Growth In Cambodia As 5 Obey The Gospel...

Greetings brothers and sisters in Christ!

What an eventful month for us here in Siem Reap, Cambodia. First we had Joe Hickey and his group come to encourage the work here and in the villages with aid and teachings on how to farm and grow crops. Joe and another elder named Paul also taught on the qualifications of being an elder in the church. Not only did these men teach how to help us physically but topped it off by teaching things necessary for our spiritual growth. We love their example and care that they continuously show us year after year by their support and sacrifice. 

Then we had our brothers from Bear Valley, Wes and Mike, who spent an entire 2 weeks away from their families and home to impart wisdom from the word of God for the staff and students of IBISR. What a tremendous job they did in providing much needed nourishment for us! This year has been such a blessing so far and I can’t thank God enough for how he does these things for me personally as well as for the local church. As a result of all the activities since the start of the new school year back in September, to Justin and Trent coming in January and then Joe and his group in February, and finally Wes and Mike leaving in the beginning of March, we had a total of 5 new souls converted to Christ! Notice that I didn’t say 5 baptisms, but 5 converted to Christ, meaning these individuals didn’t just get baptized for the sake of baptism, but they truly spent time in the word and observed us as a local church for a period of time before believing that what we say and do is in accordance to God's word! These conversions are a product of what we do as a church and the credit belongs to what we teach at IBISR, verse by verse, the word of God. You may think 5 conversions? That's it? For all the time and money that was sent in support and all you report back is 5 conversions? In India and other parts of the world there are hundreds of baptisms in one month! And I would respond “Amen” to that and glory to God for the increase. 

I would also remind you all of what Jesus spoke on the value of ONE soul found in Matt 16:26. Giving the increase is God's business. Our business is sowing and watering the seed and that we are doing! We ask that you continue to pray for the work here and for it's continual success in winning souls for Christ! We will do the same for you in your part of the world!

Please continue to pray for our new brothers and sisters in Christ in their daily walk with Christ!

Phanat

Please click here to see pictures of these new converts in Phanat’s report.

Encouragement For Cambodian Workers...

Happy New Year everyone! I hope the new year brings you closer to God each day. I am excited to share about the work of Christ in this part of the world. The year could not have started better for me. My two best friends from Southwest School of Bible Studies, Justin Guess and Trent Kennedy, sacrificed their time away from family and loved ones as well as money to come and encourage us with their knowledge of the Bible. The students, staff, and myself benefited greatly from both of them. They each taught 3 hrs per day (6 hours total) for two weeks on the subjects of Inspiration of the Bible, The Minister and his Family, Personal Evangelism, and 1 and 2 Timothy. What great examples they are for the local church here as well as the students of IBISR. 

We also got to visit some of the newer works that started recently and encourage our brothers there. They also brought goodies for the children of Hannah's Hope. The two weeks that they spent with me and my family here have been such great memories for a missionary like myself to draw on in my times of struggles. I appreciate them and you all so much for your prayers and support. 

We are expecting more visitors from abroad for the month of February and March. I look forward to seeing our brother Joe Hickey and his team that he is bringing along in early February as well as Mike Hite and Wes Autrey at the end of February until the beginning of March. The year cannot start any better for us here! Glory to God!

Phanat

If you would like to see Phanat’s report with pictures, please click here.

Cambodia In 2012...

Cambodia 2012: International Bible Institute of Siem Reap

Greetings
It is with great excitement that I am able to report to you the good news from Cambodia and the plans for this next year.  

IBISR
Your support to myself and the work in Cambodia has allowed the International Bible Institute of Siem Reap to train men to preach the gospel and women to study and teach women and children. We had 8 graduates this past year, 5 men and 3 women.  The men have already been teaching and preaching in various parts of the country with success.

Village Children Learning Bible 

Church Growth
During 2012 we have seen continued growth in our main congregation of Siem Reap. More male leaders are stepping up and taking leadership roles, with the intent on becoming elders!  The membership has increased to about 50 souls.  Takam Village continues to be a place of growth and one of our most potential filled sister congregations.  We currently have 3 of our past graduates engaged in the work there.  This congregation continues to grow and there are plans to start some other congregations in the nearby area.  Leang Dai is a place that we have 2 of our graduates working and taking care of those members.  This is a farming village and smaller in size but has steady growth. Even though Svay Reng is near the Vietnam border and is small we continue to see maturity and have hope for them.   

