It’s Friday here in Phnom Penh, and that means the students at Harvest Bible College had their “midterms” as each of the classes is half over. They have all morning long to complete their tests, and then most of them travel back to their local villages to be with their families and churches for the weekend. It’s a huge sacrifice for them to be in class throughout the week, and some of them live up to 8 hours away. We’ve all left our answer keys with our translator (who himself is a college student for a different discipline), and he will grade the tests over the weekend. Hopefully, the students learned what we attempted to teach them, and the test results will reflect it.
For us, we have a travel day this afternoon as we head out to Cambodia’s most famous historical site: Angkor Wat. It will take us about 6 hours via bus to get there, and so we’ll be staying Friday night and Saturday night there. Angkor Wat was built around the 13th century as a “palace for the gods,” in line with the Hindu beliefs of the then-king. Shortly after that particular king died, the majority of the country changed its religious beliefs to Buddhism. To this day, there is a mix of Buddhism and Hinduism among the people.
Of course, history is always interesting to me, but I’m also hoping to get greater insight into the people and the culture here. We’ve seen the memorials to the recent horrors of the Khmer Rouge, but even that was built upon a pagan foundation (much like many other cultures around the world). We are so used to having a Christian frame of reference…but how does a pastor share the gospel of Jesus to a people with no background in Christianity whatsoever? The pastors here have their work cut out for them. There are lost people everywhere you look, but they don’t have a clue that they are lost in the first place.
Please pray for safety in our travel, as well as a good time of ministry among ourselves and Curtis and Bre (our missionary hosts). They are going to be able to travel with us this weekend, which is not a normal thing for them to do. I pray that God would help us serve one another and build one another up in the Lord as we continue to understand the Khmer people and help them share the gospel truth of Jesus Christ.
Please also continue to pray for our families back home. We’re halfway through our mission, and this is always the time that homesickness comes as our families seem so very far away. I praise God for technology such as facetime and Facebook…I’ve been more connected to my family than ever before on a mission trip. But of course, there is no replacement for actually being with them.
Thank you so much for your continued prayers! May God richly bless you!
Preach the Word! 