Church Planting News from Cambodia

Pastor Chamnap Seang
National Leader of Elim Cambodia

The heart of the church planting work in Cambodia is the vision to see “One Village with One Church” throughout the villages in Cambodia. Over the past few years the team from Elim Cambodia have been building connections and partners across the country. Churches have been planted and there is a real hunger within the local Christians to share about Jesus Christ with their people.

Throughout the past year a team from Elim Cambodia have been conducting church planting workshops for different leaders and pastors in the country. Steve Kempton from the UK and Bhab Ghale Elim National Leader in Nepal have helped to conduct this training.

Recently the Elim Cambodian Church Planting team took a trip to visit these leaders and see how they were doing after the training. The team began their journey in Kandao Chrum village, in Tabong Kamom province where they met with one pastor, Pastor Saren who attended the “One Village, One Church” training modules and is actively promoting its vision. The team delivered 45 plastic chairs as a contribution to Pastor Saren’s house church hall. His desire to serve God brought him to make an ex- tension of his house to accommodate 30 people or more. His main focus is for prisoners and their families, but his desire is to have lots of Timothys who will continue to spread the Good News.

The team also visited Pastor Saren’s older brother, Pastor Saruen. The team passed by his house twice, unsure where it was as the place had changed its form from Pastor Chamnap’s previous visit. When Pastor Chamnap and his team first came to meet Pastor Saruen in January they all prayed for a better building as Pastor Saruen’s house was falling into pieces. Though his house was old and falling apart, it was open for all Christians in his village and neighbouring villages to come and gather for worship and this had happened for more than 5 years. From the span of only 4 months, our God answered the prayers of His children and provided Pastor Saruen with a building that can accommodate 50 or more people. It was Pastor Saruen’s own children who helped to provide the finances for this new building.

An amazing story has come from the province of Ratanakiri. Ratanakiri is in the North East of Cambodia and is on the border with Vietnam. Previously the team had visited this area in January. This area is a minority area and the people here speak their own dialect and not the common Khmer language. They had met with an elderly lady who was 80 years old. She was not a Christian but invited the team to her home for dinner. At the time everyone felt this lady would be significant in the future for this village and for this area. The team prayed for her and believed in God’s ability to break through in this situation. When they visited again last month, this lady had not yet received Christ but the members of her immediate family had. The team were invited again for dinner at her home and later the lady joined in worship and prayer with the team. Amazingly that night she became a Christian!! This lady is an important person in her village and the team are praying and believing for more great things to come from this area.

Please be praying for these people mentioned in the stories, for the Pastors and leaders, and for the Elim Cambodia church planting team. Pray for the advancement of God’s work.