After a
fantastic week at Bible School and two days break it was time to prepare for a
new group - Cahaya 2015.
Cahaya
International Youth Conference was a two-week conference with two distinct
parts. The first week was held in Penang, Malaysia and attended by 90
young people from Australia, New Zealand and Canada - they spent this time
discussing the "theory" of preaching and had talks by various
speakers including Brethren John Pople and Nathan Schipper. The second
week with which we were involved was all about the "practice".
The entire Conference was split into five preaching teams: three to go to the Philippines, one to
Thailand and one to come to Cambodia.
We met with
21 young people at the Phnom Penh Airport on Saturday afternoon. They
were very happy to be here and ready to get into the preaching work. It
was a great atmosphere which continued for the next five days while they were
here.
The whole
group stayed at the Lucky Star Hotel and the afternoon was spend settling in with
a quick walk to City Mall and then a walk to the BEC where we spent the rest of
the evening. Courtesy of Srey Touch we had a delicious meal together at
the BEC. We had a chat about the history of preaching in Cambodia and
explained some of the day-to-day preaching work that goes on at the
BEC and the Dorm. We also tried to give them
an understanding of some of the customs and culture of Cambodia.
Lastly, we went though the program and discussed some of the
exciting activities that we had prepared for the next five days.
The next
day was the memorial meeting which was held at the Lucky Star Hotel. Tom
from Sydney did the exhortation which was the group’s first experience of
translated talks. It was the parable of the prodigal son - one the
brothers and sisters and students can all readily relate. The memorial
meeting was a great opportunity for the group to meet the brothers and sisters
and dormers and there was a lot of interaction and plenty of laughs.
The major
activity planned for the week was two seminars on the Tuesday and Thursday
nights - held at two different venues simultaneously time (Lucky Star
Hotel and the Dorm). The theme of the seminars and the theme of the week
was "Jesus, the man who changed the world". We all were given
t-shirts with this logo printed on it. The idea was for the group to hand
out leaflets to advertise this and speak with the locals about who they were
and what they were doing. In the end, 14,000 leaflets were handed out
over the next 3 days. After lunch at the BEC we practiced role-play for
handing out the leaflets and how best to engage in a quick conversation with
the locals.
The whole
afternoon and the next day was dedicated to handing out leaflets, we went to
Olympic Stadium, City Mall (and got kicked out of both places for not having
permission) - so we changed tactic to handing out leaflets to people who were
coming into these places, which was very successful. There were a
few near misses with people trying to drive one handed while driving past on a moto
to grab the leaflets offered. We also went in small groups to a number of
universities and to the riverside and Night Markets. Everyone had a
great time and many people were able to have a good conversation with the
locals about our mission and the importance of Jesus.
Tuesday
came and the morning was spend handing out leaflets and the afternoon preparing
for the seminars, buying snacks and lollies and organizing the information
packs. At 5:15pm students started arriving for the Seminar (45 minutes
early). They came in ones and twos and sometimes small groups. We
greeted them at the front of the hotel and had someone escort them to the top level
of the Lucky Star Hotel where we held the seminar. It total we had
65 students to the Lucky Star Seminar and 5 new students to the Dorm Seminar
(in addition to the 40 or so dormers). Tom, Mason, Jessie and Chris were
our four presenters. After the presentation about “Jesus the man who
changed the world” we opened it up for questions. There were some great
questions from the audience and it reminded the team that they were speaking to
people who really had no idea who Jesus was and this was the first time they
had heard anything about the bible at all. Many students stayed
afterwards chatting to the "foreigners" over supper which
finished up a great evening. The second seminar was held on the Thursday and
was also a great success although there were not quite as many students with 25
turning up for the second night in total.
Some other
great features were a bible class at the dorm, a meet and greet with all the
BEC students as we said farewell to Rosie, Bernie and Tim, our longtime
fieldworkers, and a couple of great soccer evenings.
The end
result was a profitable experience for our Cahaya young people, they were able
to see preaching work in action and have a taste of it themselves. We
hope to see some of them back here in the near future. As a result
of the seminars, eight new students have registered for lessons at the BEC.
May God continue
to bless the preaching work in Cambodia.
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