2015 Cabinet Cambodia Mission - A Growing Church, A Different World

Rev. Betsy Ott, DS New York-Connecticut District, writes:

Reflection after a long day. We learned about the growing church in Cambodia. Scholarships for boys and girls to attend college and universities -$500 a year. $800 for engineers, $1,500 for doctors. Trying to keep educated young people in Cambodia. Trying to keep them out of trouble, sex traffic in Thailand. Then we rode 4 hours to be present for the dedication of a new church and parsonage. The parsonage is a huge blessing and will help make the appointment of pastors possible. Up until now Pastors have been living in their own homes and farming to supplement their income. Elders here make $100 per month and our equivalent of local pastors, $70 per month. There is no pension or health care provided. But the church is growing and changing and changing. And parsonages will help support pastors and their families.

Our ride took us through country with rice paddies, sugar cane fields, lots of Brahman bulls everywhere. There were grass huts and small houses on raised stilts with tin or tile roofs. Shops press against the road in the cities and villages and architecture is a mix of old French style and the very new merging with Buddhist pagodas and statues of the Kingdom of Cambodia. We saw the people from our bus. Working in the fields, laying bricks, managing small family, children playing as children always do, young adults on bikes and scooters, a man peddling a huge load of wood, rubber plantations, small fishing boats on the river, a woman in her hammock on the porch of her home in the heat of the day, children selling fruit to tourists … mid ride rest stop. “Pineapple lady? Earn money – Go to school.”

There is a Boom going on here. Out of the brokenness comes beauty – life from the crash of the past. War, Khmer Rouge. The People are working hard to build their lives. And we are a presence. Blessed to be present. Ready. For what? We’re not sure but we belong to God and God will take us there. We’re on a journey. Ken said, In Incheon in ten minutes he heard fur Elise from the Motown carts, re-enactment of the
Korean king and queen from the historic past, and heard strings playing the Beatles. The world is very small and for us, getting smaller as our community becomes larger. We are learning through it all, and growing as God plans.