Urgent Prayer Requests from Cambodia

The following is an email from Jonathan Chua who should have just got through the last day of English Camp in Siem Reap (Cambodia time). Sambo has been a faithful servant partnering with Phearum in the EE ministry, and Sopheak is one of our closest friends in Siem Reap. He's been asking us to pray for his mother's health and the salvation for the rest of his family.

Please also be in prayer for God's protection over the short-termers and interns. They have been feeling the heaviness of the spiritual realm and experiencing lightheartedness during their sleep. Satan is so commonly invited into the guesthouses and is definitely looking for ways to destroy God's work in Cambodia. Pray also for the lost who don't know our true Creator and God yet.

Let's lift Cambodia up together to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

-Em

~ ~ ~

Two urgent prayer requests. The first is for Sambo's daughter. He was planning to leave with his family on Thrusday for Prea Vehia province in the northern part of Cambodia, near where they are fighting over the temple, to do evangelism work in the villages. But his daughter is ill with dengue and is in the hospital now. They told us yesterday but I haven't heard any updates since then. I'll keep you guys updated.

Second is for Sopheak's mother. She has been sick for more than a week I think, vomiting with blood. She is still up and about and helping to cook for English camp though. I talked to her a little bit today and she is feeling better but thinks that the vomiting and blood may come back tomorrow.

Pray for both of them!!!

-Jon

Praise!

Yay, 60 students will attend the Siem Reap English Camp from July 27- Aug. 1! That's double the amount of students that was initially allowed to join ECamp because of the lack of short-termers going to teach English. Please pray for the 10 teachers who will teach English and share Christ's love with them/encourage the believers' faith.

-Em

Cambodia is for Christ

So... I decided to keep this blogger going even though the 2009 missions trip to Cambodia is cancelled this year. I'd like to keep everyone updated on what God's doing in Cambodia through the email updates from our missionaries and friends there. I also added Jonathan Chua's blogger to the Blog List, so y'all can keep him in your prayers too.

The English Camp in Phnom Penh just ended, and all the C&MA missionaries are heading to the week long Field Forum in Kampong Saom now. Pray for safe traveling and a blessed time of rest and spiritual encouragement for the missionaries. Pray that they would be united by God's love and that field politics, personality differences, and other schemes Satan uses to divide God's people will not take their eyes off serving Him in Cambodia.

I know a missionary family (the Copeland's) returned for another term not too long ago, so please pray for their transition.

Kim, who ministered to some Vietnamese youth and girls at risk in the capital for the past years, is starting a new ministry in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Please pray for her as she transitions into her new ministry and for the youth and girls she's been with that they'll continue to grow in their faith!!!

And don't forget about Jolene, Lamry, & May in China, the Mexicali team, and the team going to Ensenada in August!!! The team in China just finished their camp, and ten children accepted Christ.

-Em

Jon Chua's blogger: http://www.chuamissions.blogspot.com/

English Camp Update

Please continue to pray for the English Camp in Cambodia this summer. Here's the latest update on the English Camp in Siem Reap that SGVAC has been participating in and supporting:

*The number of students who can come to E camp is determined by the number of teachers who are coming. We like to keep a 3-1 ratio. So if you have 50 teachers coming, you are able to invite 150 students. This year there are 10 teachers coming to SR, so I told Pearom to invite 30 students, although we will end up with at least 40. The money that we receive for Ecamp goes into an account that pays for e camp and the dorm, so the more spent on e camp, the less for the dorm, but we are inviting less students this year because we don't have as many teachers. *

Following up with Eric's entry... if it's on your heart to be involved in Cambodia, you can send your support directly to the National office.
The Christian and Missionary Alliance
Office of Donor Accounting
P.O. Box 35000
Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500
(866) 443-8262
http://www.cmalliance.org/give/

There are other ministries besides the English Camp and dorm ministries in Cambodia. Let us know if you want to know more about other ministries/missionaries!
http://www.cmalliance.org/im/mlocator/results.jsp?name=&country=cambodia

Thank you,
Em

Here's some logistical information related to the trip cancellation:
If you sent financial support to San Gabriel Valley Alliance Church for to a team member, the church should be in touch with you in the next week or so.

