A couple months ago I had a vision of me and Jesus having coffee together. Coffee and Jesus have always gone together for me. My favorite time of day is early in the morning, hot cup of coffee in my hand and spending time with Jesus. There is something so pure and beautiful about this time of morning that fires me for the rest of the day. In my vision it was me and Jesus at a table in a coffee shop, but it wasn’t quite. In fact, there were many people around and I was very happy. I would go get people and bring them to the table and introduce them to Jesus. This dream was very normal for me. I did not think much of it because it felt like a sweet reminder of how the Lord speaks to me. However, something about this month in Cambodia has reminded me of the dream.
We have spent majority of our time in Siem Reap in coffee shops, mostly meeting with potential hosts for future world racers. Unsung Hero month has given us many opportunities to meet fellow believers and people building the church here in Cambodia, but it has also given us opportunities to meet non-believers. As we schedule meetings with local non-profits, churches, and organizations some of those non-profits are not Christian organizations, but we go ahead and meet with them to see if maybe the organization or the host is a Christian. This has given us a few opportunities to meet with people who are not Christians and to share with them what we are doing and what we believe.
We met with Mo last week. He founded an organization that provides children with “food, clothing, education, health care, recreation, arts, and moral development.” When we met with him the first time he was very interested in partnering with the world race. However, when asked if he or his organization was religious, they are not. Although it is not affiliated with religion, he said he would still want to partner with us. We talked a little more and parted ways.
As we left the coffee shop we acknowledged Mo’s openness to Christianity and thought why don’t we just share what we believe with him. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to share the gospel. So we emailed Mo, asking if he would like to meet up again so that we could share our faith with him. If we told him our faith that might give him a better idea of what a partnership with us would look like. So we met with him again last week. He admitted he was still a little confused about what our mission is. We explained that our first priority is to share the love of Jesus. We then started to talk about religion. He said that he has been interested in Christianity and Buddhism and that they are both good and want to do good things. I explained that as a Christian, I cannot believe both are true because if one is true then one has to be false. This was a great Segway into sharing what we actually believe. We then proceeded to share the gospel with him. Leading him through scripture and even allowing him to read scripture. He was very interested and listened well. He asked questions like, “does Jesus want us to sin, even after he died on the cross?” We then told him about grace and how Jesus doesn’t want us to sin, but gives us grace when we do.
When we were done sharing the gospel, he said he wanted to know more. Since we are about to leave Cambodia there is a chance we will not be able to meet with him again, but he even offered the idea of skyping with us so that we can share more with him. Wow how awesome!!! We told him that God was love and that any good that comes from us is from God. He said he just wanted more love and goodness in his heart so that he could help more kids. Mo was so open to hearing the gospel, however he still wonders about Buddhism, the religion that is built into their culture here.
This month I continually found myself at coffee shops, either being encouraged by fellow believers or sharing Jesus’s love with non-believers. Coffee brings people together. If you are at home or at a coffee shop, coffee encourages conversation. Yesterday we were all going out to evangelize. We divided into different teams to go to different areas. I felt like a team should go to a coffee shop. There are always locals and tourists at all the coffee shops here and I felt like it would be a great place to start a conversation. So again we went to a coffee shop yesterday. We got our coffees and walked into one of the rooms of the coffee shop, as soon as we walked in a man sitting down looks at us and says, “where are you from?” This lead into a conversation. With our coffees in hand we sat down by our new friend. He was so eager to talk, telling us all about how he grew up really poor in the village, but he started to learn English and would go to Angkor Wat to practice English with the tourists. Once he knew English it helped him get a good job working at a hotel. When he was younger he was a monk, but he stopped because you are really poor when you are a monk and he wanted to be successful. He studied English for a couple months before working at the hotel and the people that taught him English were Christians. They shared Jesus with him and he said he believes and prays everyday, but he is still learning so much about Christianity. He also mentioned Buddha and Christianity being good religions, wanting to do good things. The English teachers a couple of years ago, God used to plant a seed, or maybe to help water one that had already been planted and then I believe God purposefully used us in that coffee shop that day to continue watering our new friend’s spiritual life. He wants to continue learning more about Jesus and what it means to have Him in his heart. I pray that the Lord will continue revealing His truth to Him and sending people into His life to disciple him!
Please pray for our new friends! Pray that there was a seed that was planted and pray for the watering of those seeds. Pray for people that live in Cambodia that can further disciple them. Pray for opportunities to continue sharing with Mo through skype. Pray that he will continue thinking about the truth we shared with him and that one day He will call on Jesus as his Lord and Savior of his life!! God is so good! I love that He uses us and gives us opportunities to share His goodness with others!!!
Fun story about last night:
So last night me and one of my squad mates, Jen, road bikes into the market. On the way back from town we were riding next to these two guys on a moped. At first they stared joking with us and kind of calling out to us, but we continued to talk with them. They asked what we were doing in Cambodia and how long we were going to be here. We told them we were Christians and then that opened a door to talk about religion. They new who Jesus was, but seemed like they did not know fully what He did for them. As we were riding next to each other on the road, we shared the gospel with them. We continued to talk for a while and as we were getting ready to turn down the street our hostel was on they pulled over too. We all stopped and we ended up praying for them and then getting each others contact information.
I share this just because people are soooo open and eager!! You never know where you might be. It could be a “normal” place for conversation to take place, such as a coffee shop, or it could be while you are trying to stay on your side of the road, driving down the street, but the Lord gives us opportunities every single day to share His love with people!!!!
Also yallll… If you do not know anything about Cambodia, google it, Wikipedia it, whatever it is.. They are beautiful people, with such open and kind hearts. The devil has tried to put so much darkness in this country, but He will not win! Christianity is spreading like a wild fire here. Everyday the kingdom of Cambodia is looking more like the Kingdom of God!
“Do not be afraid, but go on speaking and do not be silent, for I am with you, and no one will attack you to harm you, for I have many in this city who are my people.” –Acts 18:9-10
**Names were changed for confidentiality
