Planting seeds and moving concrete

Sorry we haven't written in awhile. Needless to say, it's been pretty busy and we conk out every night before getting a chance to write.

In a nutshell, things are going well here and we thank you for your prayers. Each day, we are building bonds with the staff and BGU students here and it's been a blessing for us, hopefully for them, too.

This post might be a bit long, but it's going to cover a lot of things, and not in chronological order.

2nd Kontrak Graduation
The kindergarten at Kontrak village just had its 2nd graduation ceremony. You can easily tell from the parents faces that it's a special event for them. The kids proudly wore their makeshift graduation caps and sang their songs that they practiced. Guests included members from a sponsoring church in Korea, Dongbaek Church, Handong professors Ezra Kim and SK Lee, NIBC president John Lee, and the Commune leader (ie. mayor) for the village.










The graduation is another sign that NIBC is still making inroads to the village and establishing itself as a safe and nurturing place for their children. All the families that attended seemed to be really happy. And in the midst of it all, Jesus Christ is being introduced to this village.

Professor SK Lee
We also ran into Professor SK Lee, someone the past two teams have been fortunate enough to meet. He was in Siem Reap for only two days and we were lucky enough to spend an hour with him after lunch. I (George) was also able to have a short conversation about the latest news about NIBC and ministry here.

SK zeroing in on Richard

The long and short of it is, SK is an amazing person with an incredible testimony. After retiring from a long career with Bell Labs and Motorola as a General Counsel, he has devoted his life to trying to redeem Cambodia spiritual and economic plight, usually trying to combine both in the same projects. The latest initiative involves a U.N. sponsored program that is encouraging entrepreneurship that engages the global markets with local resources, like rice, mangos, and other plentiful resources within Cambodia. Ask me about it if you want to know more.

Helping the harvesters
The Richards, Philip, and Sarah have been meeting with the BGU students throughout the time we've been here, starting on Saturday. It's a blessing to see their desire to learn more about God and also serve the NIBC ministry here. It was really easy to get to know them.

Each BGU student has a neat story and I hope that future blog posts will share them with you. According to Operation World, Cambodia's population is about 1.5% Christian. These young believers represent the future of the Cambodian church and their strong faiths will be needed to reach the rest of the country. We'll definitely be sharing more about them later.


Richard and Sarah's class: (L to R) Rotanak, Soken, and Pong. Soken was one of the students in our English camp last year.


Rotanak and Pong discussing the New Testament during the morning sessions.

Lastly...moving concrete
One of the ways we were able to help out was help move some consruction materials for a new school building. The story behind the building is that now that they are graduating children from their two kindergartens (Kontrak and Rainbow), where will the kids go? It was a burden for the NIBC leaders to see their kids leave, so plans were quickly made to establish a primary school a couple of years ago.

The building is a work in progress, and just like many other projects involving Cambodian labor, it's a T.B.D. type of situation. The hope is that the construction can be finished by late Fall 2009 and they will be able to welcome students for the new year starting October 2010. In between now and then, this project will need a lot of prayer, because construction is the easiest part. Staffing the primary school with Khmer teachers, finding the right leadership for a school, and financing it all will require God's hand. If you are interested in helping, please let me (George) know at missions@sfkcpc.org

The fun part of construction was serving with the BGU stduents. These women are built tough (the guys also). Each concrete sack was 112 lbs. We ended up moving about 6,200 lbs of concrete to the second floor to help out.




A view from the second floor of the not-yet-finished building.


Sarah and Eun-Sook enjoying the fruits of our labor.


Group picture in front of the 6,200 lbs of concrete we just lifted.


Richard assuming a squat position while Soken and Philip gladly dump the concrete sack on his back.

Lastly, I leave you with this funny shot. One of the missionary's dogs, Harry, is feasting on a dinner of thai curry and rice and whatever leftovers they had from that day. Not a bad dinner, if you ask me.


This meal would cost about $9.99 back in California. Eat up, Harry