Monday night prayers 22 December 2025

 Wow its Christmas again. Cannot believe that this year flew past so fast. Everyone are gearing up for Christmas and trees are up and decorations in town is shining their lights and the Rossouw’s tree is not even up yet, hahaha. Well Anton is here at least, so then everything can stand still. They do not get any days off over Christmas as in Malaysia it is not an official holiday. He went and asked if his classes are online and praise the Lord the lectors agreed to it and now he is here for the week. He is still attending online classes but that is nothing, according to him. It is a great time for him to be back in Cambodia, the place he loves so much. Off course we all sleep in one room now as we want the full experience of a full house again. There are some things culturally, from the Asians, we picked up over these years and that is that the whole family sleep in one room. We will have Christmas day with our family the Warrens here in Siem Reap. Looking forward to good food and great fellowship.

Not sure what you all hear about the war here in Cambodia. This time it is serious as the Thai uses their F-16 to drop bombs deep into Cambodia. Not a border dispute anymore but more of a destruction of people’s property. Drones that shoot fire into the rice fields and all crops lost is quite common. This leaves the people with nothing. They are already poor and then they lose everything and need to flee the danger areas as well. They say that this refugee crisis is the biggest since Pol Pot’s invasion.

We see that this is a political war and at this moment the Thai people are playing with Cambodia. They got such a big army force with Fighter jets as well as gun boats on the sea. Cambodia is totally over powered by the Thai forces.  I must say, these Khmer soldiers are a tuff bunch when it comes to defending their country. With barely any weaponry they stand up against a monster. The war is now in its 3^rd week and we hope there will be peace once more. Today marks another round of peace talks and we are all ears what they say. Pray with us for peace. I include some reading about the war if you are interested, on a separate document.

 

We wish you all a wonderful and Happy Christmas. May the Lord be a beacon of light to you all in this time .

Love

Rossouw-clan

 

Monday night prayers 15 December 2025

 

In spite of the war raging around on the border and bombs started to fall about 60km away from Siem Reap, we are doing pretty well. Could help a friend out this morning by bringing some relief food to the thousands of refugees not to far away from home. My friend from PCL is helping the refugees, that travelled all the way from the border and now even more will come from a nearby refugee camp due to fresh fighting. Please pray for Cambodia and Thailand to resolve this political war.

Such a shame that 2 such beautiful countries must hate each other so much. We can see how Thai-businesses here like the famous 7/11 or their famous PTT fuel stations with Amazon coffee, are literally boycotted. Even fresh talks with Trump did nothing to stop Thailand from increasing the war.

 

While this was all raging along, we decided that we need to make a break for the jungle and at least make sure that people hear about Christ in uncertain times. As usual the road was hard but the rewards are sooooo sweet. In the furthest corner of the mountain, Curtis and Joshua shared the gospel while Dim explained and asked some people to consider choosing God. Two guys were interested while 1 said that he will think about it. That is a very positive sign for us. This place is always such a dark place, hid away far into the jungle. Due to the illness of the chief, his home became a safe haven for people around. He is very open now to listen to the gospel. We pray that things will continue towards making it a regular small church.  

At the small church in Rum Jopon things were brewing. As usual we had church in the morning on Sunday and then they say that some people wanted to be baptized. The next moment the big drunk of the village was baptized. I was shocked to see that and pray that god really touched him in such a tangible way. Some children also got baptized and it was a real joyful occasion. That church is doing so good and the people are so into the Gospel. Thanks to Dim going there every Saturday, people now got weekly input to the Gospel.

 

I include a small writing of our friend Abraham Warren, serving here in Siem Reap. It sums up the situation here.

This morning as we were heading to the villages there were a few moments of silence in the pick-up truck. This as we watched a convoy of military trucks transporting possibly BM-21*Rockets to the Cambodian/Thai border. This rocket artillery system is capable of launching 122 mm rockets in rapid succession.

There's been serious, ongoing armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia this week, centered on a long-standing border dispute, with heavy fighting involving artillery and rockets, civilian casualties on both sides. As they were passing us we trailed behind them for several kilometers, with another mission, "taking the gospel which is the power of God to unreached villages”.  Apostle Paul urge us to go in season and out of season whether circumstances are favorable or difficult. 2 Timothy 4:1-3

Please pray for both Christian Cambodians and Thais to exemplify godly nationalism without ethnic hate. Evangelising, witnessing and shepherding Khmer nationals through times like this is challenging, especially cross-culturally.

Pray for:

Thank you Lord that we all arrived safely home after this outreach. Travelling is hard and far.

