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Dear Friends and Family,
Remember those healthy young
men, the tribal kids I mentioned
last month, who were being
killed, by what their animistic
leaders said were spiritual
attacks for allowing miners to
destroy their forests in
Rattanakiri? The people were
crowding our churches for
protection, and that first week
551 were saved, delivered and
filled with the holy Spirit. (If
you want to read about it go to
http://www.missionreports.com/Cambodia
and click on the top left
"August Update") Well, now, the
rest of the story! The next week
all the area churches were
packed out, hundreds more
received Christ, blind eyes were
open, deaf ears heard, and
demons were cast out. In short,
God showed up. The demand to
press into the
Kingdom of God was so
great that in the next two weeks
210 church groups of at least 25
people were started.
http://www.missionreports.com/new_church_leaders_training_ratta
Each group was given a solar
powered "Proclaimer" which plays
the Bible audibly in two
Cambodian dialects. All of these
groups have someone who
understands some Cambodian, so
they translate from the recorded
message. The need for training
was so great we sent two groups
of "Young Tigers" and "Young
Lions" up last month. This
month, one more group of women,
"Deborah's Angels", and another
group of "Tigers" make the trek.
That's pretty good, but down in
this ‘dead' church on the
Vietnam border, where we've been
through three pastors in three
years, we sent in one of our
"Tigers" to take over. He had
fellow "Tigers" come help for a
few days. The place was filled,
more than 100 came to Christ,
and they took "Proclaimers" home
with them to start churches.
http://www.missionreports.com/vietnames_church
Thirty new church groups are
now thriving on both sides of
the Cambodian and Vietnamese
border. Then, there's this
large island on the Tonle' Sap
River , Tumnup, with a
population of about 66,000
people. Five years ago there
were no believers. A few dozen
people were discipled, we built
a church/home out there with the
help of ICM, and they started
about thirty more home churches.
Now, the second church /home is
under construction. A "Spirit
Practitioner" (Witch Doctor) was
losing a lot of business, and
started putting out strong
curses on the churches. The
"Young Tigers" and "Young Lions"
both went out there last month,
this guy got delivered, and now
wants to become a pastor.
http://www.missionreports.com/young_lions_tumnup
So many people, who had lived
under fear of him, came to
Christ that 36 more home
churches were stated. The island
is considered predominately
Christian. Now, this is
just three of our 23 provinces.
We know great growth is
continuing in PrehViehea, Anlong
Veng, Joam Kassan, and many
other locations, but we don't
have
the numbers. Oh, I
need to mention another 18
Church groups started in Kong
Pixay. Just from what we know,
294 churches were added in
August. That's a new 12 year
record for us, and I thought
we'd peaked, and were possibly
even in decline, with some
church leaders going over to
Korean congregations for
offers of more money. Shows how
smart I am! Most of the
defectors have now come back as
they want the "power".
I was asked, "How have you been
able to sustain this kind of
growth?" It's not me. I wrote it
down: "Look for the gifts (five
fold ministry), get them filled
with the Holy Spirit, model
ministry, disciple, and get out
of the way!" There is a
difference between what most
people regard as the "Church"
and the " Kingdom of God ". When
Jesus told Peter that He was
going to use the revelation that
Peter received that (He) Jesus
was the "Christ" as the
foundation upon which to build
His Church, (Matt 16:15-19) He
went on to say that the Church
would prevail against the power
of hell and that He would give
the church (Peter) the "keys
to the kingdom". I really
believe that the role of the
Church is to be the keeper, or
maintainer, of the climate for
the Kingdom of God to thrive.
Many times what we have created
are religious dictatorships.
Institutions, with structures,
doctrines, bylaws and unwritten
rules, so tight that they
paralyze the advance of the
kingdom of God . Don't
misunderstand; I believe we must
have some structure, some of all
of the above. But when the
Church becomes divisive and
controlling, something is wrong.
Ou Rang Oue Church/home is a
good example. More than 110
churches have been started out
of that one location. And we
didn't even know about most of
them for months. Some of our
"Young Lions" went and helped
renovate the beat up, over used,
building. You see they can do
more than preach.
http://www.missionreports.com/ou_rang_oue_construction
That may be key; you
do whatever it
takes! It never stops. We
brought in about 80 of our
younger potential leaders from
all over Cambodia for training
in worship, and
21st century
learning, during the summer
break. They are learning much
more, the "Infection of the
Spirit" is spreading. That's the
only way it can continue.
Formalize it, legalize it, over
structure it, regulate it, and
you'll probably kill it.
http://www.missionreports.com/training_music_computer
During the month of January
1863, Union (US Army during
American Civil War) General,
Ambrose Burnside, snatched
disaster from the jaws of defeat
by trying to march his badly
beaten army up a muddy road
along the
Rappahannock , River.
