Cambodia Bible Education Centre

It was a spur of the moment decision to go to Cambodia. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made. How can I find the words to express what God has blessed me to experience? From the outset I must say to anyone who is looking for inspiration, a life changing experience you must go! The Cambodians are fantastic people! they are fun loving, kind, generous, hospitable, loving, humble, caring, hardworking with a thirst to learn like I have never experienced. I had the privilege to taste, see and experience quite a lot over the 2 and a half weeks I was there. Meeting the young people at the dorms, going to the LCDI school, staying at the BEC, teaching a couple of lessons, visiting two provinces one of which I got the privilage to meet sister Sithy,her son and parents in their province and experience fantastic hospitality, going to fruit, veg, and meat markets. Tasting elephant apple (yuk), enjoying delic ious foo d, and elephant trek just to name a few. Overall ...

We are continuing to work together to reconnect with past contacts and ecclesial members wh o have not been able to continue lessons or have not been attending regularly. The most common reasons given include job seeking, employment demands, family and health problems or moving from Phnom Penh to the Province s. These circumstances change how ever and as a result we are putting into place strategies t o renew contact and to stay in contact more frequently. We have been able to make som e useful inroads including the Bikers group that were in a previous blog. Since then we ha ve added Vannak and Monovihnean to the list of those who have visited the BEC . It has been a real boos t to the BEC and to the ecclesia to see all of these faces again. V annak translated for the Saturday morning session at the last Outreach Weekend after being away for 18 mon ths. He was also able to join us on the trip to Kratie Province renewing old relationships. We are optimistic that these t...

So, I am writing this from Carmel Mansfield's house on the outskirts of Sydney having only had about 6 hours sleep in two nights. The first night I spent packing and completing info on my students and preparing my final talk to the Dorm. The second night was on the plane and therefore pretty sleepless. I left the BEC at 5.45am to go to the Dorm to say goodbye and lead the morning service and left there at 7.15am to the airport with an entourage of Loy, Saroun, Kez, Dan, Samrach, Chem, Channa and Saoury. It was great to have them come along as I'd imagine going to the airport alone would have been pretty hard. The last few days in Cambodia were very good. Saturday morning I was treated to a trip to the Royal Palace by some of my students, Sokiem, Chakriya, Socheat, Chantry and Vanny. They also gave me a couple of t-shirts and a scarf. Lots of pictures ensued where I was encouraged to 'model' the presents. Thankfully, the owners of the cameras do not have access to Faceb...

We were blessed last week to be able to visit the homes and families of brothers and sisters in the provinces. First of all we travelled to sister Theung's house which is in Kampot province. Her family recieved us warmly and we ate fruit on their verandah overlooking the water. Following this we visited brother Kosal's family. The traditional gesture of climbing the coconut tree was enjoyed immensely and followed by many refreshing drinks for everyone. Our next leg of the journey was up to Kratie province where we visited the village and family of sisters Nirath and Sokhorn. They made us feel so welcome and we loved swimming in the Mekong with all the local children! It was such a wonderful opportunity to take brothers and sisters from the Phnom Penh ecclesia to meet and encourage the family's of brethren. We were able to share time together as God's family and also to show God's love and shine our light to the families of those we love. We pray that those who are ...