Yah showed up at my house recently holding a crinkled picture of the Kiwi family close to his heart. He said he missed Philip so much that he had come all the way from his farm way up in the hills to ask me for Philip’s number and see if I had any news about the family.
He showed me his foot, infected and disfigured from a snakebite wound that never healed. I drove him straight to the pharmacy to get him bandages, wound cleaners and antibiotics. He talked the whole way there and back about what a wonderful friend Philip had been to him. “Jesus helped me so much through Philip,” he said. “He took me to the hospital nine times after my snakebite, and I know Jesus saved my foot.” Yah spoke as one who had experienced Jesus and was deeply in love. “Philip used to sleep under the stars with me in my fields and work in the heat of the day digging up cassava and clearing brush. He felt for my family when we went through tough times. Best of all, he gave me a Bible and showed me how to pray.”
Yah invited me to come and visit his fields that very night and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I had been looking for a place to plant several avocado trees since I can’t plant them at my house because of flooding, so I loaded them into the back of my truck, and Yah and I set off through the verdant lushness of Cambodia’s hilly farm country. As we wound through impossibly narrow and rutty cow-cart trails, Yah told me how Philip had called the mission truck his cow cart. We laughed, mimicking the calls the oxcart drivers use to encourage their beasts along and patted the dash as if it was alive.
Yah took the opportunity of our privacy to tell me he owed every breath to the Lord God Jesus. He did not use the typical Arabic term Napi Isa that people use when speaking of Jesus as one in a long list of prophets. We instantly felt like brothers in Jesus, and as I listened, his story unfolded. Yah has had beautiful dreams in which Jesus appeared to him. He saw Jesus in His glory as the greatest name of all. Jesus was beautiful. He was close to Yah, spoke to him and promised that one day his aching, mangled foot would be made new. The first Bible study I had with Yah was the descriptions of heaven in Revelation. Last week, Yah came with me to church for the first time. There was a Genesis-to-Jesus picture roll, and he peppered me and the Khmer church planter with questions about every picture.
Pray that I can minister to Yah’s spiritual needs. Pray that the Great Commission work will be done soon so Yah can have a new body and meet Jesus face to face. And, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to all who give with astounding generosity and allow me to be a lifeline to seekers here in Cambodia.

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