Entire horses were reported to
have disappeared in the mire.
Well, it's
Cambodia , 2010, and we
haven't lost any horses, but our
rice harvest is challenging both
man and machine. We grab our
guys by the ears just before
they go under. (Just kidding!)
Rice in Cambodia is planted in
small paddies in huge tracts.
Only the farmers know which plot
belongs to a specific
individual. Farmers live in
villages and walk to their
fields. On our 400 acres of rice
land, some of our harvestable
fields are as much as 6
kilometers from our rice mill.
We are developing our productive
land to raise three crops of
rice per year instead of one. It
is painfully slow, but education
is never cheap! We put up dikes
that were too low, and roads
that are too soft for our
equipment.
http://www.missionreports.com/havest_balang_water
Due to the onslaught of rain we
received this year (In a country
where some areas are dry), we
are stuck in the mud.
We fertilized, limed, sprayed
weeds and insects, and planted
several improved, early,
varieties of rice this year. Our
objective? To increase the 1.5
ton per hectare per year
yield to an
eventual 8-10 tons per crop,
three times per year. (Someday,
with three crops, that will be
30 tons per hectare, a 20 fold
increase!) The only good news is
that we are harvesting 5-6 tons
per hectare on our first try, on
one remote, 30 hectare (75 acre)
field. But how do you harvest
and transport 200 metric tons of
rice 6 kilometers through waist
deep mud? Very slowly! We've
used everything from boats, to
floating tarps, to bulldozers,
to carrying it out on our backs.
We will get this done, and we
are making progress, but it is
excruciatingly
slow! We've learned a lot, and
next year we'll be prepared. We
already have almost as much rice
in the bin as we harvested all
last year, and we are not done
with our early crop yet. We
still have 75% of our crop, the
normal, long season, varieties
to be harvested in December, and
it looks good right now. But
never measure your rice until
it's in the bin!
This rice may come in very
handy! We may be forced to sell
some of it to get our kids into
school. With the floods in
Pakistan , China , and
drought in
Russia , and areas of
Laos , Vietnam and
Thailand with poor crops,
I hate to sell any until we know
we'll have enough rice to feed
us for the next year, but the
kids must go to school. And, to
go to school in Cambodia , they
must have uniforms. I need 2500
school uniforms by
October 1st, And there's
nothing that can make calendar
pages fly off a wall faster than
a dreaded deadline. If we buy
cheap uniforms and shoes in mass
quantities we can do it for
$20,000 US. I haven't got an
extra 20 cents. Thank God for
Warm Blankets Orphan Care and
for the rice from the
Butte County Rice
Producers and Lou Binninger.
It's feeding us right now!
http://www.missionreports.com/rice_load_agu10
Financially, this may be our
toughest year yet. This month
we've had three donors/churches
with similar stories.
"
I'm so happy to be apart of it
and help out with the orphans,
however I've been unemployed
most of this year, and things
aren't looking good, with no job
opportunities. I'd like to
temporarily cancel my monthly
giving until I am financially
able to support again."
But, we've been here so often,
it always hurts, but it seems
almost normal. These are God's
kids, and His church, and if He
wants them fed, clothed, and
trained He's got to help us find
a way. He always has, so I don't
expect Him to quit now. BTW, our
kids and staff have started
praying earnestly for the
destruction of this devilish
attack against the financial
blessing of all those have
blessed them. Better times lie
ahead, financially. Regardless
of money, we do what we can to
advance the
Kingdom of God, feed the
hungry with the supplies we
receive from Gleanings for the
Hungry
http://www.missionreports.com/dried_soup_fruit
, heal the sick with the power
of medicine, as well as the
power of God,
http://www.missionreports.com/sick_kids
and cast out devils. The times
are hard, but the Kingdom of God
is alive and well, in fact I'm
not sure they get better that
this in the real important areas
of life. To paraphrase Dickens,
"It is the best of times, it is
the worst of times…" 294
churches in one month is not bad
news.
The most fun we had this month
was the marriage of two of our
orphan kids, Ratah and Sarom.
Now, that's the kind of
efficiency I need! Two for one!
It was strange as Sou and I were
"Father and Mother" to both
bride and groom. Ratah, our
first orphan who became a
trained dentist, married Sarom,
one of our office staff members.
Ratah is first in his class by
the way! Thanks to the many
dental teams from the US that he
has worked with over the years,
he was actually able to teach
some new techniques to the
teachers at the dental college.
They are honeymooning on the
beach.
http://www.missionreports.com/ratha_sarom_wedding
And that makes it a great month!
Thank you from the depth of our
hearts! Be blessed!
Ted and Sou Olbrich (Pa Thom and
Mak Thom)
And all those who really do the
work, our staff
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