Dear Supporters,
Greeting from cold Denver Colorado. Time continues to move along and souls continue to be saved in Cambodia! Much is being accomplished thanks to the hard working young brothers and sisters associated with the IBISR (International Bible Institute of Siem Reap) and your support.
IBISR (International Bible Institute of Siem Reap)
The students have just completed their finals and did well. After that they were encouraged to go back to their homes and villages and tell their families and village leaders how the Bible is changing their lives. Please pray for these young men and women as they will face obstruction and resistance to the “Christian Culture”. Many of the families will be shocked and surprised as to how their children, nephews, nieces have changed. The gospel is having a tremendous effect on them and all of those they evangelize. The school added 8 new students so we have separated them from the first class of students creating a rotation of students now. That means we will have graduations of new preachers every year! It also means we have a good mentoring system in place with the more mature students to guide the newer ones.
Recent Activities
In January, Chann Lork (IBISR Faculty and Siem Reap preacher) had organized a local leadership meeting to come and discuss their experiences in their works in different parts of the country. They had teachers of bible schools, evangelists of local congregations, and children's home staff come and share about their work and how they can improve in serving our Lord. This is a very big step for all participating as it indicates their independence of foreign missionaries to organize such meetings.
We had another Christian wedding for two of our brothers and sisters! Sokchea (pronounced Soak-chia) Lork (the preacher at Leang Dai and IBISR graduate) married Pisey (Pi-say) who works at the nearby Christian Orphanage of Hannah’s Hope. We are also looking forward to perhaps 3 more Christian couples getting married this year. Dear supporters, please understand the magnitude of this development as they now have Christian mates and will raise Christian children and also have Christian couples to bond with as they continue to grow in number and faith. Their families see with their own eyes as to how serious they are about Christianity and that they have left all of Buddhism behind.
Churches of Christ in Cambodia
After only 3 full years of our school of preaching, we now have 4 congregations directly resulting from those students. The largest is the church at Siem Reap which continues to grow and show signs and desires of being autonomous of outside support. Although these poor and humble servants don’t make much they continue to increase in their giving and we hope that this continues.
The other congregations continue to be strong in faith. We are not seeing many fall away after being baptized into Christ. Takam village is the largest village congregation and they have a particularly good preacher in Chouey Choen. Chouey will marry Borey who is another Christian girl this year and they will be the cornerstone for that village.
The other two congregations of Leang Dai and Svey Ring are slower growing but faithful nonetheless. Sokchea is an incredibly hard worker and has built a very good reputation in that village as a trustworthy servant of God and servant of those people. News is less forthcoming out of Svey Reng because it is so far away from the others. I hope to visit their at some point to encourage and see first hand the faith in our God.
Please know how important you are to the Christian growth in Cambodia you all are. I cannot stress this enough as I have seen it first hand and know the people and their gratitude and excitement for what you do.
In Service to God,
Wes Autrey
Cambodian Coordinator
To read the report with pictures, click here.