We are now into our second week of ministry in Cambodia, and I am loving it. I have really enjoyed the culture of Southeast Asia.
Right now our ministry is with students. We work with the Hope Education Center, a facility that provides inexpensive housing for university students while offering Jesus at the same time.
We come in everynight and teach three areas (depending on how many students come): leadership, discipleship, and followup. Candice and I are in charge of discipleship. Since some of the people in the group are not Christians and have no experience with the word of God, we have decided to walk through the whole bible focusing on these principle: Man was created to have fellowship with God, sin separated that fellowship, God made plans to bring man back into perfect relationship with Him culminating in the birth, death, and ressurection of Jesus Christ.
So we started at the beginning, a very good place to start. We’ve talked about Creation, the garde, man’s sin, separation, Abraham and God’s promise to him, and have just finished up talking about Moses leading the Israelites across the Red Sea and are ready to talk about their journey through the wilderness.
When we were in Mozambique, we walked through the bible with the ZCC church in a matter of three days. This time we have three weeks to go into depth and give a better explination and answer questions along the way. I am very excited about this opportunity, but at the same time it is a little overwhelming. There is so much to share and so much I still don’t understand that is is proving to be a challenging task.
In addition to telling the story of the bible, we give plenty time each lesson to fellowship with one another, learning about each others lives and what is going on with each person. We also give plenty of time for the students to ask questions. Here are some of my favorite questions so far:
“Why did God create man on the last day? Why not earlier?”
“Why can’t we have friendship with animals like we do with God and talk to them?”
“Did Abraham think it was funny when Sarah laughed after being told she wold have a child?”
“What would have been the purpose of Abraham sacrificing Isaac?”
“Why did Moses complain to God?”
These are just some of the stumpers we’ve gotten so far. One thing that has been interesting has been thinking of the stories in the bible from the perspective of a Cambodian. For example, one student asked why did God promise Abraham a land where people were already living? Cambodia has been colonized, invaded and captured many times in not too distant history. I wonder in they remember how they were invaded and wonder why God would support such a thing for one of His people?
I have enjoyed establishing relationships with the students here. Long term relationship is what I’m called to, not one visit nice to meet you kind of things. This has been and will continue to be an exciting month for me.
How can you pass up the best iced coffe in Phnom Penh? Also notice the sqveezed orange juice.
Playing what became known as “follow the voice of your leader”. We used this as an example of Abraham following the voice of God.
