Send the rain Father

On Sunday, we had a chance to worship together with the Cambodian church that meets every week at the NIBC center.  Many of the missionaries, some BGU students, and even other Cambodians gather to worship God.  The praise band consisted of an acoustic guitar, drums, bass guitar, and missionary Hwa-Yun on the keyboards.  They rocked out pretty hard.  The Cambodian kids playing the instruments come by every evening to practice upstairs in the empty sanctuary even in the hot temperatures.  The Cambodian pastor preached about the fruit of the Spirit, and went over peace and patience.  We were later informed that there are no seminaries in Siem Reap area, and only one in Phnom Penh.  Though the pastor was not educated in a seminary, the message was very good nonetheless and used many different bible verses.

One type of patience that especially lingered in my mind was the patience we must have of the Lord.  Perhaps this is because we are reading through Job with the BGU students after lunch.  In our afflictions we must not lose sight of who God is, never forget that He is good and almighty, and yet cry out to Him for deliverance and for His return.

After the service, we went to lake Tonle Sap, which is the largest fresh water lake in Asia.  We went with missionaries Kyung, Sang-Won, and Bo-Ram.  The lake is famous for having these people living on the water on these floating boat houses.  There are said to be over 100,000 people living there.  We got on a boat and rode towards the center of the lake.  In one of the villages, there was a lookout point / souvenir shop, in which they raised crocodiles and cat-fishes.  When we clambered up to the thrid story of this boat shop, we could not see the far shore of the lake.  There are some people who live their entire lives on these boats and never come out.  They do not come on shore, because when they do they are subject to motion sickness.  We saw a Catholic church in the lake village that the shop was located.  While I admire such valiant efforts by the Catholic church, I am beginning to see how revolutionary "Thou shall not make graven images" really is.  It must have been a shocking commandement to the Jews who were surrounded in the pagan sea of iconoclasm.  I wonder what these lake village people believe in, whether they are subject to the same ancestoral-shamanistic-Hinduistic-Buddhism that the land-people of Cambodia believe in.  (In front of every house, there is a scarecrow that is suppose to chase away the evil spirits. )  Where is the lifeboat of true faith among this sea of sinking idols?

Upon returning to the NIBC center we went to Siem Reap and explored the city a little bit.  We had dinner at a restaraunt called Red Piano, haphazardly zig-zagged through the noon-night market, and finally refreshed ourselves in the cool air conditioned loung of Blue Pumpkin.  It was a welcome respite from the draining heat and we recharged ourselves for the coming week.

The next three days were more of the same: BGU for Danny-L and me, Rainbow School for Cone-Soo, KayKay and ShinRamen.  Lunch, bible reading, and VBS at Kontrak village.  The BGU students have been super helpful in herding the little kids around.  Danny-L and I are actually not very good at playing with kids, but they're just so darn cute when they pray, sing and play that it's hard not to pour our hearts to them.  When we talking with Missionary Ju-Hwan, he commented that these short term mission teams that do VBS actually serve a vital role in making more Cambodian villagers interested about sending their kids to Rainbow school.  They say that right after the VBS programs, the registration for the next semester balloon up to as much as 80 kids, which slowly decrease to a few kids at the beginning of the semester.  From there some of the students come out to church every week.  It was also great to see how much missionary Jin-Ho loves these kids.

On Monday and Tuesday evening, we had a chance to play some SKG (stupid korean games) with the BGU students.  Some of us have incurred bruises from spirited rounds of spoons.  It was a great bonding experience with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Today Danny's class and my class did a joint puzzle piece activity.  It was rather encouraging to see how our kids desired to see their families, friends, and the entire nation of Cambodia come to know Christ.  One kid drew a picture of heaven and earth separated by a river and how we need to fulfill our duty before we cross that river....

So far this mission trip has confirmed that God doesn't need us, the KCPC mission team.  It also confirmed that God doesn't need KCPC, or the missionaries here, or the Korean church, or the Cambodian church.  God will make himself be known through his own power, that it is Him who will do it.  All that we, the universal church, have left to do is an opportunity to be tools in his hands.  It is for His glory that He does this.  It is the Holy Spirit who lives in us who does this.  So pray for rain.  Pray that He will rain down His Spirit in this land.

HG

Some of the prayers requests are:
- All of us to keep our heads in the game, to stay engaged with the students and the kids.
- Continued health and strength. I can definitely sense the heat getting to our team...

Praise Report
- Danny-L's and my backs are doing a lot better!
- Cone-Soo says he's doing perfect and that yall don't need to pray for him.