Currently, you'll be given two options:

• Have your check sent back to you (or a refund check issued, if your check was cashed)
  
• Have your check designated to the [East Asia] or Ensenada short-term teams from SGVAC
  

If you are interested in supporting the Cambodia field, I would also ask you to consider prayerfully sending some or all of that support directly the Cambodia mission field. Here is one pressing need that was directly impacted by our (and other) churches withdrawing from short-term commitments this summer.

Dear All
You are receiving this e-mail because you or your church have been involved in the English camp ministry at some time in the past. It is hard to believe that this year will be English camp 7, It seems like yesterday that we were hosting English camp 1( then just known as English camp) That first year we had 8 short termers and 25 students. Last year for English camp 6 we had 78 short termers and apprx 300 students. God is good.

It appears that English Camp 7 will not be quite as big. As of today we have 27 people registered for this summer.We are very thankful for these people who are coming and are trusting God for another great summer

As most of you will know, the 2 biggest disadvantages that come from lower number of Short termers is that we will not be able to invite as many students to study at the English camps as in years past, and a drop in income. For many students, English camp is the highlight of their year and so it will be with heavy hearts that we will be telling some that they will not be able to attend this year. Part of the money short termres pay to participate in English camp goes towards the budget of our dorm ministry. We currently house 15 university students in our dorm. They are provided with a place to stay as well as being trained and discipled to lead churches and small groups in the future. It costs approx $1000 per student to run the dorm. In years past we have been able to receive 50-75% of our budget from short term registrations. This year we will do well to receive 25%. In other words, we need to raise $10,000 by the end of the year.
So I send this to you to ask for your help, would you be interested in helping us meet our budget. Perhaps as an individual or a church, or hosting a fund raiser? If you attend an Alliance church in Canada or USA you can simply mark your cheque or envelope "University Ministry Cambodia" or you can send it directly to our National offices marked the same way.

The Christian and Missionary Alliance
Office of Donor Accounting
P.O. Box 35000
Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500
(866) 443-8262

http://www.cmalliance.org/give/give.jsp

I will admit, sending this type of e-mail is not my favorite thing to do but my desire to see what God is doing here among University students continue outweighs and feelings of my own.We have a web site for the dorm ministry we are currently working on and hope to have that up in the next month. It will be a way to get to know the students and more information about the dorm ministry. Please pray that these needs will be met, for His glory

Thank you
Bill Lobbezoo

I'm excited to send the amount i had earmarked for my teammates to this ministry.

Team Update (and my thoughts)

Greetings!

First off, on behalf of the 2009 Cambodia STM team, thank you for standing with us in prayer and supporting us emotionally and financially. Because of some recent changes within the team, it has been decided with church leadership to cancel this summer's missions trip to Cambodia.

Although the trip is called off, please remember this beautiful country and its people, the missionaries and their families, and our brothers and sisters in Christ in Cambodia. Keep praying and supporting the China, Ensenada, and Mexicali teams that are going out this summer (and the missionaries who have been serving there), and continue to pray for and seek opportunities to share with the nonbelievers around us!

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity

*** For those who have sent in financial contributions, Pastor Chao will contact you this week to discuss the details of reimbursement or supporting another missions team. ***

~ ~ ~
I won't deny it- I am more or less disappointed and upset with the way things have turned out this year. When the likelihood of cancelling the Cambodia trip was first brought to my attention, I allowed myself to slack off completely in all my commitments for a whole week. No doubt I took it really hard. People kept reminding me of God's sovereignty, but I was angry with how this all came about. Then we had our first meeting with church leadership that extended the deadline for people to join the team. With one or more additional member(s) on the team, it would still be possible to keep the team alive. Thankfully, emotional knots were untied that night, and I truly felt the presence of God's peace. From that night until today, I've learned to not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, to present my requests to God. Praise God for His peace that transcends all understanding (or I would not have made it through)! I've also reflected on some things and along with some conversations with a couple people, I blogged about the following on my xanga a couple days ago. Just some raw thoughts that have been floating around in my mind lately... I'd love to hear about your thoughts too!!!

