As I sat in church on a Sunday in Cambodia I looked forward and all I saw was children. There were fifty or so children sat on the floor and the only adults in the church were Pastor Say, his mother, his sister and our team. I was overcome with emotion, I felt sad that there was no-one above the age of 14 that came to church from the village we were working in.
Right in that moment God spoke to me ‘I am rising up a generation’.
It saddened me that there were no youth or adults in the congregation but it also excited me that there were so many children who had the opportunity to hear God’s word. Later that week we went out into the village and met a couple of girls who used to go to church every week, but they no longer go because they have to work on a Sunday.
God broke my heart. I never expected my heart to be broken in Asia, even less so in Cambodia, it was one of the countries I was least excited about on my WR route. But I was broken for a church where there were no youth or adults. I was broken for these children who come to church now but maybe in a few years they too will stop coming.
God uses children and he is going to use these children, through them he is going to raise up an army. One little boy in particular, Nyoy, would stand at the front of church, belting out the songs and listening intently. He was the same in English class, a definite teacher’s pet. When I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up he said he wanted to be a pastor. Just through the way he would sing the songs at the front of church, you could really see his passion.
In the Bible there are many times that God uses children. David was just a boy when he faced Goliath in 1 Samuel 17 and in John 6, it is a little boy who has the five loaves and two fish which Jesus uses to feed five thousand. Children are important to God’s work and he never deems anyone too young, unlike society today
These children in Cambodia are an important part of God’s story and I pray that as they grow up they will continue to go to church and will be the beginning of a new generation in the Cambodian church.
So that the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands. They would not be like their ancestors – a stubborn and rebellious generation whose hearts were not loyal to God, whose spirits were not faithful to him.
Psalm 78:6-8
