Dear
Friends and Family,
“I feel
like a faithless chicken. Thank God that the Spirit within
is a lot greater than the man He walks around in!”, I
confessed to Peter, our national church leader, as he told
me that Pastor Chheang
Ka’s wife was taking food and
speaking. “I have got to quit doubting the power of
prayer! Thank God the orphans have some faith”, I mumbled
as I dropped my head in self-induced shame.
Pastor
Chheang Ka, our Divisional
Supervisor in a remote, former Khmer Rouge stronghold,
also pastors one of our Church/homes. On this particular
morning it was his wife’s duty to go to the local market
to buy some new shoes for the orphans in the home. She was
on the way to the market on a motorbike when she was
‘rear-ended’ by a 30-ton dump truck. The call came for
prayer, but the doctors at the clinic (no hospitals within
80 miles) said there was absolutely no hope. Peter and I
prayed anyway, she was too young and too valuable to just
let go without a fight, but then I saw the pictures. I
have never seen such a mutilated body still breathing. (I
do not suggest you look at these pictures unless you
really have a strong constitution, just read. I know, I
know, it’s kind of like a ‘wet paint’ sign, but remember
you were warned!)
http://www.missionreports.com/pak_sinat/index.html I
had planned to call the church in the U.S. which sponsors
the home for prayer, but at that sight, I stalled out. I
felt any faith for her survival take flight. “I’ll just
pray in the Spirit”, I offered in retreat. The next
morning I was honestly shocked to learn she was still
alive. “How can that be? She’s not even in a decent
hospital.” My staff just gave me that, “I thought you
believed in God?” look. It has now been more than a month
and she is speaking normally, eating and can move her
limbs. I have witnessed people raised from the dead, fire
from the sky, and about every miracle in the Bible, but I
never thought this could happen.
“That is
not the way it works! I can’t believe it!” What do you do
when the reality of your experience doesn’t fit your
faith? It’s both refreshing and challenging. Much of my
Cambodian experience has been well outside the orthodox
Christian mold. When I think of the sanitized services we
offer our American parishioners, lest we offend a
“seeker”, I can only shake my head at the stark contrast.
Since the Christian experience is new to the Cambodians,
they have not picked up the stereotypes or the offenses.
To them, everything about Christ is new and refreshing.
As we
were bumping down a road one day last month I asked Peter,
“When is the first time you heard someone speak in a
tongue with interpretation?” His answer changed my life. I
will never question the validity of tongues with
interpretation again. Speaking in tongues is certainly not
one of the most popular Christian
distinctives, in fact, even in many Pentecostal
churches in the Western world, the practice is
discouraged, most certainly because of the abuses. People
observe a Spiritual manifestation and then think, “If I
can do that I will be validated spiritually”. That’s where
it all goes wrong. We force spirituality with the flesh,
people are offended, the church
goes to great lengths to stop the abuses, which, in
return, stifles the genuine. Though Cambodian church
members pray in the Spirit constantly, we almost never see
a service interrupted with a tongue and interpretation.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe that is the way God wants it?
But, I have deliberately never pushed for any
manifestations, as I have wanted to see what the Holy
Spirit develops. Anyway, here is what Peter said:
“It was
in 1975, just after Pol Pot
evacuated Phnom Penh. He separated men from women,
husbands from wives, children from parents. There were
about 400 people in our church movement at that time, but
by 1979 only eight were left alive. We were sent to a camp
about 150 kilometers from Phnom Penh. I was only eleven,
so I was put with the children. The youth from our church
were sent to the same camp. We didn’t yet know the total
brutality of the Khmer Rouge at that time, so we would
sneak off into the jungle with the youth every night for a
prayer meeting. One night a youth spoke in a loud tongue,
none of us had ever heard that before, and we thought he’d
gone crazy, but then another youth brought the
interpretation with great authority. He said, ’I am the
Lord your God and I want you to know that tomorrow I will
gather your souls. Do not be afraid! You will be with
Me in heaven.’ The next day all
of the youth were killed.”
We
received help from some generous people in order to finish
six new church homes. We are in the process of getting
them dedicated. Our major construction partner,
International Cooperating Ministries, has agreed to fund
twelve new church/homes, which will bring us to 84, with a
total capacity for 4000+ orphans, and we are beginning
construction of those, but completing this last batch was
torture. We had no government, then twice the government
(as the deal to form a coalition was to give both parties
government jobs), steel prices tripled, fuel prices
doubled, the tsunami inflated construction material
prices, and budgets were agreed upon before all this
happened. Anyway, they are finally being completed, and we
pray for some stability for the next batch.
