Dear Friends and Family,
Whack! That big German dairy farmer’s hand met my posterior end at the
base of the stairway to the second floor of our Illinois farmhouse. I
was about 6 years old, and I don’t remember the specific infraction,
but I had been ordered to bed early. “I won’t go! You can’t make me!”
was the response from my lips that brought the aforementioned action.
The force from the blow hoisted me to the second step. “You can’t make
me cry”, I protested. Whack! One more step. I repeated that, each
step, all the way to my bed. There are 12 steps and a landing in that
old farm house. That is a fact I will not forget. What’s the point? I
don’t cry easily. It’s not a trait I am particularly proud of, just a
fact. That’s why I was so shocked at my response to the outpouring of
giving in support of the ministry here, and specifically the recent
medical clinic. Last week, when I was talking with Craig Mueller,
president of Warm Blankets, and he was telling me of the support, I
thought of all of you who never get to see the goodness that comes
from your sacrifice. You just give and I get the blessing of seeing
what happens. As I was thinking of all of you, I was shocked at my
response. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. I couldn’t help but
wonder if I could be as faithful as all of you have been without
witnessing first hand the miracle of the church in Cambodia?? Strange,
what Dad couldn’t accomplish with 13 blows you have done through your
kindness.
The big event of the month has been The Church On The Way Medical
Mission to Anlong Veng, Cambodia. I believe the total to be 14,032
people treated, and 10,404 who received the Lord. The team treated
everything from elephantitis to toothaches. Forty-eight foreign staff
came to assist us from the US, Nigeria, Thailand and Holland. You
really need to see these pictures:
http://www.missionreports.com/med_mission8_04. This was the fourth
such Medical Mission by Church On The Way, but it was uniquely
different. Anlong Veng is a province in North central Cambodia that
was under Khmer Rouge control until 1999, and is governed today by
former members of the Khmer Rouge (part of the peace deal). It is the
province where Pol Pot died of natural causes in 1998, and where Ta
Mok (number two leader of the Khmer rouge) had his stronghold
surrounded by a man made lake less than a mile from the church where
the clinic was held. These people never surrendered, they were
assimilated. They maintained their values and still possess their
weapons. It is not unusual to see a 12 year old out in the woods
hunting with an AK-47. Significant areas of the province are still
plagued with land mines and people are injured several times per week
by explosions. The fact that struck me, even though we’ve had a church
facility in the province since 2000, was the lack of Buddhist
presence. There are no Buddhist Temples, and no one wore Buddhist
symbols. No Buddhist Monks came seeking medical help, as there were
none. The people lived in a spiritual vacuum, they were/are communist
atheists, and when they were confronted with the Gospel they took it
in like dry sponges. We did not count small children in our response
figures, and that’s primarily why the number is set at 10,404, but
virtually all received in the positive.
It was a tough site to prepare. About eight trips with our 5 ton truck
were needed to haul materials from Phnom Penh and Siem Reap. The last
100 miles were on a road that was horrible. It resembled what could be
best described as a “wet moon” with one crater full of water after
another and most of the bridges destroyed. It rained and the road got
worse, our main tent collapsed. Since we’d sent our evangelistic team
(primarily orphans from several of our church/homes) up about ten days
early to prepare, I asked them to pray for the rain to stop. They did
and it dried up. Problem! Our well could not handle the water
requirement for thousands of people, so we built a 30,000 liter
cistern to collect rain water, but no rain to fill it. I asked the
kids if they were still praying? “Sure, you asked us to”, they chimed.
“Well, stop! We need rain to fill the cistern”. It didn’t rain for
about five days, so I asked again, “Are you still praying for no
rain?” Sure, you asked us to”. I couldn’t help but laugh. I said look
you need to pray a ‘Camelot prayer’. “What’s that?? They asked with a
puzzled look. Well, you pray for sunshine during the day and rain at
night. Believe it or not, that is virtually they way it went for the
rest of the clinic, rain almost every night and the days were mostly
dry. I accused the kids of having a telephone with God’s number. On
our convoy of 15 vehicles to and from the site we had a total of six
breakdowns, broken springs, stabilizers, shot diesel pump, and blown
clutch among the casualties.
Malaria is epidemic in the region, about 700-800 people were treated,
and it is the worst form. Children have been known to go from first
symptoms to death in 24 hours. So far, six of our staff have come down
with malaria and at least three of the foreign staff. Not good! One of
our pastors has typhoid fever. No question this site was hard on man
and machine. We have spent about $3000 for vehicle repair and
maintenance. But! “All’s well that ends well!”, and even though a 38
year old woman, with a bad heart, died on the first day, she received
the Lord before she passed away. Pastor Peter spent most of the first
day comforting the family and helping with the funeral. We now count
them among our newest church members. I personally spent most of the
clinic time away from the site looking for a missing team member, (He
got violently sick in Bangkok and was returned to Africa too ill to
let anyone know. He is recovering) lost luggage, and securing
medications. The clinic was overall a great success. Thanks to all who
made it possible!
We did not link medical care to any kind of reception of the gospel,
and it was not just a mass emotional appeal that produced this
response. Most of it happened after the people had received treatment.
Each person sat down with a Cambodian pastor, who reviewed the medical
prescriptions to make sure they were understood, we had 80 pastors
helping, and then they went through a small booklet, simply entitled
“God” (furnished by Foursquare Missions Press). They prayed with them
and made arrangements for them to get in touch with one of our local
pastors. There were some genuine miracles. One woman came in blind,
after being examined by the doctor and told there was nothing that
could be done, the doctor prayed for her. With understandable
excitement, the woman proclaimed, “I can see!” Naturally, everyone
wanted to confirm this by holding up fingers and asking her to count
etc, but the fact was, she could see. Just as we finished the clinic I
received a gift from the Hong Kong E. Free Church for $8,000 worth of
new Bibles. Nice coincidence, huh?
We are building our second church/home in that area (see
photo). That province has been very difficult for us to work. The
leaders are suspicious of outsiders, especially suspecting churches of
political indoctrination. For years they have learned that religion
was a weakness used by governments to control people. Unbeknown to us,
on the first day, several high government officials came through the
clinic posing as sick. When they saw that we took the sickest people
first, that there was no political or religious pressure put on
people, and that treatment was given without charge, they called our
President and Ma Sou to a meeting on day three. They told them that
they had been reluctant to grant us permits for churches in the past,
but since they now saw our hearts, and that they knew we were helping
the people, they would no longer oppose any new churches form our
denomination in the province. PTL! It was a nice, but totally
unexpected benefit.
The “daily grind” work goes on despite big events, and yesterday I
went to Battambang to secure land for our rice bin and some new
churches. The district supervisor met us and handed me a paper. He had
all the churches in the province listed, 106! I had thought there were
about 60. He explained, “We’ve started 36 new churches since
February”. It is truly amazing. I did manage to find some land large
enough to accommodate our rice bin and mill near a main power line and
a good road, but I still need to find $10,000 for the land and another
$7,000 for the rice mill. By buying up rice at harvest, and storing
it, we would greatly reduce the cost of orphan support, plus we would
gain the valuable rice bran for live stock feed. The bin holds about
400 tons of rice, and it is ready to be built. We also have a steel
building which has been donated to house the mill, so if you’re
looking for a project to fund?? Hint! We are about $17,000 short.
There is much more to say, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
Thanks for your faithfulness. May you have a great month!
BTW, Hannah’s back from the US. She spent her summer on camp staff in
Illinois. She’s already started her junior year in high school.
God’s Blessings upon you!
Ted, Sou and Hannah,
Cambodia