~ With the possibility of calling off the missions trip to Cambodia this year and the Swine Flue in Ensenada and Mexicali, I've been starting to wonder what God is doing, particularly in SGV. Is there something He wants us to do here? Is it becoming too routine for SGV to send teams out every summer? Is there something else He wants us to see and listen to? Is it something within the church that He wants us to pay attention to? What is it that God may be pointing us to I do not know, but I'm getting very curious. A sister from another church said perhaps God wants to work in us individually this summer instead of having us do His work overseas. As I'm chatting with a friend and getting his perspective on missions work and how the churches are usually involved, he pointed out that it's dangerous for churches to over-simplify missions as "sending teams/missionaries out to a foreign country" and that the church needs to stay watchful to discern where God is working and where He may want to involve us. I'm not saying that churches shouldn't send teams/missionaries out, but churches should also listen to God's voice for what He has for them each year. ...something for me to marinate on! ~

I believe that God has something for each of us in the Cambodia team to learn. He uses each circumstance to sculpt and form us. Please pray for the team to remain open to God's comfort and voice. It's easy to say all this but feel/act another way (at least in my case). Arkoon tom tom (thank you big big)!

To my teammates- it's been quite a ride w/ y'all even though we didn't even set foot on Cambodia this year. I'm glad we experienced this together and got to know each other a little better :-)

Cheers.

-Em

Pray for our team-- we have a meeting with church leadership coming up on Wednesday, at 8:30 PM!

Approval...!

I just got approved for the three weeks of time off to take the trip. God is good.

Anticipating Our First '09 Cambodia Team Mtg

Eric, you're great with blogging :-) Keep it up!

April 19, Sunday, will be our first Cambodia team meeting. Although I am completely unprepared for our first meeting, I am definitely looking forward to building team unity and shaping the purpose of this year's trip together. It feels like every missions trip doesn't fail to present me with numerous challenges and confessions to make. I cry out "no more, no more," but God uses my brokenness to shape me. Now open up to God and your teammates, Em!

Please pray for team focus as we are all scattered around and have very busy schedules! Arkoon (thank you)!

Check back with us to see how we survived our first team meeting! :-P

IM Connect

From this month's Christian and Missionary Alliance IM (International Ministries) Connect, a newsletter sent to missionaries and missionary candidates:

While traveling in Cambodia recently, Esther and I discovered the following covenant that the Cambodia C&MA missionary team made with one another. We liked it so much that we wanted, with their permission, to share it with you:

This covenant clarifies our mutual expectations of one another, making it possible to work together in a way that enables us to reach our full potential. This covenantal relationship will cultivate an atmosphere of freedom and trust in our team that will enable us to grow through change and conflict. This agreement binds us together and enables us to meet our team’s needs by meeting the needs of one another.

Purpose and Principles

We want to love and honor God in all that we do. As an expression of this desire, we commit ourselves to place love and honor as the foundation of our life and ministry together. We will accomplish this purpose through the following principles.

1. Our first priority will be to continually grow in our relationship with God through obedience to His Word.
   
2. We will accept one another. We are committed to Biblical unity which requires setting aside our own desires for the benefit of others. We will believe the best in others, stand up for one another, and give each other the benefit of the doubt allowing “love to cover a multitude of sins.”
   
3. We will take care of one another. We will be sensitive to one another’s weaknesses and work hard to protect, build up, and complement each other’s vulnerable areas, especially when we disagree.
   
4. We will not give, repeat, or receive accusations, except when willing to help resolve the problem. We will resolve conflicts as quickly as possible and according to biblical principles.
   
5. We will treat each other with respect which includes appreciating the way each one contributes their gifts, skills, and ideas to the success of the whole team. We will listen well to one another’s opinions, honor one another’s differences, hold love supreme, and wholeheartedly support our collective decisions. This requires us to be teachable and welcome correction as an opportunity to grow and develop.
   

Personal Commitment

It is my personal desire to love and honor God in all that I do. As an expression of this desire, I commit myself to place love and honor as the foundation of my life and ministry. I wholeheartedly enter into this covenant:

1. My first priority will be to grow in relationship with God through obedience to His Word.
   
2. I will accept each of my team mates, strive for biblical unity, and set aside my own desires for the benefit of others.
   
