Streets were flooded as were many homes. Despite all that the church was full of people who made such a supreme effort just to be there. Nobody wanted to miss it! Paul Hudson opened the new centre and commissioned the pastors and leaders to turn no one away, but to reach out to those in the community to those in need in all walks of life. He reminded us that Jesus never turned any one away; his text was Mark chapter 5.

The opening of the centre was a great night of celebration and a culmination too of many weeks of preparation and hard work. The worship team did a great job as they just led us into the presence of God. It was a special time.  It was so lovely to see a traditional Cambodian dance – the girls had evidently practiced hard and it was just a perfect presentation on the night and gave the evening a very Khmer feel.

With the Khmer dance team

The evening went without a hitch!  The excitement and anticipation of what God will do in this new season at Phnom Penh Elim church was hard to miss. I felt so privileged to be there.

The building also houses the freedom project on the third floor, a craft centre. Here girls work producing the most beautiful cards and crafts which are sold to raise funds towards the ongoing costs of the project. The employees there are so happy at work. It was a pleasure to spend time with them learning a few new crafting skills myself! I had great fun!

Here’s one Linda made earlier

The church here offers a child care centre too , which looks after the children while these young mums work  with peace of mind knowing their children are happy and safe too. The church offers this facility to the community. The children there were happy to have us as visitors and were keen to sing for us some of the well-known Sunday school songs we teach to little ones back home. So cute to hear them sing and see them doing all the actions.

The freedom project is an inspiring story. Its aim is to expand and offer jobs and employment coupled with the message of hope to people who need it most. It’s the church reaching out to those who are in real need here. Gayle from Northern Ireland flew in to open the freedom project work shop, cutting the ribbon and declaring that part of the centre open. It was an emotional moment as we committed this aspect of the churches work to God. This project’s aim is to give a message of hope and freedom to those who need to rebuild their lives and repair there broken hearts. I wanted to cry as I walked around the building and just sensed the presence of God and His favor resting on all of this. I felt inspired seeing the church at work doing what it’s designed to do in the community where God has placed it. It was also my privilege to preach at the Sunday morning service the first Sunday in the new building.

Linda preaching at church with Thida translating

The last few days have seen a religious festival called Pchum Ben. Much of the city is closed for several days’ holidays. People travel to their home provinces – go to the pagoda to worship with their families. It can make life very difficult for those who have become Christians here.

Esther took me to see the temples at Angkor Wat. It’s a very spectacular sight to behold but made me feel so sad. I saw people in there droves kneel at the feet of giant statues made of stone, bring offerings and light incense sticks with such high hopes of pleasing a god which we know will only end up in disappointment.

Linda at Angkor Wat

It reminded me of how amazing it is to worship a God who is alive and involved in our everyday lives and one that fills us with hope and gives us a future. One who actually hears and answers our prayers and who walks the journey of life with us.

We had a tour guide who told us the history of the place and tried to explain this very complicated religious affair – I was so glad that Jesus just invites us to come to him exactly as we are where none of the above rituals apply.

Cambodia is such a special place; the Khmer people are warm and friendly.  They have been so welcoming they have made me feel like I belong!

Paul Hudson flew home on Friday last week and he has such a busy schedule. I have the pleasure of staying on until the 14th October and I’m confident that this trip will be one of many more to come.  The journey may have seemed endless but I would not have missed this adventure for the world! Congratulations to Davy and Esther you are doing an amazing job here and a heartfelt thankyou to you both for your kind hospitality, you have been amazing!