Seems to me that what I said last week about: “Life
is not fair”, got a totally new meaning this week. You all still remember Apo?
He is the boy that had an accident and is paralysed. Now just 3 days ago his
older brother, who is Epileptic and his brain already got damaged and he is
just wondering around the house, was walking on the road near his house. He got
a seizure and fell down in front of a truck. Luckily it only went over his arm
and they had to amputate it. His dad said that the boy was not aware of what
was happening and he just came and showed them the blood.
I was there today and he rips the bandage off cause
it was itching. Mum and dad do not have fully control over him as he is a big
boy, 25 years. So the wound is just open. It cost me and mum to put him down to
clean the wound. All he wants to know is if I can give him some money for
sweets. After $1 he was happy and stood up to walk to the store. Nope, sit down
first to clean the wound. Pain is not in his vocabulary, he just breath heavier
when it’s painful. Just love this boy. We got him cleaned up and a bandage on
and he darted off to buy sweets, happy as can be.
Now this is a family with 2 sons and a daughter. The
2 sons cannot work and needs care 24/7 and only the daughter can work. Still
they are the happiest family around, dirt poor but always ready with a smile. We
have so much to be happy about.
Other news: Thank God, Toinette got a visa from
Laos. So now we need to drive up to the border and do a border run. We will do
that next week. Myself and the kids are still awaiting our visas as it is in process.
This is just part of our yearly humbling –time over a visa, but we are used to
that. Pray also for our NGO that still need their Mission of Understanding done
by the Dept.of Education. This takes time and a bit of a headache when you need
to renew.
A bit of reading about the Christian situation in
Cambodia. Please follow the link to read the full report. Please pray with us
for this opening we have that we will use it to God’s benefit.
Dozens of pastors crowded around Hun Sen
with smartphones extended, snapping selfies to commemorate the Cambodian prime
minister’s first-ever meeting with local Christians.
The government session with 2,500 church
leaders last summer was a significant gesture in an overwhelmingly Buddhist
nation where Christians were martyred and forced underground only a few decades
ago.
Hun’s meeting “was a historic event that
never happened before,” said Tep Samnang, executive director of the Evangelical
Fellowship of Cambodia (EFC), an interdenominational network representing most
of the country’s believers. “It’s a sign that [the government] accepts the
Christian community more publicly.”
While persecution still percolates in
other Southeast Asian countries, Cambodian Christians enjoy a promising sense
of openness from leaders and neighbors.
“You are at peace, and I appeal to all
religions in Cambodia not to harass you or your sects,” Hun told the pastors
gathered in a luxe city hall in Koh Pich, the fast-developing “Diamond Island”
in the center of the capital, Phnom Penh. Though Christians were not allowed to
pray or share remarks during the meeting, Tep said, “at least it’s a spark to
keep the fire burning.”
The 25-year-old church, one of about 100
in the city, includes an orphanage to care for 29 children from the area.
Christians remain a small-but-growing
2.5 percent of the 16 million people living in the former communist nation,
where gold-trimmed temple rooftops twirl over both city skylines and rural
landscapes. The temples serve as gathering places for dozens of nationally
observed Buddhist festivals throughout the year.
But Cambodia finally has a generation of
church leaders with the training and freedom to evangelize on a nationwide
scale—and these emboldened believers are taking advantage:
The Christian and Missionary Alliance
(CMA)—the longest-standing and best-known denomination in the country—estimates
that the Cambodian Christian population has grown by more than half since 2010,
and now includes over 300,000 believers.
The EFC has launched Mission Kampuchea
2021, an initiative to plant a church in every village.
New Life Fellowship of Churches, a
booming network based out of Phnom Penh’s most popular megachurch, plans to
start 500 churches and cell groups in the same period. So far, it has planted
more than 200 in 13 of 24 provinces.
“This is a really open time, and we
don’t know how long it will last,” said Neak Phanna, a 32-year-old English teacher
among the wave of students who came to faith through the 2,000-member New Life
since the new millennium began. “This is our kairos moment. . . . We see that
Christianity is having an impact. God is doing what we read about in the
Bible.”
Across denominations, leaders repeated
to Christianity Today during a visit last fall that this is the time for big
plans and big prayers.
Read the full article:
Just a reminder that you can use my link on Blogger
if you want to see more pictures. http://mordegai-whateverlord.blogspot.com/
You can also follow us on Facebook, just remember my
name is Gideon Rossouw ,hahaha. I post almost daily stuff.
Love to hear from you all and may God bless you out
of your socks this week.
Love
Rossouw-clan
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