Category Archives: General

General

New Year… New Location

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It is hard to believe, but a couple weeks ago was already the second Christmas that I have celebrated in Cambodia.  I took the final exam for my language right before Christmas, so I have now completed the year long Khmer for foreigners program at the Institute of Foreign Languages. I am thankful that God gave me endurance to finish the program. I am encouraged by the progress in learning Khmer that I have made in my time here so far, and I hopefully can continue to progress in my ability to communicate.

The New Year began with my next step in ministry here. I moved from Phnom Penh to a village in Kampot province. Missionary Esther and some of her students have been teaching English and Bible stories to a group of elementary and high school students at the village for the past several months on Saturdays and Sundays. The attached picture is of my new house. My roommate compared staying in the village to a never ending camping trip. With no running water and electricity, I think that it is a good comparison. But we do have a generator that we can run for a couple hours per day to recharge electronics and during the evening, we can use lights powered from a battery. It seems every time we use a computer or throw a football outside, a group of curious villagers gather to watch us.

I’ll be spending my time in several different ways: I’ll be continuing to study Khmer, preaching a few times per month at a church plant 7 km away in Missionary Esther’s village, gathering information about the village where I am living, and teaching English to Khmer grade school students.

Please pray for the following:

-adjusting to life in the village.

-that God would use my preaching at the church plant to convert and conform His people.

-that I would be able to form relationships with my neighbors and students.

-that God would give me a heart of compassion for the villagers that Ilive around that have no hope without the gospel.

General

Vision…

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Our team has been working on revising our core values, mission statement, and vision statement. Below is the new edition:

CORE VALUES
1. We value Christ Centered Churches
• We believe in planting reformed covenantal churches
2. We value Discipleship
• We believe in training national elders and deacons to lead church planting movements.
• We believe in training nationals to support church planting movements.
3. We value Word and Deed ministry
• We believe all our word and deed ministries are distinct and inseparable.
• We believe all our word and deed ministries should be strongly connected to the local church.
VISION STATEMENT
To see vital, Christ-centered churches worshipping the true God, transforming Cambodia, and spreading God’s kingdom throughout the world.
“Vital” – We envision Spirit-led, thriving churches engaged inwardly and outwardly for the cause of Christ.
“Christ-centered” – Christ is the center of all aspects of the church including the justification, sanctification, and glorification of believers. He is the center of our message – we preach Christ and him crucified.
“Churches” – a church is defined as a body of at least ten (10)* believing non-missionary adults, gathering regularly for worship which has a pastor. These churches should hold to or work toward the reformed distinctives, including preaching the Word, administering the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and exercising church discipline. Our goal would be to have self-sustaining, self-governing, and self-propagating churches.
“Worshipping the true God” – As the people of God gather together we will focus our
attention toward God with all our heart, mind, and soul, simply revering, and honoring God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
“Transforming” – Our vision is that as the lives of the members of these churches are transformed by the gospel, the society will also be transformed. We believe the gospel affects all areas of our lives – our families, our work, and our roles in society.
“Spreading God’s kingdom” – We seek to establish churches that from the beginning have a heart for planting daughter churches. We desire to see our churches sending and supporting missionaries to neighboring countries and even to the end of the earth. We envision establishing churches that heed Christ’s Great Commission out of a heart of gratitude, worship and obedience.
* MTW defines a church plant as having at least 10 believing non-missionary adults with an identified church planter meeting regularly for worship with the intention of becoming a self-sufficient, self-governing, self-propagating church.
MISSION STATEMENT
Called by God to seek and equip disciples who in turn make other disciples, leading to a Christ-Centered Church Planting Movement.

General

Why Language Learning?

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If I can get by in English, then why shouldn’t I? Is it worth the investment? Doesn’t it take too long? A recent article in MTW’s InVision Newsletter really summarized well some of these points of tension that missionaries today face in language learning, and the urgency for missionaries to still invest in leaning language well:

Imagine for a moment that the face of missions suddenly becomes dominated by Chinese believers who speak Mandarin. This is in fact not too difficult to imagine given the patterns we are currently seeing. Like the explosion of Western missionaries that took place after WWII, Chinese missionaries have spread out all over the world. Now imagine that because of their ethnocentricity they don’t learn other languages but insist that others learn Mandarin and Chinese characters if they want to be discipled. Seems ridiculous? Not really. This is in fact what has happened, and what continues to evolve as English-speaking missionaries seek to advance the kingdom through networks of English speakers worldwide. Read More>>

General

Another Small Step

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It is hard to believe that I have already been in Cambodia for 13 months now. I guess I can start counting in years now. Life is fairly hectic with taking the fourth language class at the Institute of Foreign Languages and going down to the village every other weekend. Plans are coming together well for the three month stay in the village which will start in January. A couple weeks ago I preached part of a sermon in Khmer. I think more than anything it reminded me of how far I have to go in language learning. Mixing the normal nervousness of public speaking with still stumbling along in a new language is quite the experience. Below are a few photos from the village:

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Waiting to preach.