Pray for peace once more in Cambodia and pray for Thailand to see reason in times of the season.

Anton will be home on Friday, please pray for safe travelling in the mist of uncertainty here at home.

Thanks once again for your prayers

Love

Rossouw-clan

Monday night prayers 8 December 2025

 

There is a joke among the missionaries that we could all go home during December, because there are usually many church teams visiting during this time. We’ve been having a team from the Full Gospel Church in Johor Baru this past week, and a 2^nd team will come over the Christmas time. Their unselfish hearts have really touched me. They spend their precious few days off at the end of the year to go on a mission trip and plant seeds of God’s love and the Good News. Please pray with us that the seeds planted during classes, home visitation, cell groups, and church service will grow.

The Missions Director, Sonny, and his wife also came the previous week to minister to the staff. We looked at the life of Paul: His confrontation and conversion, then conviction and commission and lastly reproduction.  We also had a closer look at the people accompanying him on his journey; Ananias, Barnabas, Timothy, Titus and Silas.  Yes, we cannot go on our journey alone, the journey is so much easier with an encourager, supporter, effective leader alongside us!  We are so thankful for each of you alongside us.

Wanted to share a short praise report for you. With the start of the new school year here in Cambodia our classes at the center went through some reshuffling to accommodate everyone’s new schedule. In our primary class there are a few students who really struggles and I have been praying for a way to help them. Most of the primary students can only have 1 hour class at our center before rushing back to school. What a surprise when these 4 that really struggles didn’t leave and told me their classes start later so they can have half an hour longer class with me. Praise God! God makes a way where there seems to be no way AMEN.

Mordegai is planning to leave for outreach on Friday this week. Please pray for protection and wisdom. Continue to pray for pastor Dim and his family. They have a lot of debt and this is very stressful. Please pray for the current persecution the local Christians in Rum Jopon experience. People are really nasty to them, but they stand together in Christ. Dim want to start another Bible study group on the far side of the mountain and we will check it out this time going.

Thank you for standing with us in all of this.

Love

Rossouw-clan

Monday night prayers 1 December 2025

 

Good evening

So good to feel well again after our ill-parade. My brother from another mother, Sonny is here again and off course we had to visit a bit. Listening to him preach is always a learning experience. This guy can really translate the word so our lay-people can understand it properly. So fitting he talked about the 10 lepers that got healed by Jesus but only 1 came back and said thank you. Off course all of them were thankful but just this guy was grateful as well. Jesus asked if there were not 10 guys, but why only 1 came back? It is so easy for us to be Thankful but is it always from the heart?

After a call from Gordon, I went all the way to Ratanakiri. It is a day’s drive to get there and the next day we went and visit Ree and his wife Poi. They are Tompoon tribal people. He has a big ulcer under his heel and cannot walk. He is very weak and have constant diarrhea and is malnourish. I had to cut away the hard callous around the wound and cleaned it properly. Showed his wife how to do it and hope she will?

The next morning, I was back but this time James, my other Khmer friend, asked me to look at Ree’s neighbor as well. His name is also Poi but there is a difference in the language. He showed me his wounds and it was not that bad but when I saw his hands and feet and ask a simple question, I was almost certain that he got Leprosy. He stepped into the fire and did not feel it. He got no feeling in his hands and feet and his hands are curled up like a typical Leper. Shame, he is being like this for 5 years already and the Department of Health did not get to him to give him any meds. I asked James to follow up with him and confirm about his Leprosy. Hopefully he can get meds. Well his wound was fixed as well and I gave both of them crutches to walk with. Poor Ree could only walk about 5 meters before getting dizzy. I hope that they can in time learn to walk with the crutches. It will help them to get outside and walk around for circulation of their legs as well as some mental exercise as well.

With instructions how to clean and lots of bandages and the needed meds, I left them again. So sweet that Gordon got to this village as Ree wanted to sell land because of a bad loan. He encourages him, not to sell his land as it is all they have. Gordon and Bee are working with the banks in order to stop all the corruption with all the micro loaning business among the tribal people. Lots of them loose their land because of this. So when he met Ree, he could encourage him as well with the Word of God and he accepted. He and his wife are the only Christians in this village. Pray for more people to hear about the love of Jesus through this wonderful program.

 

Please pray:

Pray that Anton’s visa will get approved and he get back his passport before Christmas so he can join us here in Cambodia.

Pray for my friend Julie that is in the hospital and the doctors are not really sure what is wrong with her.

Pray for peace on the border. Thailand is playing the bully against Cambodia and push and shuff people around on the border.

