Today we start our blog on a sad note. We would like to extend our deepest sympathy to Dorothy, Joanne, Robert and the whole family at the loss of a wonderful husband, father and grandfather in Joe McCready. The quiet man who was a legend, we loved going round to Dot’s because we would get to see Joe and listen to his stories. For those of you who never got to meet him just look at his family and you will know the type of man he was, full of love and kindness. Heaven is a much better place today but there is a massive gap in his family’s lives. I ask you to join with us and all of Dorothy’s friends in Cambodia as we pray for a peace that passes all understanding to surround the whole family. Dorothy we love you and so wish we could be there for you at this time.
We know many people were encouraged by Holly’s blog entry last week and we want to take this opportunity to thank both Jonny and Holly for spending two weeks volunteering with us as part of their travels around South East Asia. We are delighted when people come and say ‘I am happy to help in whatever area you need’. This was also the case of Naomi, another new friend from New Zealand, who connected with us through the wonderful lady we are blessed to call a friend, Betty, who you will have heard about in earlier blogs. When Naomi visited our centre and offered to help, we gave her the blank canvas of the walls in our church and asked if she could bring some colour and life; displaying the various ministries that are connected to Elim Cambodia. Naomi took the challenge and came up with a storyboard of wall panels which will display photographs and blurbs about each ministry. Due to repainting the church before all the artwork is displayed, the work wasn’t able to get finished before Naomi left but we will complete it this week and unveil the completed work in next week’s blog. Thank you Naomi for using your creative gift and we look forward to your next visit to Cambodia.
Since the start of January we have seen many things happen in the different areas of the work here in Cambodia. God is moving and we are really excited about what he is doing. Be Free has 2 new trainees in the program and another 2 about to start in the next few weeks. Our ELC has three staff leaving and three new girls starting to replace them, the first staff to leave in well over a year and then we get three leaving. The church has new leaders as well and we will tell you more about that over the next weeks, but we have introduced our new evening service and although we don’t expect it to be full for a long time it has started steadily and we will believe it will grow quickly.

A new journey commences for two special young ladies
Our village work is healthy in Toul K’day village, we have English classes going well along with music classes and dance lessons. The youth have 3 Bible studies a week and of course there is our little house church. Over the last months we have seen over 15 people young and old give their lives to Jesus! Ever since we started the village work a man called Gean has helped with any opposition that we had. For no reason other than he wanted his grand daughter to go to the kids club. I have spoken about him before in previous blog posts; he is the man with one leg who heard about Jesus in the refugee camp in Thailand 40 years ago. Well I write this with tears in my eyes when I tell you that he has just give his life to Jesus, and will be baptised in 2 weeks with 14 other people including his 14 year old grand daughter. The oldest lady in the village has also decided to follow Jesus, their faith is real and they have new life. We had the privilege to give out a few audio Khmer Bibles which the older ladies will share as they listen to the New Testament being narrated to them. Please keep praying for the villagers, in 2 weeks we will be having a big celebration with over 100 people invited to come and join with us in the baptism. It is a massive deal as fifteen people including Sarak’s mum, dad and 2 sisters tell the rest of their community that they have decided to turn from Buddhism and now belong to Jesus! This is going to lift the interest in our church and I believe God is going to open the floodgates in this community!

Her eyes say it all, delight in receiving God’s word!
With this encouragement we are intending to plant our second village church in Chroy Chrey starting on Monday 22nd February. We will be inviting everyone on the 16th and then having a special party night to start of where we will eat Khmer curry and introduce ourselves to the people. Please pray for Rith, Sarak and myself as we pioneer this in the village, in the villages because older people come to the meetings I need to go and bring Gods word, they listen and respect when you are more their age bracket and also because I’m foreign they have this respect as well. Both Sarak and Rith are more than capable but we have to respect the way things are done in the villages. Sokhom will join the team again once her pregnancy is further along and the doctors are happy that she can travel so far.
We thank God for your prayers and support enabling us to do God’s work here, it isn’t easy at times but the rewards are massive as we see people’s lives being transformed. If you want more information in ways you can get involved in supporting any areas of the work please send us an email to davyandesther@gmail.com and we can directly correspond with you!