“Every rat needs a hole to crawl
through” What in the world do I mean
by that? Just this: “Corner a rat,
corner a fool, and you’ll have the
fight of your life, AND, there is a
little of the ‘rat’ (fool) in all of
us.” Check me out. Proverbs 16:12
will explain my position on cornered
‘rats’, and, the whole message of
the Gospel is that we are basically
all a bunch of ‘rats’ in desperate
need of the “escape hatch” offered
by Christ. So, all that to say this,
to: all ‘religious rats’, “I, a
‘fellow rat’, repent!”
What brought this on? We’ve
discovered that a lot of good
pastors got their heads turned buy
the $100 bills dripping out of the
pockets of a well intentioned, yet
(in my opinion) unwise, foreign
attempt to recruit a ‘one million
leader force’ beginning in
Cambodia. We are reaping the
seeds of fear that this flamboyant
message set loose in the Buddhist
community, and thus the government
of Cambodia,
and the repression will be with us
for some time to come. However, my
greatest concern is for the good
pastors that were enticed by the
quick money, and the sense of shame,
guilt, or just estrangement, that
they now feel. They need an escape
hatch, and I certainly want to offer
it. You see, I know I have a big
mouth, and a m a bit of a ‘cowboy’,
not exactly Christ like character
traits, right? So, I need a ‘rat
hole’ as well. I suggest
we ‘rats’
put the past behind us, and move on
to the work at hand. My friend, Big
Steve, the ‘Bapticostal’
boy who gave me a wheel chair for my
60th birthday, reports
that some of his unlicensed churches
have been turned in to the
government by licensed churches.
Fellow ‘rats’,
this needs to stop! I, for
one, am laying down my pail of
rocks.
My son-in-law, Phil, sent this to
me. It’s the greatest quote I’ve
seen in years!
"If
you think you can or if you think
you can't; you're probably right."
(Mark
Twain) Every so often, when I
think of how far this ministry has
come,
www.missionreports.com/cambodia
106 Church homes, nearly 3700 widows
and orphans looking to us for their
daily needs, 2000+ churches and home
groups needing leadership, a
convergence of circumstance will
cascade upon me, often including, a
worse than zeroed out bank account,
frequently, some personal sin,
maybe, throw in a ‘ticked-off’ donor
to top it off, this overwhelming
sense of doom oozes over me with a
numbing intensity. It will freeze
me. Then I’ll hear the Holy Spirit
ask, “Whose ministry is this anyway?
I’ll, with great difficulty, even
doubt, force myself to give thanks
and start thinking and speaking of
all the glorious things God wants to
accomplish. I’ve discovered
something. A great component of
faith is putting your mouth on the
line. “I can do that”, when you
don’t have the resources or
personnel. This, to some, can seem
like a lie. And really, this will
probably get me into trouble, I
believe the only difference between
this ’empty boast’ and ‘faith’ is
the inspiration of God. Many of our
greatest accomplishments have come
fro m a n, “I can do that” when
every reasonable voice,
circumstance, and balance sheet
says, “It can’t be done!” It’s not
simply an act of brashness, but an
intuitive feel that this is not just
‘you’, coupled with an insane,
almost braggadocios, assumption that
God is actually going to use you
to pull it off. How do you know it’s
God? Well, here are some things I
ask: “Is this an ego stroke, or is
it genuinely going to build the
Church? Is this something God has
told you to do, i.e.: help the
orphan and widow, the poor, etc?
Then you need the courage to act.
You can’t sit and wait for it to
fall from the sky, boldly proclaim
it with an, “I can do this” all the
time knowing that it is, “Christ in
you, the hope of glory”.
Peter (our church president), Daniel
(our General Supervisor),
Pheap
(one of our ‘young lion’ leaders)
and I, just returned fro m a
“Visionary Conference” in
Singapore sponsored by FMI
and the Foursquare Foundation. It
was an event to bring out the, “I
can do this”. This coming year (We
believe God is willing) we will:
1.
