Missionary report from Cambodia

We bring greetings to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Today is Cambodia's Khmer New Year, it is very quiet and peaceful here in Phnom Penh and a good place for rest. We just had a busy week with the Youth Impact team from Singapore doing ministry in Youth Hub, Sen Sok, the University, orphanages and other churches in Kean Svay. Many children, youths and adults were blessed through this ministry. We had games, English lessons and guitar lessons in the morning, with children's programs and youth leadership training in the afternoon. On the last day we had an evangelistic service in Sen Sok Church & Youth Hub, where many responded to the call to salvation. Praise the Lord, this is the highlight of our week! 

Our current venue is getting too small to hold evangelistic meetings, please pray that we can find either a bigger place or work out an arrangement to hold these meetings over the course of 2-3 days. One point of learning from this evangelistic service was how overwhelming the heat was, please pray that we will have a solution for this as well. Despite this however, people still came to hear the gospel and many healings and salvations still took place. The Lord is gracious!

Special mention of thanks to Brother Neo who sponsored 100 packets of 5-kg rice that were given to 100 families. It was a great beginning to the Khmer New Year! The Youth Impact team also brought about 20 boxes of old clothing that was given to more than 200 people. Indeed this was a blessing to many Cambodians.


God bless,
Chin Leong & Alice 

                                        

Celebrating the Khmer New Year! 100 packets of 5-kg rice that were given to 100 families

Let's pray together for a bigger venue as God increases the harvest!

                              

Great time of fellowship!

                                                            

We Are Back!

We've been busy behind the scenes, but this coming missions weekend is proving to be our biggest yet. Come join us for some fun and food, and get to know more about your missionaries and mission fields! :)

Stories From The Field

It's that time of the year again! For those of you who missed it, here is the bi-annual missions newsletter that we released over the past two Sundays. :) We hope you will be blessed and inspired by the stories. This time around we introduced to you the 4-14 Window, in the coming months we hope to bring you more info here.

If you would like to get involved in any of the mission fields, or contribute to the editorial work, or just have any questions, please feel free to write to us at missions [dot] editorial [at] gmail [dot] com, or leave a comment on this post. :) Don't worry, we promise not to bite!

What did you like in this issue? What would you like to see in the next issue?

Talents in Places

The past month or so has seen the editorial team up in arms in preparation for the upcoming missions weekend! Another newsletter packed with lotsa good reports, and a video montage with a twist.

Meanwhile, this is a wonderful account from Bro Mervin, who went on his first mission trip last December after having known Christ for 20 years! We didn't have enough space in the newsletter, but we hope this makes its way to you nonetheless. :)

2010 saw my first ever mission trip. I was psyched up after hearing so many stories and the many wonders of God. I took up the roles in the skit team and also as the designated videographer for the trip.

Even before the trip, I had already begun learning -- spiritually and socially. This was all necessary for the trip to be a success. This mission trip opened my eyes to the spiritual and material riches that we already possess, but much taken for granted.

I saw the yearning of the people in China, how they hungered for the Word, how they generously given the little that they had. I saw how much they desired & fed upon the limited access of the Word, how they loved each other, how they loved God. They had expressed their love for God through their actions, their willingness to serve, instead of shallow lip-service.

"Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms." 1 Peter 4:10

No matter how little your talents, God will use and multiply it, if you are willing.

The Difficult Questions

One brainstorming afternoon, five interview sessions, three full days of video edits, across six different congregations, in various languages and dialects, and countless emails later, this video finally went live during our church's missions weekend last month.

Our first video was a series of interviews with our missionaries, this time we wanted to hear from YOU. We think that our church is a missions-minded church, but how much do we really know? Do we even know what missions means?

We have received very kind words (and much laughter) on the video, and many requests for the actual answers to the "Do You Know" questions. So for everyone's info, our church's missionaries are Chin Leong & Alice, Doris & Alvin, Vincent & Judy, and Siew Ling. Our missions coordinator is Adrian (he cried a little when he realised how few people knew him), and our missions budget for 2010 is $530,000.

