Discipleship cycles and sickness

Over this past week, we have seen an amazing breakthrough in the bible studies. This week I have shifted from being the leader of the bible study to having a Cambodian lead the whole thing, while I am simply assisting. It is a very exciting time, because the group is going to be able to support itself and be sustainable even after we go back to Kona! It is only by the grace of God of course, and its totally by faith because I only speak about 5 words in Khmer.

In addition, the leader that has taken authority and is also helping every other person in the group to be leaders too. Just these last few days we have really been studying about salvation, taking them through the gospel, and they have been teaching it to each other and practicing answering questions! It truly is happening in an amazing way, and I thank God that I get to be a part of it!

One of the cool parts about following God is that its not just for the "professionals," its for everyone, not matter whether they're in full time ministry or a janitor at school. Not matter where we are we all have as much capabilities to represent Christ and disciple the world, because we all have the same holy spirit!

Of course, with the Kingdom of God advancing very rapidly, a few members of the team have also been getting sick. Right now I have a nasty foot infection, but God is so big that He could heal it instantly! At the same time as hoping for that, I'm also able to go to a local clinic to get another one of God's blessings: medicine!

Another amazing blessing is the ability to go to Angkor Wat tomorrow, one of the 7 wonders of the world! Praise God!

So please agree with God's heart and pray in the following areas:
1. Sickness begone in Jesus' name!
2. Continued depth of intimacy with Jesus
3. Continued vision for these next 5 weeks
4. For the House of Prayer to become functioning
5. For the students to become hungry for baptism and real boldness about their faith
6. Real discipleship that will still be going even after we leave

Rainstorms and Salvations!

Hello again! It is such a blessing to be able to post something to this blog! I found an awesome hotel nearby that actually has free internet! Praise God! There has been so much that has been happening so far!

Our Bible study group!

During the first full week, our leader, Aaron Barker was sick with someone that is not from heaven! Meanwhile our accountant and awesome friend was also quite sick. So for the first week we were limping along, and really pressing into Jesus for strength. Thank God that He can still work even in our weaknesses. However, there was amazing fruit even the first week, as we were beginning to get God's heart for the city of Battambang!

We are able to help build a local cafe, which is leading to some amazing team bonding times. I hope to do another post about those times, but lets just say that we are bringing the kingdom into everyday things.

A huge part of what we've been doing is teaching english and bible studies at the local youth center. It is such a blessing to use something useful like english to draw people in! So for 2 days a week during those classes, we've seen amazing fruit, and we are actually just having group bible studies on Tuesday and Thursday! The students are so incredibly hungry for the one true God! It's just incredible. Incredible!

As a fruit of the English classes we've now seen 2 solid salvations, and we're continuing to press on to see our entire classes come to be saved by the one! The only! JESUS CHRIST!

Another thing that was quite exciting was to have a rainstorm completely drench the city of Battambang. Last night we had such a crazy rain and lightning storm that there was about a foot of water on the road and the power went out for about 20 minutes. The funnest part was that we got to cook spaghetti and hang out with kids in the storm.

On Saturday Min and I went to a local pizza shop with 10 of the kids from our bible study. We each got to share our testimonies, and after the course of those 3 epic hours, we heard that 3 students had become officially saved and that 2 more decided that Jesus was the only real God and wanted to follow him Whole Heartedly! And that all fruit of just getting together and discovering God's word together.

An amazing testimony was told during the time: Someone with an empty gas tank in their motorbike prayed to God, and He filled it up with gas! There is nothing short of God's amazing powers.

We've also seen about 2 healings per week, which is just amazing! It just truly shows God's character, and the little healings always draw them to the biggest miracle of all: getting their soul saved!


So thats what has been happening in the past, now looking forward to the future:

• Pray that a Cambodian House of Prayer would get stirred up as we start the first steps for that
• Pray for radical discipleship of the new Christians, that they would be fully surrendered and eager for more!
• Pray that we will continue to see healing of entire people: heart, body, and soul
• Pray that Philippians 2:3-5 would become a reality for our team, to press in for the fullness of unity
• Pray that we would continue to have a greater understanding of how to have fun and rest in Godly ways

