January 2005 |
At Christmas celebrations across Cambodia, churches were able to share the hope, joy, and freedom the birth of Jesus Christ has brought us. Thank you for your prayers! Several Christmas trees around the city complete with spray-on snow and blinking lights reminded us of Cambodia�s move into the global community � and global commercialism. We pray they�ll remember the eternal message this season brings. The outreach at Bethel Church went well. David thinks most people understood his message. He was especially encouraged that 13 of his students came out. Lara also baked cookies and made fudge for our neighbors. It was a fun and profitable time! Thank you also for praying about our future. We had a good trip to Siem Reap seeing many areas of potential ministry. Currently Reaksa, the missionary we visited, is working in five villages within a four hour reach of Siem Reap town focusing on church planting and sustainable development. One pastor has a crocodile farm! We�ll be free to move in September 2005 dv when David�s current project is completed if this is the direction we ultimately decide on. Our pastor and his family recently had to leave Cambodia due a family problem. It will keep them away for several months. We�ve been able to come alongside Samol, one of the young men David has been meeting with, to help continue to the ministry of the church. It�s perhaps more of a stretch than we wanted at this time - David gave the message in Khmer this past week and will continue to share this responsibility with Samol � but we do feel the Lord has placed us in the church at this time. It will be a good, growing experience for us! Lara gave her last lecture at the Cambodian School of Prosthetics and Orthotics just before Christmas. She�ll now have more time to help with ministries at Bethel Church and focus on her language. Her mom will also be out visiting this month. We�re planning to pick her up in Bangkok and take the train as far as the Thai border. We think the boys will be thrilled!!! And we�re all excited to have Grandma visit! Blessings in 2005! David, Lara, Benjamin and Jonathan |
| �Christmas� by Mail Our family is still too young to say we have our own Christmas traditions, but we�ve had one common theme the past two years which we love - visitors! And not just ordinary visitors, but visitors bearing gifts!!! Last year, David�s parents came for Christmas. This year, it was friends from our home church. We had a great time together, Jim was able to operate on several disfigured Khmer (he�s a plastic surgeon), and the boys were thrilled to receive bags of presents! That�s not counting those boxes which others of you sent us, too � thank you so much for making our time away from home a little more homey! |
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| Happy New Year from Cambodia! |