Cambodia Bible Education Centre

We are so happy to pass on this wonderful news ... that today Vanny asked to be baptised! For so many of the BEC fieldworkers (past and present) this is the news we have all been praying for! Vanny is a university student who lives at Bethezer boys' dorm and has been studying at BEC since its inception at the beginning of 2007. Vanny has been learning about the Bible from many different churches in Cambodia and his journey has been a long and, at times, difficult one for him. He has constantly prayed to God, to give him the truth about the Bible, as he has wrestled with difficult concepts and doctrines. At last Vanny's prayers have been answered and he now feels confident that his beliefs are strong and he has a clear understanding of what God says in the Bible. He has requested baptism in the ocean and, because he is free from university this week, we are going to go to Sihanoukville on Tuesday. We will stay overnight and come back on Wednesday. Our young brothers from the dor...

The Bethezer girls' dorm has begun with a wonderful feeling of happiness and excitement. On Saturday Nirann and Sithy moved in and took over the position of managers. The boys next door have made all the girls feel so welcome as they have been helping set up the dorms. Nirann came around to BEC and lay down exhausted, complaining about how much had to be done. He had a smile from ear to ear so we don't think he was too worried! Consequently, our mini seminar on Saturday night had about 40 people in attendance. Warren gave us an inspiring talk about the beatitudes and then Jeannie took over and ran a fun games night. She had great activities with 'girls' against 'boys'. We were happy when the score ended up as a 'tie'. We decided this was a good star t to the two Bethezer dorms existing side by side...neither the girls or boys will think they are "the best"! Thank you to all the amazing support that people are giving to supporting this dorm. Th...

We were sad that we were unable to proceed with Veasna's baptism when he visited last. When he arrived late on the Friday night he had just completed an interview for a new job, and was the successful candidate. This meant that he had commitments on the Saturday in Phnom Penh and had to return earlier that unusual on the Sunday. We have now made arrangements for his baptism to take place during his visit next month. Our worship service last Sunday almost filled the room with about thirty people...including sixteen brothers and sisters. It was wonderful to hear Warren's words of encouragement and exhortation as he shared gems from scripture about the gift of "taste" that we all enjoy, and how it applies to so many aspects of our spiritual lives. The Saturday morning group of young men are studying the importance of Bible truth and had so many interesting questions to ask last week. Some of these young men are from the dorm and some have come to study at BEC because fr...

We are so happy to welcome Jeannie and Warren Barton from Toowoomba to BEC in Phnom Penh (pictured here at the airport with our tuk tuk driver, Vanna). They arrived this evening bubbling with enthusiasm and excitement, despite the fact that they had been up since 4am in Kuala Lumpar. You never would have known this from their bright smiles! A great medicine for lifting Steve's spirits. Thanks to everyone who has sent messages of prayers and ecouragement for Steve to overcome his bout of Dengue Fever. He seems to be over the worst of it now although he is very weak and will be 'out of action' for a few weeks to come. How God blesses us in sending our brother and sister to help out at such a time. Jeannie insists on coming to the dorm at 5.30 in the morning and Warren is all geared up for his first lesson at 9. Thank you God! Jeannie and Warren seemed to enjoy their first Cambodian meal tonight and are looking forward to sampling much of the delicious food cooked by Loy. Loy ...

Thank you God and thank you to the young people from the Brisbane CYC August Camp for your generous donation of over $900, collected last weekend for Bethezer. You have given with your hearts and your pockets to young people like yourselves, who love God and have chosen to seek riches that this world cannot give. The young people that you are supporting are struggling with many problems. Some of them have lost their mum or dad (maybe both) either directly or indirectly due to the Pol Pot genocide. All have lost members of their extended families to landmines or due to a lack of medical care that we take for granted. They all come from families, which are struggling to supply enough rice from one day to the next just to survive. Their parents are making huge sacrifices so that their sons or daughters can get an education (in Cambodia you need a university degree for nearly any kind of employment other than a factory worker). Many of the parents are forced to live in different parts of...

We had another wonderful Saturday night seminar at the dorm last weekend with some of the new dormers present. They were all keen to hear the next installment about the new heavens and new earth that will be established at the return of our King (2Peter 3). Him does a great job of translating each week and we seem to get at least one or two new faces every Saturday, with many of the young ones bringing along friends or relatives. If only we could get such enthusiasm in Australia!! Our Worship Service was a very special one for our Cambodian brothers and sisters yesterday as it was all in Khmer! Sad to say that Steve was not feeling well enough to exhort, so brother Meng Him read his exhortation in Khmer and brother Nirann was chairman (his first time). Although we all missed Steve very much, it was a wonderful experience to see how far this ecclesia has come in such a short time! Our new young brothers from Bethezer Dorm offered prayers for the bread and wine and closed in prayer. How ...

So sorry it has been a while since our last update of everything happening in Cambodia! We have had a bit of a change to routines due to the elections and many students taking the opportunity to go home to the province. At BEC we took this opportunity to catch up on teaching programs and we are now officially using our "Instruction Toolkit". This is allowing us to keep track of the studies of each of our contacts and meet their needs regarding their learning about God's word. We have found this is a great help in planning our lessons and making the most of each teaching moment! We have been so blessed to have so many people from different walks of life wanting to learn about God at BEC. One of our happy moments today was finding out that one of the young men who comes to study in the morning, wants to join the Bethezer dorm so that he has more opportunity to learn about God. We are so excited with the prospect of the Bethezer girls' dormitory opening soon. God has ce...