This morn­ing we min­is­tered to 32 Khmer speak­ing Sun­day School chil­dren, five of whom were glo­ri­ously saved! Our joy is in see­ing seven newly trained instruc­tors con­duct­ing the children’s teach­ing entirely in Khmer lan­guage. That is, except for singing “GOD MADE ME” in English.…

Our days are extremely long, hot and tir­ing. Our sleep, like our fund­ing, is short yet quite suf­fi­cient for basic needs. As a rule, we’re content.

Some days ago, I con­versed with a wait­ress and a cashier at a small restau­rant where we ordered pizza. For 8 hours work, they’re paid just over $3. In a 56-hour work week, they earn $22. It takes 2–1/2 days’ labor for them to pur­chase the $8 pizza we just ordered!

Although our min­istry is costly, the cost to those who are per­ish­ing is infin­i­tes­i­mally higher! We can use your help pur­chas­ing Bible les­son visu­als, paper, mark­ers, etc. for our Cam­bo­dian teachers.

With great joy in the Lord’s service,

Tim

Just a word this morn­ing with­out a photo (hav­ing trou­ble with downloading).

Sun­day School Super­in­ten­dent Pas­tor Vibol and La are among seven Cam­bo­di­ans who will par­tic­i­pate in 5-Day Club Train­ing begin­ning Mon­day, August 1st. Last night, Pas­tor Vibol pre­sented the Gospel mes­sage to four sep­a­rate groups of chil­dren and one 86-year old great grand­mother, who although “tired of liv­ing and nearly at the end of her life,” smiled when told of  Christ’s great love and wanted to believe unto salvation! Below, Pas­tor Vibol prac­tices his Word­less  Book Gospel pre­sen­ta­tion. The seven stu­dents will stay with Grace, the chil­dren and I  for five nights while attend­ing ses­sions at Child Evan­ge­lism Fellowship’s Phnom Penh train­ing cen­ter. If you feel led to part­ner with us in such a wor­thy cause, please know that we have sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial needs. Between the John­son Fam­ily of six and the Hatch Fam­ily of five, we have about $75 on hand for the next three weeks. This morn­ing, Dr. Tom con­fided (just before hand­ing me $10 to pay for gaso­line which I refused) that they’ll be com­pletely out of cash by mid-week. “Us, too!” I remarked. Des­ig­nated funds can be routed imme­di­ately through Real Life Impact at the address listed on the Bridges of Light “Donate” page.  Every dol­lar will help. We’re able to with­draw funds from the account in U.S. cur­rency at local ATM machines. We con­tinue stead­fast in prayer with thanks­giv­ing know­ing that God will sup­ply all our needs accord­ing to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

A Thurs­day after­noon meet­ing with Russ­ian Cul­tural Cen­ter Direc­tor, Mr Sediket (below left), did lit­tle to alter the notice received by Dr. Tom John­son of impend­ing evic­tion. By Russ­ian man­date, direc­tors such as Mr. Sediket must uti­lize Russ­ian prop­er­ties for week­end pre­sen­ta­tions of news and pro­pa­ganda. Inter­na­tional Bap­tist Church has leased the spa­cious facil­ity for weekly Sun­day ser­vices since 2004. Barring a dras­tic change of posi­tion from high level Russ­ian offi­cials, the church will have to find a suit­able alter­na­tive meet­ing place for Eng­lish speak­ing ex-patriots and inter­na­tional trav­el­ers as well as more than 300 Khmer speak­ing Cam­bo­di­ans by Sep­tem­ber 1st. Please pray for the Lord’s Will to be accom­plished, for changes in Russ­ian offi­cials’ hearts and for a new loca­tion close to the Inde­pen­dence Monument.

Child Evan­ge­lism Fel­low­ship of Cam­bo­dia is to con­duct 5-Day Club Train­ing 1–5 August using “The Word­less Book Visu­al­ized” for its Bible Les­son scripts. Dr. Tom John­son has agreed to send five team lead­ers to the five-day event.

Teacher train­ing this morn­ing con­sisted of a Bible les­son from 2 Kings 5 enti­tled, “The Lit­tle Maid Who Wit­nessed.”  “You are my wit­nesses, declares the Lord, and my ser­vant whom I have cho­sen, that you may know and believe me, and under­stand that I Am He: before me there was no God formed, nei­ther shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and beside me there is no sav­ior” Isa­iah 43:10–11.

“It is bet­ter to trust in the LORD than to put con­fi­dence in man” Psalm 118:8.

Today is Scrip­ture Mem­ory Verse Day! In small groups, stu­dents will be eval­u­ated as they teach Romans 3:23 in Eng­lish and John 3:16 and 1 Corinthi­ans 15:3–4 in Khmer Script. Word­less Book train­ing will fol­low practicums. Much time will be given to prayer. Please pray for these teach­ers and for the Cam­bo­di­ans the Lord will bring to hear His Word (fields are white unto har­vest), that indeed they might believe in Jesus Christ, the Sav­ior of the world. Pray, too, for addi­tional resources as Dr. Tom is forced to con­sider lay-offs due to decreased fund­ing and we are unable to pro­vide for some pas­tors’ basic expenses. If you are able to assist with this need, please des­ig­nate “funds for pas­tors” and send checks for deposit into my account (address listed on the Donate page). Thanks.

On a 2 1/2 mile drive from home to West­ern Uni­ver­sity today where I agreed to terms for an Eng­lish teach­ing posi­tion that will sup­ple­ment our family’s income, I took some inter­est­ing pho­tos. From the lit­tle boy col­lect­ing rain water in a cof­fee mug (out of focused), to the ox drawn cart and var­i­ous road scenes, the trip was any­thing but boring…

As many of you may recall from our first year in Cam­bo­dia, Lay Sothea (pic­tured below) has been a long time Chris­t­ian friend. Through his posi­tion as Deputy Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at West­ern Uni­ver­sity, “James” as I know him — he calls me “Dad” — hired me to teach Eng­lish Lit­er­a­ture and Prepa­ra­tion for TOEFL (Test of Eng­lish as For­eign Lan­guage) for the first semes­ter, begin­ning two weeks from next Mon­day. The addi­tional income will bol­ster our dwin­dling min­istry sup­port. Please pray for my energy and pre­pared­ness as I will be teach­ing four­teen pri­mary and junior PE classes and coach­ing high school boy’s bas­ket­ball at HOPE Inter­na­tional School, teach­ing fif­teen hours at West­ern Uni­ver­sity, as well as week­end Children’s Min­istry Train­ing classes with Dr. Tom John­son and tutor­ing the Prime Minister’s Under Sec­re­tary of State twice weekly.

Besides serv­ing admin­is­tra­tively at West­ern Uni­ver­sity, James Sothea coaches the school’s cham­pi­onship soc­cer team. Here he dis­plays their First Place tro­phy. James’ father died trag­i­cally sev­eral years ago, falling from the top of a taxi when one of the vehicle’s tires blew out. He was lead­ing a Chris­t­ian tour at the time of the inci­dent. James is mar­ried and has one child, a beau­ti­ful daugh­ter. Pray for the influ­ence that James and I will have for the King­dom of Light dur­ing our next few months with Cam­bo­dian uni­ver­sity stu­dents and fac­ulty. Pray for our growth as Chris­tians. Pray for our wives and chil­dren. Thanks.