June 8, 2016, marked my second month away from home in South Africa. I am currently serving our Savior by volunteering as a short-term missionary, acting as principal of the Pnong Project’s Christensen Adventist Primary School in Cambodia. Let me tell you about one of the highlights for June 2016.
When I arrived at the project site, I observed that it was not particularly part of Khmer culture to reach out to other people and tell them about Jesus. The established church in town basically consists of the teaching staff at the Christensen Adventist Primary School and their immediate families.
At school the staff take turns leading morning worship. When it was my turn, I prayerfully presented to them what I had learned at my AFM training in South Africa, especially about the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19.
Later that week, one of the teachers approached me and expressed her desire to share Jesus with people, but she said she didn’t know how to do it. In our conversation, we hit on the idea of a women’s ministry, and she was very excited about it.
We immediately started with the arrangements for our first women’s ministry meeting on June 20. The entire staff earnestly prayed at six in the morning, at one in the afternoon and six in the evening for this project. We printed invitations, and the staff personally handed them out to their neighbors and friends. We were so excited. We prepared the church hall, cut fruit and printed some Bible verses and put them on each chair as a welcoming gift.
When it was time for me to go and collect the invitees, no one wanted to come. They all had excuses. Deeply disappointed and in conversation with God, I drove down the street in front of the church, and then I stopped and got out. Approaching the first woman I saw, I said in Khmer, “I am going to church. Would you like to come with me?” I kept asking more ladies, and guess what? Eleven Buddhist ladies were prepared to get into a vehicle with a foreigner who can barely speak their language and go to a church! When we arrived at the church, the expressions on our school staff’s faces were priceless. I had never experienced such joy.
We proceeded with our meeting, and it was such a joyous and blessed event. When we asked if there were any prayer requests, the last lady we had picked up stood and with tears in her eyes gave a lovely testimony and asked that we pray for her and her current living arrangements, as she recently lost her house.
This made me think of the parable in Matthew 22:8. “Then He said to his servants: The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.” I believe that the people who were prepared to respond to the last-minute invitation were blessed. I pray that we will not be found among those who were invited but made excuses not to come to Jesus’ banquet.
