Last night, Christi took a break from her stud­ies to teach the fun­da­men­tals of play­ing the vio­lin to a very bright young man who comes reg­u­larly with his father for lessons. On most Sun­day after­noons, Christi prac­tices with the Phnom Penh Strings Orches­tra directed by Anton (right). Many thanks to Mrs. R., Mr. Mar­tin, and Dr. Glo­ria who have con­tributed immensely to Christi’s growth.

Under oath to spend and be spent for the name of Jesus until we have filled Cam­bo­dia with His Glory and made Heaven to ring with His praise!

Dr. Tom and Tim, slaves of Christ, to all who have part­nered with us in the work of Christ Jesus among the peo­ple of Cam­bo­dia:  Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank God upon every remem­brance of you, always  mak­ing our requests with joy for your fel­low­ship in the gospel. You are par­tak­ers with us of grace! And this we pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowl­edge and in all judge­ment; that you may approve things that are excel­lent; that you may be sin­cere and with­out offense till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of right­eous­ness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.                 Philip­pi­ans 1: 1–5, 9–11

Hav­ing received your gifts for the fur­ther­ance of the gospel, we con­tinue on rejoic­ing in hope and giv­ing thanks!

Please pray for Tom’s son, Jonathan, who appears to have strep throat and for Grace, who has a sinus infec­tion. Pray for one mal­nour­ished lit­tle boy who is strug­gling for his life.

“God who com­manded the light to shine out of dark­ness hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of knowl­edge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” 2 Corinthi­ans 4:6. This morning’s teacher train­ing included two hours of prayer. A group photo was taken for the ben­e­fit of all of our part­ners.  Please join us in pray­ing for the light of God’s Word to shine into the hearts of many Cam­bo­di­ans and for these slaves of Christ to effec­tively pray, teach and reach their nation for Christ Jesus the Lord.

The song sheets read, “God loves me. God loves me. I’m so glad that God loves me. God sent the Sav­ior to die for my sin; I open my heart’s door to let Him come in. I study my Bible so I will know the good way that God wants me to go. God loves me, God loves me. I’m so glad that God loves me.” Please pray for our abil­ity to learn sim­ple songs, scrip­ture verses and Bible lessons. Train­ing ses­sions are on Wednes­day and Sat­ur­day morn­ings, out­reach on Sat­ur­day after­noons. Sun­day School classes will com­mence in September.

The ban­ner on the right reads, “Prayer is the key! ‘LORD teach us to pray…’” Luke 1:11 (in Khmer script). We are not suf­fi­cient of our­selves for the duty, but need divine aid. Please join us at the Master’s throne as often as you are able. Thanks.

“Awake thou that sleep­est, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk cir­cum­spectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeem­ing the time because the days are evil. Where­fore be not unwise, but under­stand­ing what the will of the Lord is” EPHESIANS 5:14–17

Men and women on fire with love, con­se­crated all over, intensely devoted, UNDER OATH to spend and be spent for the NAME OF JESUS until the whole earth is filled with HIS GLORY and Heaven rings with HIS PRAISE!

Dr. Tom (left, 4th of July) and Anna John­son, with their chil­dren Nancy Lynn, Jonathan, Vic­to­ria and Joseph, have been on mis­sion with God to the peo­ple of Cam­bo­dia for more than a decade. Dur­ing our five years of know­ing and work­ing with the Johnson’s, there have been times that hon­estly, as with most fam­i­lies given entirely to the Lord’s ser­vice,  it didn’t appear they were going to make it. Just two days ago, Tom was strug­gling so much with aller­gies, that he barely could catch his breath. Fund­ing for their min­istry is at an all time low, too, so much so that Tom con­fided he is unable to feed the Khmer   pas­tors who faith­fully and eagerly depend upon him for Bible train­ing.  This seems almost unbe­liev­able. Sin­ners dying and being damned, mis­sion­ar­ies with­out ade­quate sup­port, indige­nous pas­tors lack­ing suf­fi­cient resources for gas and food, the cause of Christ suf­fer­ing for lack? Impossible!

We’ll con­tinue in prayer and watch in the same with thanks­giv­ing that God would open unto us a door of utter­ance, to speak the mys­tery of Christ. We’ll walk in wis­dom toward those who are with­out, redeem­ing the time. This is our oath. We encour­age your prayers accordingly…

Christi and Daniel played patri­otic fid­dle songs at the U.S. Embassy for free ham­burg­ers and root beer and enjoyed hit­ting bad­minton shut­tles and kick­ing a soc­cer ball with neigh­bors. Later, sev­eral mis­sion­ary fam­i­lies met in Takhmau for a deli­cious cook out. We’re far from home, still thank­ful for our liberty!

