Monday Afternoon, Oct. 22nd, 2012

The CCF Thai/Cam team has had another great day of going out for Jesus!  Today was a real heart-breaker as we visited a small burb of Poipet known as Psara.  Our guide was Chhav 's husband Sayha, who feels led that God would plant a church in this place.

For those of you who may have visited the dumps of Nicaragua, envision more people, more crowding, and more trash, garbage, waste water.  Unlike the dumps of Nicaragua, there are people preparing food, selling wares, and living quite busily in homes on stilts, in shacks, and even cement floored and tiled walls, here and there.

And among this ravaged landscape, beautiful children run, laugh, greet us with, "Hello! Hello!" as they run barefoot on very dusty and dangerous paths and roads.  Rich played his harmonica, we sang hymns, and the children came.  We had about 50-60 of them gather in each of two places to watch "gospel illusions" by Rich, hear stories of Jesus' sacrifice to "pay merit" for their sins.  And while an invitation to come to Jesus was not answered, our prayers were.

Rich had prayed, and we agreed with him, for a "man of peace" to come forward, with whom Sayha could connect to begin to reach out to these lovely people.  And we actually met two candidates!  The first was a man who heard the gospel message and told Sayha he had heard of Jesus in a refugee camp, had a Bible he read occasionally, but was no longer walking with Jesus.  The second was a man who greeted us in very capable English, having studied for 7 years under his teacher, "Allen".  This second man invited us into his home to tell of his job in the local casino, his 5 children, and the flooding that recently receded.  He had taken all of his belongings, save the huge teak bed frame, to the second story, and from there would take one of his many suits to higher ground to get ready for work.

God is going to reach this little area of Psara, and we pray that this day, He has made the next steps for Jesus to become Savior to the community.

After another scrumptious lunch at S & S's home, we were dropped off by our driver (a motor bike with an attached trailer with seating on both sides) at the local market.  We did a bit of shopping, and you will get a chance to see our Cambodian sun hat/masks upon our return.  Many more lovely, warm faces responded, "Hello!" to our greetings.  We took a long afternoon to recuperate from the heat, and probably from the emotional work of seeing Psara.

Thank you all and God's blessings on you all for your prayers. We feel them constantly, and they give us strength and confidence to walk forward in Jesus' name.