November Update 2022

Dear Faithful Supporting Friends and Family,

Greetings from Anlong Veng, Cambodia! We trust everyone of you is doing well by the grace of God. It is harvest season in Cambodia and rice farmers all over the country are busy harvesting and gathering crops to store in the barns before the rains come. In spite of the worst flooding season we had recently, church families were grateful that some crops were not completely destroyed by the flood waters. With the floods, came a season of sickness related to contaminated waters and mosquito bites.  Some church families were hospitalized with various diseases, but by the grace of God, every one of them has been recovering well. 

VBS with the Village Kids… 

From mid-October to early November, we had been busy hosting a visiting team from Hawaii to help with VBS school-aged children to conduct adult leadership seminars among church leaders. Then in early November, another team (also from Hawaii) came to do trauma and healing workshop seminars for all age groups. The seminars were done mostly in church locations at Anlong Veng, Srae Nouy, Batthambang, Svey, and at Poipet. While in Anlong Veng, upon a request from a local public school, a two-hour session of trauma and healing was taught to 102 middle school-aged youth in addition to their teachers, the school principle, and a village leader! Some of the youth from that same school were members of the Toul Prich Firm Foundation Alliance church! Praise God for a precious opportunity to plant seed in this school community.

Fruits of the Spirit VBS with village kids

Leadership workshop at Svey

A fellowship meal with Toul Prich church

Trauma and Healing Workshops…

While trauma and healing sessions were being taught at the local churches, participants paid close attention to what was taught and discussed. Even during the hot afternoon hours after a hearty meal (a time when people normally fallen asleep) many participants were wide awake! They were like sponges-- absorbing every word being said or discussed! During a wrap up time after trauma and healing session, each of the participants had the opportunity to practice being a counselor or a client. It was a beautiful site watching people willingly share about their painful hurts and past to their trusted neighbors. For many of them, this was the first time that they had someone to really listen to their stories of past hurts and traumas. Our hope and prayer are that more people would find true healing in Jesus and also that relationships are restored after their stories are being heard.

Participations taking turns to practiced sharing and listening stories

Floating Villages… 

In between the Hawaiian teams, we also hosted a vision team of five pastors from Mosaic church in Nevada.  In addition to visiting two public schools in Anlong Veng, some Alliance church in the northern region, this team also visited some floating Alliance churches on the Tonle Sap Lake. Even though it was a very long (about 3.5 hours each way) and an uncomfortable boat ride for the visitors, this trip to the floating villages was especially meaningful to the hosting families. The village families who live in remote places often feel completely cut off from other communities. These small floating huts/homes are constantly surrounded by deep waters anywhere from 8-15 meters deep, depending on the season, and many of them live in constant fears whenever there was a storm approaching. Children who live in floating houses often learned to swim before they learn to walk. The older kids and most adults don’t even know how to ride a bicycle or a motorbike! 

A floating Alliance church in the middle of Tonle Sap Lake

To go from one house to another or from one village to the next, they would spend a high price on fuel for the motorboats. Therefore, with on-going family poverty and limited funding available, many of them hardly seen or walked on lands for months or years at a time. The fact that Mosaic team was willing to visit them in such far away locations, to be able to sit down and enjoy a humble meal with them, brought MUCH blessings and encouragement to the local hosting people. It was also a great learning experience for the visitors. We started the day with a beautiful sunrise from Siem Reap to shore of Tonle Sap and ended it with a beautiful sunset on the way back. 

Visiting floating villages

A long boat ride to and from the floating villages

An Alliance Church building stood proud and strong even in the raging storms among the great Tonle Sap Lake of Cambodia!

Sunset by the Tonle Sap Lake

Pheap’s Story… 

Recently, we took the Mosaic visiting team to visit a 45-year old lady named Pheap, a member of the Toul Prich Firm Foundation Alliance church in Anlong Veng, (details of her story were mentioned in our April 2021’s blog as well as in the Alliance Life magazine, volume 157, Jul/Aug 20022), and gained more details to her amazing story… 