3. I will take care of my team mates by helping, protecting, and building them up.
   
4. I will resolve conflicts quickly and biblically.
   
5. I will treat each of my team mates with respect.
   

Each person on the field signed this covenant indicating their commitment to living it out. This has helped them become more healthy in working together!

I am encouraged by the humble servant's heart of the workers in the Cambodia field.

Social networking...

Social networking is terrific for the incredibly lazy. I've received several unexpected offers/expressions of interest to pray for Cambodia.
Someone i didn't expect at all wanted more details. Here's what i wrote back:

I'm not sure if you're being facetious/ironic in inquiring, but...

I'm spending three weeks in Cambodia this summer, serving God's people and non-believers in English training, social and agricultural development, and maybe some other things... with the intent and goal of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with them.

I've been challenged to have people praying for me, for our team, for ongoing work of evangelism in Cambodia, and for Cambodia as a country.

I know you're not evangelical in your worldview, but if you're willing to pray, i'd really enjoy sending you our (occasional) updates, and having something more interesting than <redacted> to chat about next time we talk.

Let me know if you're interested. I can send you a link to our support letter.

It's fairly miraculous that going across the globe gives opportunity to share what God has put on my heart here at home, too.

So I've been instructed by our team leaders to blog, so blog I will...

I just want to put out-front that I struggle tremendously with the resources and energy that go into short-term missions. For the amount of money and effort and prayer that goes into putting someone into the field for 3 weeks, I feel like the Western church could be mobilizing someone for 2 months of a 4-year term. (Not that I'm 100% down on the Western church. I think, by and large, it does more things right than it does wrong. I realize this makes me a classist, imperialist modernist, and I'm insufficiently down with the emergent global church. Tough cookies-- get your own blog entry.) It seems really wasteful to do short-term trips, particularly for someone like me, who doesn't even generate joy from travel, meeting new people, or having exotic experiences. All I get out of short-term missions is the sinking, desperate realization that God's world is incredibly vast, and I am incomprehensibly selfish and short-sighted.

I just want to send and enable people to do this work...!

But the most important take-home lesson from previous overseas trips is that we don't generate long-term missionaries without a bridge... particularly in the North American church, which is so very distant from the clash of cultures happening at the margins of the churched and unchurched world. And short-term missions is one of the most ideal bridges in the era of Internet, global English, and jet airplanes. It equips and inspires future missionaries, encourages current missionaries, and keeps churches and missionaries connected with one another.

It was about 2 hours into the flight for my first missions trip that I decided I wasn't going overseas long-term. Or maybe it was an hour into my first training session. In either case, after 3 trips in 4 summers, I was ready to take some serious time away from the missions field and focus on building a missional heart on the homefront. Time to let others go.

So why go now?

Well, in part, my role has changed at church and in ministry. I have a bit more general responsibility, a bit less Sunday School teaching, and a lot more segmentation in fellowships. I'm helping out in an expanded capacity at Bible Study Fellowship, which I could not recommend highly enough. I'm not as myopic as I was last time. We need advocacy and urgency at every level-- from what I teach junior high monkeys to the passion and priority we put on supporting the Great Commission Fund as the church board level. Do we paint a unified picture of cross-cultural missions? Is it secret, gnostic information-- an insider's club of "those who have gone" vs. "those who have not"? Or are we, as a church, literally ALL going on missions by being part of what missions is doing?

Jesus has not called me into a compartmentalized life characterized by 401k freak-outs on Friday afternoon, and pious promises to pray on Sundays. He has called me to a holistic pursuit of holiness, compassion, and life-giving, eternal water. I struggle to keep it from being any other way.

So much to say! I will have to save some for next time.

I am thrilled by the ongoing relationship my church has with the Cambodian mission field. I am overjoyed that I am accompanying seasoned short-termers with a deep heart for the Khmer people. I am humbled by the commitment and attitudes of the long-termers already in the field. I am, as yet, undaunted by the challenges.

testing

:-P