The interview sessions proved to be a humbling and refreshing (and sometimes baffling) experience for us on the missions editorial team; some answers we expected, many we did not, but all of which gave us a greater insight into the church as a body of Christ. A huge shoutout to all the interviewees (even those whom we did not choose to feature due to lack of time and variety)... THANK YOU for taking time out of your busy schedules to do this. We know it was harrowing for some of you, but you have all been a STAR in your own way, and God bless you for your courage and honesty. :)

At the end of the day, we were never really looking for the right answers, only that the video would help us to ask ourselves: What is our role in The Great Commission? What have we done today with the opportunities and resources that God has given us?

We hope this video challenges you as much as it did us. :)

Big Welcome! :)

While it seems that this blog has been around for some time, we've kept pretty quiet about it so that we could slowly work on its contents and design, leading up to the missions weekend in church. Since its official launch over the past weekend, we have seen our page views spike drastically, so WELCOME! ;)

We have received some really nice comments since then about the new newsletter and the video that was shown during the main services. Thank you all for your kind words. Keep them coming, and let us know what we are doing right, and what we can do better. What was your response to the message? What would you like to see in the blog/newsletter? What do you think our next video should explore? We won't be able to please everyone, but we will value every single input for future efforts!

At the same time, keep your contributions coming in, either through the missions committee, or you can send it to us at missions [DOT] editorial [AT] gmail [DOT] com! Space in the newsletter is limited, but the blog is not. ;) If you would like to contribute your skills and be part of our team, we'll be glad to get in touch with you as well! We had a lot of help along the way, so a big thank you to all those who helped us with the newsletter and the video, sometimes on very tight deadlines, you know who you are! ;) We need all the creative energy we can get, and are particularly looking out for Chinese editors/translators and print layout artists.

Lastly, for those of you who missed it, here is the newsletter (English and Chinese versions) for your reading pleasure. We already have requests pouring in for us to upload the video, which we will do in our next post, together with the correct answers to satiate you curious cats, so keep checking back for updates! :P

Heartbeat of God

After months of preparation, we have finally begun the work on our next video production. On our previous project, we were tasked to put it together in about two months -- from the time that the team was formed to when the video was to be shown during our church's Missions Week -- which was insanely tight, to say the least.

This time, we hope to give ourselves a little more room to breathe, juggling this with our respective full-time jobs, and perhaps manage to have some fun along the way. ;)

For posterity's sake, I wanted to post our previous video up. This video was shown in all our church's congregations earlier in March, with the intent to give a light-hearted insight into the lives of our missionaries, and what they do so far away from home.

There's always room for improvement, but speaking as someone who's never been involved in a media project other than print, it was extremely fulfilling to see this come into fruition. :) We had so much fun interviewing the missionaries as well, and I believe I speak for the rest of the team when I say that they have inspired us. Our upcoming video aims to do something different, so look out for it in a couple of months, but for now, here's an intro to the people who are Making A Difference.

Our First Post!

Yep! As the title implies, this is our first blog post, and we aren't going to be too fanciful since our resident designer is on a 2-week Korea adventure holiday with his family.

A little bit about us: We are a bunch of working professionals in our early thirties with the exception of a young lady in her twenties who occasionally feels disjointed hanging out with the guys. You will hear from her frequently as she will be doing more of the grunting gradually.

We worship together in Church of Singapore (Bukit Timah) and came together to serve in the missions creative ministry. We don't know how the leaders came up with the name MCT (Missions Creative Team), but we will live with it for now and see if it sticks. You will see attached below a newsletter which is our first writing project as a team. Bilingual, the newsletter is a half-yearly publication which serves to inform, inspire and involve the church. This issue carries a light-hearted touch where our featured missionaries spill the beans about their lives in the field.

That's all from me for now, and I will leave you to read the newsletter. Time to hit the sack. Stay blessed!

R