Train the leaders, develop,
distribute, and begin to teach
100,000 children’s Christian
education curriculums.
2.
Invest our energies and resources
into developing a Godly oversight
committee of pastors, fro m a ll
walks of Christendom, that is void
of self serving, and will teach and
enable pastors to live simple, holy,
yet industrious lives, working for
the development of their church and
country, devoid of personal pride
and the ambition to be rich and
powerful. (Believe me, this is our
number one pastor killer!)
3.
Train, and release young leaders to
help their piers, who have been
translated from the ‘bronze age’
environment of their villages to the
‘21st century’
electronic/industrial age of the
cities, to avoid the morally empty,
materialistic, hedonistic, trap that
sucks them up in city life. Do we
have the resources, personnel and
wisdom to pull this off? Nope! But
we know Someone
who does.
Life takes on a different dimension
when you remove the ‘fluff’ of
services we have in the developed
nations of the world. Hospitals,
health care services, even funeral
parlors change the way we deal with
things like cancer and death. I was
reluctant to include these, but the
staff wants you to see what we deal
with. If you are of weak stomach,
skip them:
http://www.missionreports.com/kid%5Fsurgery
http://www.missionreports.com/pastor%5Ffuneral
We received a lot of great help in
September. Many who were here
probably don’t realize how much of
the, “I can do this!” you are. The
truth is without you, without the
help of each donor, church/home
sponsor, support organization,
foundation, church, ministry, or
even the simple prayer you lift up,
part of the program would be
missing. Your help is not unnoticed
or unappreciated. I may do a lousy
job of communicating it to you, but,
one more time, with the heart:
“Thank you!” Cornerstone church,
which sponsors the largest single
number of homes of any church, came
and built a beautiful cafeteria
building for one of the church homes
they sponsor for in
Malai,
Bantemeanchy
Province .
http://www.missionreports.com/cornerstone%5Faug07
The Riverside CA Foursquare Church,
Christian Life Center, which
was instrumental in building our
rice mill, and provides for the
sponsorship of the
Bak
Roteh
home in Pursat
Province, as well as partial support
for other homes and school uniforms,
came on a good-will tour with Mount
Zion Foursquare Church,
Lake Elsinore,
CA, which sponsors the Bar
Kan home in
Pursat Province. They left a
string of homes blessed with new
uniforms, and numerous improvement
projects, including a new fence at
Prek
Bey.
Anna Blake , who is going back to
the States to pursue a degree in
Nursing, made these teams the last
official act of her faithful ‘Team’
service before her October
departure. She has been working with
Josh Ferguson who will take her
place. “These teams made September a
very productive month”, said Anna.
Anna, we will miss you, and wish
God’s richest blessings upon you!
http://www.missionreports.com/clc%5Fmz%5Fsept07
Our Swiss optician,
Tabea
Schaller, has been busy with our
eyeglass program. Many of our
pastors suffer from poor vision and
are very happy to be able to read
their Bibles! She, with Emily Plater,
is off leading the Swiss team while
they rebuild the
Palelai
home. We’ll have more on that next
month.
http://www.missionreports.com/eyesglassesproject%5Fsep07
We graduated 98 of our Foursquare
Foundation funded musicians.
http://www.missionreports.com/music%5Fgraduation%5Fsep07
And, Jamie
Gonzoles, graduated the first
ever, “Rozetta
Stone” English Teacher Training
Class on the last day of the month.
Jamie is a true teacher and seems as
though she has discovered her gift.
http://www.missionreports.com/esl_teacher_training_sep07
The program was funded through our
major partner, Warm Blankets Orphan
Care International. Thank you! With
their help 5 more church/homes were
opened in September.
That’s it for this month. May God
bless you richly!
Still mov’in
kind’a
slow, but doing better,
Pa Thom (Me, Ted)
Still do’in
all the work,
Cambodian Staff
Ma Sou,
Anna Blake,
Jamie Gonzalez,
Emily Plater
Tabea
Schaller
Josh Ferguson