Mosaic team visiting Pheap's house

During the long and difficult Covid months, like many other families in Cambodia and around the world, Pheaph’s family faced loss of employment which resulted in lack of other basic supplies. In the midst of hard times, Pheap’s natural survival instincts, prayers, and her amazing cooking skills, Pheap took charge and led her family above a survival mode. Together with some helps from her husband, three teenage son, two young daughters, Pheap prepared packaged home cooked meals which she sold to farmers and to people who were trapped in various quarantine quarters. When people called to place a meal order, Pheap carefully and prayerfully packed up meals that often included a small Christian tract in each of the lunch box! While everyone else was crying out for work, God blessed Pheap’s business so much that the family earned enough money to build a house! Before Covid, Pheap shared a tiny one-room wooden stilted house with seven family members. Pheap had always dream that one day, she would have house of her own safe enough for her sons and daughters. So, she saved up every penny she earned for the building cost of her dream home. BUT from past experiences, Pheap also learned that if she waited to have all the money saved for the house, eventually, her own husband or mainly her in-laws would try to “borrow” whatever money she had saved, as they had habitually done in the past. To avoid these no returned-borrowing methods, Pheap secretly purchased building supplies including, bricks, sands and gravels, metals, woods, and any other building supplies she could think of and stored them away in the back of her property. Whenever she had some cash on hands, she would always invested in the construction supplies, buying one item at a time, hoping that one day, she would have enough supplies for her dream home… 

Finally, March 2022, Pheap hired some workers to build her house! The house is not quite finished because the family had ran out of supplies and money. But Pheap was grateful to the fact that, “I have a roof over my head and strong brick walls to the house." She then added, “One day, when we have enough money, we can add one door and one window at a time." Recently, seeing that her house is still incomplete, a neighbor offered to pay Pheap handsomely, “If you would just recite to me the words/ the chanting of the magic power you once used." Pheap said, “NO! I am a follower of Preah yea-sue now. I don’t do that thing any more." But the woman went on to plead, “You don’t have to say the actual words out loud, just write them down on the paper, and that would be enough." Pheap firmly refused and asked the woman to leave and never repeat that question again… As we were about to depart, we asked if Pheap had any prayer request. The needs were obvious and we thought that Pheap might ask about financial need, but Pheap’s only request was, “I would love to see my husband (Ron) believe in Jesus and also my three sons. More than anything in this world, I want my whole family to believe and serve God together as the family, just like my teachers, Soeuth and Syna…

Here are some praises and prayer requests for your consideration…

1. The KEC churches are busy planning Christmas events. So far, Soeuth already accepted five speaking invitations… This Christmas time is significant for churches in Cambodia. This may be the first big gathering since Covid-19. Needless to say that everyone is supper excited. Pray that people would see the true meaning of the season and that hearts be receptive and responsive to the Good News…
2. In respond to the needs, we received enough funds from interested donors to build two deep wells for two villages that located a bit distant from one another. Even though we offered to pay a full- asking price required for building deep wells, because of distant locations, most well companies were reluctant to haul all the heavy equipment to work at each designated location. Pray that these companies would change their minds and would be willing to do the job soon.
3. As for the Anlong Veng Ministry Center, so far, we received about 1/3 of the total funding needed for the entire project! With the money received, we are in the beginning stage of building a smaller project, one at a time. Earlier this month, based on the need, we began a multipurpose open- space children center next door to the house church where the Toul Prich Firm Foundation Alliance church is currently meeting. Our next project is to build a soccer field… At the same time, the Srae Nouy Church is also planning to build their church building. The need to find honest construction workers is crucial. As we go through each project, we are reminded that if God is not in this from the beginning, no matter what we plan or do, nothing will accomplish. Please join us in prayers that God will see through all the detail of each project.
4. The Cambodian church leaders are busy planning for the 100th years anniversary event, January 25-28. The first Gospel was brought to Cambodia, in January 1923, through Alliance International Workers. Despite the massive killing during the Killing Field regime  (April 1975- January 7, 1979) where about 2 million people were killed, among them about 80% of the first Christians were also killed. But what the Enemy “intended for evil, God intended for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives…” (Genesis 50:20). Today, there are over 200 Alliance Churches and many other evangelical churches all over Cambodia. The first Khmer Bible translated by Alliance Mission is being used all Cambodia and among the Cambodian communities all around world.

We are so grateful to God for YOU, our dear faithful supporters. We appreciate your partnership through prayers and financial support. Thank you for investing your efforts and resource in to building God’s kingdom in Cambodia reaching out to lost people to find true hope and love and salvation in Jesus Christ. To financially support in any project through Alliance Ministry, please visit this website at: https://secure.cmalliance.org/give  And please share with us what God is doing in your life. 

Have a blessed Thanksgiving holiday. 

With a grateful heart, Soeuth & Syna Lao