 

Thank you for standing with us every Monday. Really appreciate all your prayers.

Love

Rossouw-clan

 

Monday night prayers 17 November 2025

 

What a week this turned out to be. We were both so ill that we could not lift ourselves from the bed. This whole week we spent in the room and could only get us so far to get blood tests and back to bed. It turned out that we got a severe case of Typhoid. How we got it stays a mystery. There are so many possibilities as we do not live in the cleanest of places,hahaha. We had severe fevers hot and cold and just miserable overall.

So Lying in bed for a week is no joke at all. My body ached so badly but could not work in my shop. So I am a bit behind schedule on my Christmas toys. Need to get to it this week. This year is getting so quickly to and end that we cannot keep track of it anymore. Almost Christmas and it feels not like it.

Recently I am totally consumed by the fact that we need to leave someday from here. One of our best friends are leaving in a few months and seeing them packing up and leave, makes me extremely uncomfortable. We got so used to life as a missionary in a foreign country that going home does not sound so appetizing. Talk to my friend this morning, I realize how hard it is to pack up and go and start from scratch again. The only thing that we can do is to look up to God and what He wants for us, will be good. We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but God’s purpose prevails. Proverbs 19:21

Thank you for praying with us. Being ill just remind us that we only live in absolute grace of God. Continue to pray for our healing.

Love

Rossouw-clan

Monday night prayers 10 November 2025

 

All around us, heavy weather makes things a bit scary. Vietnam and Philippines took the most force of these typhoons that came in and us only get a bit of rain. In the Philippines they had now 2 typhoons in 2 weeks and the place is really devastated. Not sure you can see this on your news channels. Lots of people died because of heavy rain and wind and landslides. We are pretty lucky here, I guess with not bad weather these days. Seems the rainy season stopped and only light rains. So the mud is kinda drying up.

Currently I am running a kind of virus with fevers on and off. For 2 days I try to rest but it’s no joke to be sick here. My beautiful wife is taking good care of me. Today I am feeling much better and hope to be myself again in a day or 2.

Reports on the border issues with Thailand looked promising but there is still no end to it. Even Trump made them sign a peace deal but on the ground things are different. People living on the border still suffering as their homes are now on the wrong side of the fence. The 18 soldiers that was capture has not been released. Please pray for this situation to end.

These days I find a lot of foreigners here that are desperate for someone to hang out with. Like the one uncle told me,” it is just nice to talk to someone my own age.” Met up with an old friend again this morning and over coffee he told me his struggles here. I could encourage him to break ties with the people that is milking him dry. It is all about money. I am just wondering how many older foreigners, here, are going through the same problems. Knowing God is not an option as they are already set in their ways but I think that will make a big change. There is a huge need for foreigners to hear about Jesus.

Anton’s passport problems are almost sorted. He is waiting for them to come back to him about fees and then he can get the visa he needs. I bit stressed this week with that but apparently its very common to pay an overstay.

We are so privilege to have such a number of people praying with us. Thanks for that. We really feel so blessed. Have a great week.

Love

Rossouw-clan

 

Monday night prayers 3 November 2025

 

Good evening dear family and friends

 

I't's  Bon Om Touk (Water Festival) here in Cambodia. The whole of Phnom Penh is here in Siem Reap for the holidays, so we are trying to avoid town and traffic. This festival marks the end of the monsoon season, but we're still having rain each day. At least the road is not flooded anymore so Twans is happy to have "clean" feet again while driving her motorbike.

 

Anton is back in Malaysia for his 2nd year.  Saying goodbye does not get any easier. Thank you for all your prayer for Anton. He has made some good friends, and feeling at home at the church he is attending there. Thoughts and worries about what next after he finishes his diploma the end of this year. He want to study further for a degree. We will apply for scholarships. Please pray for God's direction and provision in all this.

 

The new school year started the 1st of November for our students. Now more than 80 students attend our classes in the week. Please continue to pray for Twans and the other teachers, to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit, be open channels for God's love and that many of them would join The Mighty Kids  Sunday program and meet Jesus. The students who are part of the Joshua Generation of the church are growing closer to God. Twans see changes in some of them during class time, more considerate to other students, more loving, eager to help and learning to forgive each other.

 

Good News! An organization, "Bikes for Pastors", from Australia has donated money to buy new motorbikes. We are so thankful, "Rikkiditikidi"and "Frankenstine" (my outreach motorbikes) are really more broken than whole and literally holding together with a wire and some chewing gum. There is also enough money to buy a motorbike for Pastor Dim in the jungle. Praise God.

 

Greetings

Rossouw-clan