“For sin shall not have domin­ion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.… GOD be thanked, that ye were the ser­vants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doc­trine which was deliv­ered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the ser­vants of right­eous­ness.” ROMANS 6:14, 17–18

Tom (back right) and a Khmer Pas­tor (far right) were on   mis­sion this week­end in the province of Kam­pot assist­ing   a Chris­t­ian fam­ily with rid­ding their home of  two inte­rior “ah-san-ak” (altar to demons) and an exte­rior idol house   typ­i­cally used to ward off spir­its. The pas­tor and fam­ily,   fear­ing ret­ri­bu­tion from such an act, called for help.  This was a vis­i­ble dis­play of obe­di­ence from the heart to the Gospel of Christ and a com­plete trans­fer of trust from pow­ers of dark­ness to the power of Light. “Now being made free from sin, and become ser­vants to God, ye have your fruit unto holi­ness, and the end ever­last­ing life” ROMANS 6:22.

Praise the LORD with us!

Pic­tured below are one of the “ah-san-ak” before destruc­tion and the fam­ily who reck­oned them­selves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Pray for them. Pray for revival to come to Cam­bo­dia. Pray for all like Tom who are under oath to spend and be spent for the Name of Jesus till the whole earth is filled with His Glory and Heaven rings with His praise!

Cam­bo­dian fam­ily reck­ons them­selves alive indeed unto Christ.

Twenty-six mid­dle school  stu­dents com­peted on HOPE Inter­na­tional School’s 2010-11 bas­ket­ball team, fin­ish­ing the sea­son with 8 wins and 3 losses. A tour­na­ment high­light was win­ning three con­sec­u­tive games on Sat­ur­day morn­ing after one of our bet­ter play­ers suf­fered a shat­tered left fore­arm while attempt­ing a go ahead lay-up in the open­ing min­utes of the game. “For the LORD and for YeSung! was the chant that re-stored focus and deter­mi­na­tion to the devastated team.

Daniel, Josiah and Christi dis­played excel­lent skill and enthu­si­asm, win­ning sev­eral blue rib­bons dur­ing Sports Week com­pe­ti­tions. Each par­tic­i­pated in ser­vice projects, the boys attend­ing to the health needs of coun­try­side chil­dren and Christi accom­pa­ny­ing a med­ical mis­sions team for a week in upper Mekong River vil­lages bor­der­ing Laos. The chal­lenges of rigid aca­d­e­mic pro­grams were relieved by team sports, serv­ing oth­ers and moments of elation.

Fifth Grade HOPE Inter­na­tional School

The VISION for Hope Inter­na­tional School

Global-minded servant-leaders with a bib­li­cal under­stand­ing and appli­ca­tion of knowl­edge, impact­ing the world for Christ.

“Peo­ple of Hope — Godly Lead­ers Worldwide”

The MISSION of Hope Inter­na­tional School

To sup­port world mis­sions by pro­vid­ing qual­ity, Christ-centered edu­ca­tional ser­vices for fam­i­lies of inter­na­tional Chris­t­ian work­ers in Cam­bo­dia and sur­round­ing countries.

One of the stu­dents above stopped me on a morn­ing at Camp Baray in Kom­pung Thom Province to con­fide, “Mr. Hatch, I think I heard from GOD today. I wrote it in my Bible. I think He wants me to serve Him among the peo­ple of Viet­nam and Cambodia.”

“What do you plan to do?” I asked. “I think I’ll obey,”

This student’s solemn response was matched by his mother’s ten­der con­fir­ma­tion, “I’ve been pray­ing for sev­eral years that Isaac would hear from GOD.”

What a priv­i­lege Grace and I share to be train­ing such ser­vants for Christ at HOPE Inter­na­tional School.

On the way to church tonight, my trusty Toy­ota Camry coughed, sput­tered and died. Pulling curb­side along a bustling street in front of a pagoda, I phoned HKS Garage (10 min­utes before clos­ing time). What a great response! Within the hour, these guys had the vehi­cle parked safely in the garage. I’ll sleep well tonight and dis­cover the dam­ages tomor­row. “Ah-khun Preah Jeah M’Chah!” declared the mechanic at left. That’s to say “Thank you LORD GOD.” I replied, “Yes. but thank you, too, younger brother. You towed the car!”

Next morning’s ver­dict? Bad rings… new engine needed, along with front end cv joints. Just when it looked like we had a cush­ion, there went $600 — the extra cash. Actu­ally, the LORD knew exactly what we needed before hand. Thanks to all of you who, like the kind-hearted mechanic, have pro­vided assis­tance along the way. We couldn’t serve suc­cess­fully here with­out you! In the past two weeks we’ve paid den­tal bills ($250), com­puter repair bills ($140), and now a bill for a new engine. God’s pro­vi­sion and tim­ing are perfect.

The biggest future need (known to us now) is fund­ing and deliv­ery of home school­ing cur­ric­ula for the chil­dren and air­fare suf­fi­cient for return­ing to the States at Christ­mas time. Trust the LORD will sell a few of His “cat­tle on the hills.”