Pnomh Penh Church of Christ Newsletter

Whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Col.1: 28

Cambodia is one of richest civilizations in South East Asia. There still remain thousands of ancient temples, which Cambodian ancestors built a thousand years ago. The majority of Cambodian are Buddhists but our constitution also approved for Christianity to operate as well. Today our country is peaceful; there are many tourists from different parts of the world who come to visit this country. The door of preaching the gospel of Christ is also opening.Today November 1, 2009 is one of Cambodia’s traditional feast  (called Racing Boat festival, our Khmer boats). There are thousands of people from the whole country who come to observe this feast, it’s also a public holiday. This is a great opportunity to preach gospel to people.On Oct.29, 2009 we celebrated the 5^th year of our king’s ascent to the throne.On Sept. 18-20, 2009 was also one of Cambodia’s traditional feast, many of people in the city went to visit their loved ones in their hometown. 

             A.   Church’s works and activities - The number of people attending grows especially from June to October 2009 and our meeting place small. We are so crowded that sometimes we almost run out of space. On every first week of the month   we have more people come to study Bible and worship because we share a fellowship meal together after service. This happens as we build good contact with our community as well with people through our work. We have the brothers’ business meeting regularly so as to maintain our church good works. We are praying that we might have a better place for meeting as well worship place because the present meeting place is too small to accommodate us and it is hard to find a parking place. Pray for us. Starting from the middle of October 2009 I set up a special Bible class with one of our future prospect, an Evangelist, to ground him with Bible knowledge from Monday to Friday 2-4PM. He will plan to start a new congregation when he completes his training. He is one of our Bible students who graduated in 2005. We plan to send our members to establish more congregations as we see that they are ready to handle this great job. I have also set up a Bible study with one of missionaries as well as language training during the week.

As the need arises, we have extended our work to help other places as:

1.      Children Sunday School To teach Bible stories and songs as well other activities with the children at Sophy Oeun’s house from 3-4pm on Sunday. We call this Children Sunday school. (Sophy is one of our members). This place is located near to Phnom Penh international airport it was changed to a small house at a new location late Sept. 2009. We will go and help them until he has a better meeting place, but these kids are always with us on every first week of month.

2.      The TNT (Tom Nup Thom means big dam) needs our help as the man who in charge of the property had trouble and left the place early in May 2009, The Phnom Penh church is a big help to TNT. Finally a young Christian couple was placed in the property on mid of September 2009, we also help this young couple by paying them $25 each month.  Brother Chap Sophea and his new wife San Sokneang. We have also planted another new congregation about 10 km distance from TNT, most of them former members of TNT  are at this new place.  Brother Bros opens his house for the church to meet as well as to save the cost of transportation to TNT. He needs our help very much with things like Cambodian Bible, songbooks and sound teaching etc.

3.      Krangdong congregation          We are also supporting another local preacher at Krangdong congregation, we  started in June 2009 with an amount of  $25 each month too. Brother Som Sothea is a preacher and his new wife.

4.     Benevolence  We tried our best to help the needy in household of faith as well to others Gal.6: 10. We helped two women. One is Sophy’s sister who had surgery,  we helped her with  $50 one time. Another lady is the mother of one of our members who had cancer on her womb, as doctors told her too late to treat, we helped her two times  $75. She is a widow.

B. Visitor from overseas

We are not alone as we have many brothers and sisters from different parts of the world as:

1.      Brethren from Singapore are two different congregations there is Jurong congregation visited us on second week of April (4 day trip, we arranged gospel meeting with them Brother Eddy Ee and Ullas Nair. There were a hundred people who attended the event).

2.      We had brothers and sister from Lavender congregation with us on late April 2009 and they also visited on Aug.9, 2009 even on late Oct.2009 as they are interested the work of Christ in Cambodia and find an opportunity to help those who are willing to work as fulltime preachers.

3.      River Road church of Christ also sent Brother Lynn Nelson to visit us regularly as in early  May 2009 as well as on Sept.20-23, 2009 to help build us up as well as to arrange big team visit from River Road COC and South Africa brethren in early January 2010. We are very encouraged by his visit, even though his situation in Iraq is not good. Pray for him.

4.      Brother John Rice and John Watt from Alabama USA helped the children camp here for three days in the city and there were 130 present on Sept 7-10, 2009 and Sept.13-7 at TNT there were over 150 present. They have planned to help us with the camp each year start in September as they observed that the children and the church need help. You might see our attached pictures.

5.      Other visitors were also with us sometimes during the months.

C. Oversea trips 

On behalf of the Phnom Penh Church of Christ I’m so thankful to God and grateful to the brethren at the River Road church of Christ for their loving prayers and commitment, with whose help my wife and I were able to attend SAACETP May 2009.

We are also extending our gratitude to the  brethren at Jurong Church of Christ in Singapore as for their kind invitation to attend Four Seas College Bible lectureship in early June 2009 especially brother Ullas Nair who provided my air ticket as well needs while I was in Singapore.

D. Scholarship

On behalf of the congregation we are thankful to the leadership and brethren at the River Road church of Christ who provided the scholarship for 2009-2010 to four people

1.      Sar Channa is in a fourth year program at University of National Management. She thanks you very much for your care and love.

2.      Ouk Channy is in the second year of a program at University of Human Resource.

3.      Choeu Eddy John is one of our kids at private primary school.

4.      Choeu Thydanec is one our kids at the primary school. 

           E. Baptisms and Restoration

So far we have  had four baptisms this year and one restoration, Pray for these souls 

           Future plans

We ask God to guide and lead our way

1. Looking forward to seeing brethren from River Road Church of Christ as well from Camp Creek Church of Christ ( USA ) as well as brethren from South Africa to be with us in early January 1-3,2010.

2. We plan to have our own meeting place as many years we are renting a place to meet and the cost always increases each year. Pray for us.

3. We are asking you to pray for us as we need a meeting place next year since our lease expires in  December 2009.

4. Enhance personal evangelism to our community, Bible study

 May God bless our effort as we work for His vineyard. 

Phnom Penh  

               Date November 3, 2009 

James Lork  Choeu (Minister)

Baptisms

Rejoice with us as on this Lord's day after service over on the afternoon we have 5 baptisms, they are:
1. Brother Sokhun 27 year old (a former so called Christian Baptist)
2. Brother Sereyvath  22 year old
3. Brother Sam Sopheap 17 year old
4. Sister Sokna  20 year old
5. Sister Da 27 year old ( needy with three kids)
 
Pray for thespiritual growth of these souls, and place for church worship better
 
Love James