New Work 
Two of our recent graduates currently live on a large pontoon boat in the Bos Krolan area on Tonle Sap Lake. These young men will evangelize, study and hold worship services on the boat while also providing purified water with their filtration system to those in the area. This is very exciting and we ask for you prayers in this area. 

Future Plans 
In February I will be traveling to Cambodia for 2 weeks to teach a short course for the students.  Another instructor from the Bear Valley Bible Institute will be traveling with me to teach I & 2 Peter as a short course as well. We are already scheduling others to go and teach on the Godhead, Christian Evidence, I & 2 Timothy, Evangelism and the Preacher and his family.  I am excited to go and report back to you upon my return my personal viewpoint how things are going.

Thank You  

2 Thessalonians 1: 3-5
I cannot stress enough how grateful I am to each of you for your support and faith in this work.  I believe that training preachers in their native culture is the best way yet to further the spreading of God’s Word. Your actions have brought many to salvation and honor to the Lord by your giving character. 

Wes Autrey

Cambodia Coordinator for IBISR
Bear Valley Bible Institute of Denver
Extension Program
Nullam tortor. Fusce malesuada. Quisque!

Influencing Cambodia...

Holiday Greetings to all of you who are stateside! I pray that you have a wonderful and safe holiday going into the next year serving God! 

For this month, I want to share with you something that I think is very important that's happening in Cambodia. On December 14th, we had a birthday outing for 4 of our children at Hannah's Hope at one of my friend's restaurant. The birthday gathering is not the important thing, but it's how the birthday party came about. 

No doubt we have many supporters for the children at our home and they are very well taken care of. The staff does a tremendous job in raising them as well as caring for them. All of our staff are Christians and members of the Siem Reap church of Christ. Our brethren from overseas help out tremendously with the financial support to keep the orphanage running. We thank God for brethren like you who understand James 1:27. We thank God for those who support the preaching school in Siem Reap as well. 

The thing that I want to point out about what happened on the 14th is this. The money that was given to us for the children DID NOT come from overseas! It was a local Khmer person who donated it. My mother-in-law recently came into some money by selling a portion of her land and I jokingly told my wife, why don’t you ask your mom to donate 100 dollars to the children at Hannah’s Hope. So, she did and my mother-in-law, without hesitating, gave the money to us and we used it for the party. Now keep in mind that my mother-in-law is not a Christian yet. We're still praying for her. I asked my wife, has mom ever done anything like this before, where she would just give money to total strangers without anything beneficial in return? She shook her head no. She said that she's been around us so much and see how we do things that it rubbed off on her. 

Now I understand that 100 dollars to you in America is nothing, especially if you're a Christian who regularly gives alms without anyone knowing. But, for a local Khmer person it is a big deal. That is a month's wage for the majority of the people here. To see this happen right in front of my eyes brings joy to me and ultimately glory to God! 

We are influencing the world to see what Christianity is all about little by little. We pray that we continue to not only teach what Jesus taught, but show her by our lives what Jesus taught! We pray that we can reach her spiritually and that one day she will decide to give up on her ancestor's tradition and follow after Christ! We ask that you keep her in your prayers as well! 

Happy Holidays!

Phanat

To see the picture of Phanat’s mother-in-law, please click here.

Struggles To A Faithful Christian Life In Cambodia...

Greeting from Siem Reap church of Christ.

Hopefully, this letter will find you in good health and blessed in His work.

The church in Siem reap is doing alright. We may have faced some small problems, but we can overcome only through the very word of God that we trust. 

It's about the harvest time in the whole country of Cambodia so most of our people are going to be busy to gather their crops in the next a few more weeks.

School is doing okay as I heard from Phanat. Also our orphanage is doing alright. Please keep us all in your prayers as we try to live a faithful Christian life and try to teach our members of the church, our orphans and students to grow spiritually. We never forget at all that, while we are trying to be growing, there are some struggling among us and I believe that, things like that happen to everyone and every church, it just may be less or more. 

The reason that we ask you to pray to our God on our behalf, we know that you may have faced more problems than us and you and your church are older and more mature than us. Also, as you know that, we are young both physically and spiritually and yet there are many more things ahead of us, either happiness in Christian family or problems that we are going to face.

Lastly, I am very grateful for your faithful supporting, praying and caring to us. I really want to express my feelings to you and the brethren who are involved supporting us and the work that we are doing, and I hope that through this letter you may understand my long way feeling. May God bless you.

Chann