A Great Sunday

We had a blessed Sunday this week. God allowed me to preach my first sermon in Khmer, and I sensed His enabling. I preached from 1 Thessalonians 1, and used the example of the Thessalonian Christians to encourage our church family in the following three areas:

1. Even though they experienced affliction, they had joy. (v. 6)
2. After salvation, they continued to walk with God and grow in Christ. (v. 7) We see in this verse that these Christians, although they were newly saved, became examples of what a Christian should be.
3. Because their relationship with God was right, their actions were right. (v. 8) We see that these Christians took the Gospel everywhere, so much that Paul said, "Hey, you guys have this area covered!"

Then, on Sunday afternoon, we had an awesome Bible club with 55 children in attendance. Here's one of the biggest blessings about the Bible club: there were over 20 first time attenders, all children whom we met the day before while soul winning. On Saturday morning, about 8 or 9 of us went out soul winning for a couple of hours.



I was paired with a young man in his early 20's who had only been soul winning a couple of times in his life. Additionally, he is somewhat shy; so I was the main talker- but I'm still learning Khmer! It was definitely a challenge, and I wondered if we were really accomplishing anything. (There are still times when I struggle to get my point across, although God has really enabled me to build a good foundation in the language.) Just before we finished, we met some ladies eating outside their house. I politely asked if we could interrupt them for a second to give them a tract, and one of the ladies wanted me to stay because she thought it was interesting to see a white man speak Khmer. The other lady immediately came across as somewhat rude and calloused. She was definitely not interested in hearing about Christ (she snickered when I gave her the tract). But then a couple of kids came out, and I asked if any of the kids belonged to her. She pointed to a young boy, about 8 years old, clearly not fully Cambodian. When he told me his name was Aaron, I knew he wasn't fully Khmer. I found out that the lady's husband is Australian, but that he was no longer in Cambodia, at least for now. I invited the kids to the Bible club, and it really did not look very promising based on the reaction of Aaron's mom.

Sunday afternoon came, and we went back to the area where I met Aaron and his mom. Lo and behold, he came running out, with about 15 other kids following him, heading straight toward our van. They packed the van out, came to the Bible club, sang, had a blast with the games, listened wonderfully, and many raised their hands that they wanted to know more about Christ. When we took the kids back, Aaron's mom was waiting outside with a smile- a completely different demeanor than the previous day. I was so happy to tell her how wonderfully Aaron behaved, as well as all the kids from the neighborhood. Please pray that we will see some lasting fruit from this group of kids.

For the 5:00 evening service, there was a great attendance, and we had a visitor who knew very little about Christianity. Her name is Srey Mom, and she is the neighbor of one of our faithful church members. She is in her early 30's (most likely), and is unmarried. She listened intently to Bro. Benefield's preaching, and at the end of the service she raised her hand that she would like to learn more of Christ. Please pray for Srey Mom.