Cambodia

6 March 2016

Dear Phyllis,

Twenty years ago there was an orphan boy in Sihanoukville, Cambodia who was living in a Buddhist temple. Every day on his way to school he walked past a Korean Bible school. One day someone gave him a tract and he was saved. After he came to Christ the folks at the Bible school suggested that he live there rather than in the temple. After finishing high school he naturally stayed on to study at the Bible school. But four years later a crushing moment came when major denominations snapped up all the sharp student and no one wanted him as a pastor. With no place to go he stayed on at the Bible school for one more year. To his wonderful good fortune that year he married one fantastic young lady. .With no invitations to be a pastor they decided that they would go out on their own to do pioneer evangelism in Siem Reap.

Thirteen years ago I was on a Bible run to Cambodia with my friend Mark and another brother. I had been in Cambodia several times before and told Mark, “The most interesting place in Cambodia is the Angkor Wat at Siem Reap”. If I was going to Asia as a tourist and could only go to one place the Angkor Wat is what I would choose. There are over a million visitors a year who go there, and the children selling cards and trinkets are like the frogs in Egypt. They just swarm all over you begging you to buy their trinkets. They really are a pest and most tourist get irritated and tell them to “Git”. One little 8 year old girl was begging me to buy her cards. I didn't want to be rude but show the love of Christ. I looked down at her and said, “I love you”. She looked up at me with those beautiful big brown eyes and replied, “You say you love me but you won't buy my cards.” And cried. I bought her cards. Then all the kids swarmed around me demanding, “You buy from me!”

Three hours later the place was closing and we were in the parking lot waiting for a bus to take us back to town. The kids were through selling for the day and wanted to play. I saw that darling little girl and said, “I want to give you a hug”. That did it. Thirty children lined up everyone wanting a hug. As soon as one got a hug they ran to the end of the line to get another hug. Those children just flat cleaned me out. They stole my heart right out of my chest cavity. I told Mark, “If there is anything I ever do on this planet I must come back here to win these kids to Jesus”.

Three months later I was back in Siem Reap for the sole purpose of winning those children. But I had a dead blank. I couldn't find a pastor or missionary in town. There was only one man that I knew and asked him if he knew any churches. He told me that his daughter was a Christian. When I asked the daughter what kind of a church she went to all she could tell me was BP. At last I asked her to take me to her church to meet her pastor. We got on a bike and went 400 meters through some rice fields and came to a chicken coop type of a church. I was delighted that both the wife and pastor spook acceptable English and asked them to go with me to the Angkor Wat to reach the children.

The next day was one of the major moments of my life. We sat there on the grass with 30 children around us and I wept as I watched one of the finest child evangelism messages I had ever seen. I HAD STRUCK GOLD. Timothy and Sang Lai were as good as they get. I mean to tell you they just don't come any better than this couple. When I got back to Chiang Mai an told Mark what I had discovered he was elated and went over to meet them. I am broke but Mark had contacts with people in America and Holland that had money to give for missions. He told Timothy that he would pay to have the children transported by bus 15 km from their homes near the Angkor Wat to his church each week for church. That worked for a while but the undisciplined kids made such a mess of the buses that the company refused to haul them. Then Mark was able to raise money enough for Timothy to buy his own bus to bring the children to church.

Some time later Timothy had a most unusual request from his home village in southern Cambodia to “please come and tell us the Gospel”. Timothy contacted Mark and asked him to help with this dendo (evangelism) mission. At that time Mark got an e-mail from a friend in Hong Kong saying there was a team from the Faroe Islands – in the North Sea nothwest of Scottand – who were in Hong Kong with nothing to do. Mark replied, “Send those men here. I can use them for dendo in Cambodia”. I was not on that run but it turned out to be one of the most unusual moments of Mark's life. The Lord did miracles like no one had ever seen. Through that mission Timothy got tied in with Christians from the Faroe Islands as well as Mark. One brother on that team had been a very wealthy man in Faroe but disaster had struck him and he got wiped out. When he went to Cambodia and got involved with the work there he stayed on and married a Khmer Christian girl. Today he is the happiest man in Cambodia. He raves at the joy of serving Jesus and thanks God he got saved from making money at home.

What I am trying to say is; it is amazing how God takes the little incidents of life and works them together as threads to weave the fabric of what is the Body of Christ. It was the tears in the eyes of a little 8 year old girl that stole my heart that moved me to go to Siem Reap to reach children for Jesus. It was somebody who gave a tract to an orphan boy walking past a school in Sihanoukville who got saved and stayed on for Bible school. That young man, who no one wanted, went on his own to Siem Reap to do pioneer evangelism. It was the daughter of the only man I knew who introduced me to Timothy. It was through my relationship with Mark that he was able to go over there and raise funds for Timothy. Today that man that man, who no one wanted. is one of the top men in Cambodia. He is he director of Gideon and half a dozens other major Christian organizations. He is easily the best man that ever came out of that Korean Bible school. It was through Mark that the men from the Faroe Islands got connected to the work in Siem Reap. From that initial moment when that lovely little girl said “You love me but you won't buy my cards”; there are now four churches in that area, and who knows how many hundred have been saved. Oh what joy to be a thread for Jesus. And He can, and does, do that with you too.

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