April 2011
Hello! Already May 2011 tomorrow! Since I’ve arrived here the night of November 30, 2010… tonight will be the fifth month I’ve been here! I don’t seem to realize how fast the time has been going by! And because it will already by May, only three more months for me to wait to see my fellow brothers and sisters! The thought of that is so exciting but at the same time very weird!!!
This past month has been filled with excitement!! My 25th birthday J, Khmer New Years, a vacation trip to Thailand, learning more about the team coming out from Oklahoma and from GCC, new classes, and new programs on Friday bible study. So much to talk and share about!
For my own personal walk with God… daily I’ve been amazed and perplexed in why God would send such a person like me, I am so weak in many ways and so selfish most of my time here! I find myself pushing God after other priority lists, say I depend on God and secretly realize I’ve partially depended on God. Living here has helped me understand and accept what a sinner I really am. And how granted I take his unconditional love for me…as if I deserve it! It’s helped me keep a continual repenting heart (which I don’t think I really had!!! Surprising!) Keeping me in check with exactly what God has to deal with and what He has done for someone like me!!! How can we not surrender ourselves to God when we understand His righteous love for us!!! It’s just simply amazing that there is still much more to learn in my relationship with God!!!
My first classes ended April 7, 2011. I taught 4:00-5:00 p.m. and 5:30-6:30p.m. Only two classes and two hours everyday which seems still like the whole day! J For the past term every week the students had to write about themselves, an autobiography. After writing weekly a paragraph about the given topic, on the last week before classes ended, I asked the students to rewrite all their paragraphs into one paper and turn it in. So when they turned it in, I typed all of it during my vacation and made a small book called “Lifestyles in Cambodia”. I made copies for every student in my class who wrote their autobiography after Khmer New Years when we started new classes! I really enjoyed all their face expressions when I gave them a book especially since it has many pictures of them in it. So thank you for supporting me financially to print 50 copies of the books J. The students absolutely loved it! I have few copies for myself and for GCC!!!
I have a student named Prak Chan Leakhena. I mentioned her on my blog about sharing the gospel message with her and how she accepted Christ Jesus on her own when she went home. She came back and shared with me that she did the confessional prayer and that she believes. Simple amazing how God brings the lost back to him. But because she’s been a really busy student going to two universities for dancing and for business, she never had time to meet up for bible study. Absolute NO TIME. We decided to meet every Fridays 5:00-5:30 because that’s the time she had before Friday night bible studies at C.S.I. but even that she didn’t show up last week! So I really started to pray for her, that even though she accepted Christ that she needs to KNOW Christ!! She comes to class everyday 5:30-6:30 so I still see her but can’t spend personal time with her because I have 35 other students in the same class. She has a family restaurant that sells noodle soup for breakfast, so I decided to visit her since she invited me !!!! I knew this was the opportunity to meet her parents and family and make myself available to get to know them so if Leakhena ever wants free time to hang out with me, the family will know who I am. So after having one of the most delicious breakfast noodle soup ever, I spent a good two hours talking to her and her family about myself and just about C.S.I. and Praise God! Leakhena comes out to Friday bible study (well its only been one week!) and starting from today (Saturday) I will be having one to one bible study with her Saturdays 4:00-5:00. I pray that through this time, Leakhena can grow as a Christian and learns the foundation of the gospel! So please pray for us. I will also invite other sister believers to join our bible study to build fellowship amongst the sisters and more opportunities for the other believers to share the story of Jesus.
That’s all the news for April! I am excited to see where God takes us from here!
Prayer Requests
1) For my personal relationship with God: that I may learn how to truly abide in Him
2) For C.S.I. – we have new classes now… we all have the same classes from last term and most of my old students returned and at the same time each classes has about 15 new students also! So pray that I can build relationships with the new students while maintaining the relationships with the old returning students. I will be teaching from bible study material on Ecclesiastes of how “life is meaningless” without God.
3) For our team
a. Ocean and His family is still out in Korea and America. Ocean is in Korea with his two kids :Julia and Jonah which Nicole and Johnson is in America finishing surgery and waiting for a result of what is wrong with Johnson. Johnson has been ill for a long time now, thinking it was a simple stomache and Thailand doctors not being able to recognize it, his x-rays and other pictures were sent to America and found that it was a serious problem that needed immediate attention. So Ocean is waiting for his family back in Korea to come to Cambodia. Please pray for them
b. Jt and his family.
c. Travis – He has four Cambodian students living with him at his house, pray for the growth in discipleship and relationships amongst those students!
d. Me – its been the 11th week with the girls bible study, its been pretty much the same sisters you always see on my facebook! J these are the sisters that I am investing most of my time on. In the past with journeymen, the three female teachers came and really spread the gospel to the students and then left and two male journeymen came, and for the next two years the two journeymen spent two years disciple training and investing on the male believers after the sisters left. So the sister believers after accepting Christ hasn’t been invested on, therefore I am investing my time with them. So please pray that these sisters will grow and be fruitful.
4) Ignite & Pressing Forward
a. These are new program we made…pretty much Friday Bible Study with different names J. The students barely came out to Friday bible studies because most of them felt secluded with all the believers in it and involved in it. So after years of CSI Friday bible study we decided to change it all up and have all the believers into one intentional bible study called Pressing Forward with JT. And Travis and I will lead the Ignite which is a gathering of new students to ask questions and learn about Christ from the basics, and making new friends. We have three believers in our team :Lak, Daly, Kimly. These believers are sacrificing their desire to learn more about God through the bible study and will be investing their time and dedication to reach out to these new students.
b. Yesterday was our first meeting and Praise God for answered prayers. Many of the believers from the bible study are so hungry to learn God’s words, and 43 new students who never came on Fridays showed up!
5) Body Worship Skit Team
a. After months of prayer and sharing, I have finally started a body worship team for the believers. We started our first meeting yesterday and it brought many new students too (thinking that they are learning dancing…) but I pray through this team that these new students will find God and that body worship and skits will become tools for them to evangelize!
b. As usual, I started teaching Revolution. It made many of the new students really excited that they are learning a new dance! And it sounds cool. Hahah
c. But as you know. Macarena is considered the crazy dance with so many moves! Even though it repeats and repeats… for Cambodians, dancing is repetitive, you learn one or two moves and dancing styles and you do the same moves for the WHOLE song…. So now teaching revolution will be…. A commitment!!! J
6) Summer Teams
a. Oklahoma Team: Five members
i. They will be here for two months. This summer team was made to encourage students in Oklahoma to live out here for two months for future potentials of journeymen.
ii. The first month will be during the last month of our classes now, so they will be helping out with our classes. Then the next month will be their own thing of a summer program with whatever they want to teach! Most likely they don’t prepare it until they come here, so I don’t know what they will be doing! But since there are 5 members three boys and two girls, the two sisters will b e living with me in my house and the brothers in travis house for the two months. J
b. GCC Team: 20 members
i. Excited.
ii. Praying already!
For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!
Ephesians 3:14-21
MISS YOU ALL VERY VERY MUCH! LIKE SINCERELY.