In Cambodia

Hello everyone! First of all, I would just like to say I'm so blessed by everyone's comments about this blog! It encourages me that I'm able to encourage others and that God touches your lives through me! Way to go God! Since its the summer now I know that everyone is just having so much fun in Sisters! I pray that you guys have as safe of fires as possible (because they are kind of necessary). I also pray that God continues to light a fire in your Hearts wherever you are! Seriously seeking God is the best thing ever! At the end of your life when you're at the Judgement Seat of Christ, nothing else will matter except for the things that glorified God! That's a very good thing to realize now while we still have more life to live.
So the team is now in Cambodia! Everyone is going through culture shock, which is good because it brings us closer to Jesus! It so amazing just how blessed America is materially! We are so blessed to have hot clean water, air conditioning and clothes washers!
We will be teaching english, which is one of the best ways to tell student about English actually! Thank God that I was born in America! I will actually get to be teaching bible with my friend, Min Young. Then in the morning we will be planting a church group and building a christian's cafe! It will be so exciting to see what God does!
It will be exciting to see if I can ever put pictures on here or even on Facebook. I hope that God just releases amazing internet here so thats possible (haha it could happen)! And I will only be able to update the blog about every Saturday, just so y'all know.
Well I really miss everyone and I'm super glad because that means it will be even better when I see y'all again!
Please agree with God that we will become closer to Him and be strengthened in the midst of new things and fun adventures!

Moving into the neighborhood

In Thailand, there is a cultural mantra: "To be Thai is to be Buddhist." So in a country that is completely covered with Idols, statues, and temples with humans putting their money, time and hope into, the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news! I just heard recently that if a Buddhist accidentally kills a mosquito (which may actually be a re-incarnated ancestor), that have to do penance for 3 weeks! how amazing is it that our glorious God who actually answers prayers is the one that offered the sacrifice for us? The bible says that Jesus made himself nothing, coming Heaven down to Earth, being made in human likeness and dying for us! God came into our neighborhood and showed us His love! Wow! And the coolest part is that all we have to do for a relationship is repent, receive His love and live our lives to be like him! How great is our God!

Another reason I like the verse above is because of who we're working with. We've been able to work with King's Kids, a ministry inside of YWAM. We've been going into a local slum and teaching the bible, praying for people, sharing the good news and doing mercy ministries like fixing houses. We were just recently told that the King's Kids team in Thailand is actually moving into the slum that they work at, just because God told them to! So inspiring!

I hope you all are stirred to move into your neighborhood with the love and Good News of Jesus Christ!

If anyone would like to help me and the team, you can agree with God's heart in the following areas:

• On monday the 12th we are doing an open air evangelism presentation
• The christians in the biggest university in the world
• The thai YWAMers and christians

Thank God He can do anything!

So this is just a crazy opportunity to say thank God for being able to do so much more than we could ever do! Right now we are positioned across the road from a satellite school of the biggest university in the world! It is an incredible chance to plant small groups and have a church planting movement just explode! So please pray for the Lord to continue to open doors into the campus, that we'll be able to get discovery groups together and for the movement to continue even after we are gone! Please continue to pray for the release of signs, wonders and miracles, not to entertain us, but to confirm the gospel that is being preached! We know that Jesus is a healer and can heal anyone instantly!

Also, a little Glory to God moment, we saw our first salvation yesterday! On the independence day for America, it was independence day for Peter from sin and death! And now he has total religious freedom, both because of Thailand and also because Jesus will free him of everything that binds! Praise God!

In Thailand, aka Jesus Land :)

So it was a great flight, even with 5 kids everything went extremely smoothly! Praise God it was awesome! We are all so thankful that God put his spirit inside of us, and that the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control, and that we always have the holy spirit inside of us. That means that by faith we always have those things! And as we continue to walk in a life led by the spirit and not by the flesh, the Holy Spirit will manifest (show forth) all the time.

It was a great first day! We went on a treasure hunt around the area of the YWAM base that we are staying at. We were able to meet a girl in a divine appointment at a bookstore, and able to find someone at a local university who spoke English and wanted a bible to study it and learn from it! Praise God!

God really showed me that if we don't know what to do or where He's calling us to go, all we really have to do is just walk outside. As we just pray for our location and for God to give us his heart, we will be given so many things that could happen in that place! God really is so good that all we have to do is just be around the people that He loves, pray for them, and obey Jesus's teachings and the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Another thing The Lord showed me today is that He really did put each one of us in the individual countries we were born in for a reason. I am so glad that God has allowed me to be an American. No matter what the world thinks and says about America, and no matter how bad some things are, God is just so good that He wants even my American citizenship to be used for His glory! By the way, most of the kids here are very excited about meeting Americans and practicing English. Praise God!

Whats next?

So in case anyone is wondering what God has on my plate after Thailand and Cambodia, I still strongly feel the Lord leading me to go to Haiti. Despite being distracted by so many different options in YWAM, the Lord has been relentless in telling me to go to Haiti. So as soon as possible I hope to apply to be on staff at one of the YWAM bases in Haiti, either at St. Marc or Port-au-Prince. Please pray that God opens the doors to do that, and also just pray for Haiti anyways!