Construction and medical teams keep us maintained. We
average two to three per month. The construction teams
keep our buildings functional, in good repair, and provide
the needed cafeterias and sewage systems our early
construction failed to include. The medical teams keep our
teeth and bodies chugging along. Ryan Taggart just hosted
a team of fourth year dental students from Ireland through
Northwest Medical Missions. Despite all the “dentist
jokes” nothing makes friends for the church faster than
helping a person with infected teeth find a little relief,
and believe me, with the vast majority of Cambodians never
having visited a dentist, the demand is huge!
http://www.missionreports.com/dublin_dental/index.htm
Sosinet,
our District Supervisor from the extreme Northwest area of
the country, was feeling a little neglected. The road to
his church/home was so lousy no one would go there, and
he’d been feeding his kids in a bamboo and thatch
arrangement for years. No more! Thanks to a construction
team made up of five churches led by Pastor Dan Boyd of
Santa Rosa, CA, and hosted by Anna Blake they have a shiny
new cafeteria. Hurray for teams!
http://www.missionreports.com/hope_chapel2005/index.html
The
entrepreneurial spirit among the orphans is strong! Kids
are raising and selling vegetables, rice, rabbits, pigs,
fish, repairing motorbikes, producing tractor parts,
repairing jewelry, weaving cloth, making clothing and
towels, even putting on minstrel shows to raise money for
their support. They still need more help, but they are
learning life skills that will produce the nation changers
we want them to become.
http://www.missionreports.com/micro_enterprises/index.html
The
Foursquare Foundation approved four grants for the
Cambodian Church. They are for training our pastors,
training musical skills, funding medical and dental teams
and promoting lay led relational evangelism. Though we
have not yet received the funding, the “Check is in the
mail” so, typical of most of our Cambodian adventures, we
launched in faith. We already have 63 supervisors training
as trainers of the pastoral development program,
twenty-five new students arrive to begin training on the
keyboards this week, dental and medical supplies are being
inventoried and stockpiled, and pastors are teaching their
flocks that the work of spiritual reproduction is theirs.
New baptisms have occurred in every location where water
can be found. We really expect great things. Thank you
Foursquare Foundation!
http://www.missionreports.com/pastoral_training/index.html
Every
month for the past six plus years we have looked at what
lies ahead with no idea of how our needs will be met. (How
would you like to have 3000 kids??) Amazingly, we have
never missed a meal. It is through your faithful response
to the nudge of God that we keep on. It’s not just
orphans, more importantly, it’s
about 250,000+ people in 1300+ churches that follow
Christ. Cambodia is coming to Jesus, and,
guess what? You get the
credit! This month we received 9 containers (those are 40
foot long steel boxes 8 feet high and 8 feet wide) full of
rice, dried fruit, soup mix, pasta, nutrition bars,
vegetable seeds, paint, and various and sundry other
articles.
http://www.missionreports.com/food_distribution/index.html
Thanks! Especially, thanks to our sponsors. These
kids, that you are bringing up,
are truly changing the future of their country.
Please,
stop right now and pray for complete healing for my friend
Paulus in Indonesia. He heads
the “Disciple Makers Ministry” and has been stricken with
cancer of the sinus. Paulus
and his wife have established 23 schools for training
Christian pastors in that Muslim nation. I serve on his
board of directors and he is an important asset in the
evangelization of that nation. They have adopted the
Cambodian church/home model for orphan care, and work
closely with both Warm Blankets and I.C.M.
Oh, I
almost forgot, Sou, Hannah and
I spent most of June in the US. It is hard on the ego when
things run so smoothly while you are gone, but I salute
the staff, they really can handle the load. We got to
spend a week with family and grandchildren, spoke in four
churches, and managed to arrive in Illinois the day my 90
year old mother fell and broke her right arm. I spent the
next 10 days installing a bathroom in the main floor of
her old farm house, as her stair climbing days are behind
her for a while. Hannah stayed on as a staff member at
Camp Hickory in Illinois, Sou
and I returned to Cambodia on July 8th. Good to be home!
http://www.missionreports.com/furlough2005/index.html
Have a
great month! We plan to.
Blessings,
Ted,
Sou and Hannah Olbrich
Anna Blake and Ryan Taggart