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Teaching English at the village where we plan to live.

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The house that will be my new home for a few months.

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General

And the Rain Came…

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… and it kept on coming. It is the rainy season here, so it is not shocking that it was raining. However, it rained almost all day for several days last week, and the flooding was as bad as I have seen in the year that I have been here. The Cambodia Daily reported that the flooding caused about $70 million in damage. The drainage system in the city is just not built to handle a large volume of water, so water covered some of the streets for several days. Below are a few pictures from the flooding in the city.

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This man was undeterred by water, but at least he decided to roll up his pants first.

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I thought about driving though it too, but logic prevailed and I went a different way.

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A View from the Village

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bok bok bok… or cluck cluck cluck… take your pick on how you want to write out the noise a chicken makes. It is a noise that I have heard plenty of in my life, but recently I have realized that it is not a very soothing sound to try to fall asleep to. My roommate and I have started spending a couple weekends a month in countryside, and the lean-to that we sleep in is just a few yards away from the chicken house. I seem to wake up during the night countless times to the sound of the chickens. On the bright side, at least they caused me to wake up in time to see this beautiful sunrise…

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General

Into the Fog

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100_0510Fog may make for a nice picture as it engulfs the Golden Gate Bridge, but I have never heard anyone say that they like to drive in the fog. However, five days a week, I get up from bed and go into the fog. The fog is not along the road, and I don’t recall ever seeing fog in Phnom Penh. The fog that I am speaking of doesn’t cause much of a visibility problem, but it does cause an understanding problem. I think that it was one of my Greek or Hebrew teachers in seminary who spoke of language learning being like driving through fog.

As you learn a new language, it always feels like your brain is in a continual state of fogginess, or so it seems. This is because most teachers are continually trying to teach their students new words and grammar structures. So as a language student, I often feel like I vaguely grasp a newly introduced concept or word, and then the next day something new is again introduced. Thus, it seems like I am always seeing blurry shapes on the horizon that I can’t quite make out.

However, it is amazing to look back on lessons that seemed so foggy at the time, and realize that now they seem so crystal clear. The other day, I flipped through the book from my level one class and realized that somewhere along the way, the fog lifted and now the lessons seemed quite easy. Even though, at the time when I was first learning them, the lessons seemed quite difficult and at times almost overwhelming. Really, I think that the only way to learn a new language is to persistently go into the fog, and hope that somewhere along the way the fog lifts…

General

To Kill a Mosquito

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100_0509The rainy season has begun here and with it has come a welcomed break from the heat. But on the downside comes driving in the rain often and a great increase in the mosquito population. Mosquitoes must have water to lay their eggs in to complete their life cycle, and the rainy season offers an abundance of ideal places for mosquitoes to lay eggs. Some species of mosquitoes can go from an egg to an adult in just 4 days.

A few weeks, ago I had stopped at a street side electric shop to see if I could find a bug light to buy to aid in keeping the mosquito population at a minimum inside my house. I didn’t know the exact name in Khmer, but I asked if the shop had mosquito lights. But all this inquiry received was a very puzzled look from the salesman, and I realized that I did not know the proper name for it in Khmer. I thought for a moment and then asked if they had a light for killing mosquitoes in Khmer. With this, the look of puzzlement left the salesman’s face, and I was led to a shelf with several bug lights on it. In Khmer, the name for the bug light literally means ‘machine electrocuting mosquitoes.’ Which is a fitting name, since the blue lights are only a lure to draw the mosquitoes in where they are electrocuted to death. It may sound cruel, but I have yet to meet anyone who is upset by the death of mosquitoes.

I recently bought another bug light at a shop along the road close to where I live. I had tried and failed to buy one a few months ago at this shop, and I thought that they just didn’t have them. However, this time knowing the proper name, when I told the store owner what I wanted, he quickly pulled one out from under the counter.

Inch by inch, I am moving forward in my ability to communicate. It is a slow process, but every so often a small but encouraging breakthrough occurs.