Sept - Oct 07 post scripts

Over the months of Sept and Oct our main focus was in preparing for the Intercessory Prayer and Worship team coming over from our church in Oct. The aim was to provide training to a small group of local churches that we've built relationship with in the area of prophetic worship and prayer. During this month in particular, we faced some opposition from a few of these local churches however regarding unrealistic expectations (mainly in the area of money). This was a struggle for us both - just learning how to navigate through this issue. Tackling the money issue here is quite difficult given many other expats that come to Cambodia (missios, foreign churches, NGO's, etc), in particularly those from other Asian countries, believe it is more than ok to give money as a means to open a doorway to partnering / relationship. What we've experienced though, is that this only further fosters a dependency / handout mentality - which we have seen in many areas of the local church since being here. Not uncommon is for local churches to find themselves in difficult situations though when they accept such money from foreigners - as they soon realise that there were conditions with the giving that they weren't first aware of, such as in some cases being requested to sign over the name of their church to the name of the foreigner's denomination name or the like. Hearing these stories - really makes you angry with the way some people go about building the kingdom.

Towards the end of Sept, Mark and I moved into our new house that has so much more natural light, more air flow and has different levels to separate the office from the rest of the house - yah! We were so happy to have a new house to move into that really was exactly what we had been looking for. We asked some of the guys from the NLF dorms ('Next Step Houses') to help us out lifting furniture, etc and treated them to a wonderful lunch. They thought they were really strong and I willed myself not to look when they kept crashing into the walls with the furniture after my many attempts to tell them to be careful! We also had to hire a crane truck to lift some of our furniture as it didn't fit up the tight stairwells, so over the balcony the furniture did come (mmm, we were too busy to get any photos but it sure was a sight)!

In October we had the Intercessory Prayer/Worship team come and whilst we ended up only running training at two local churches, it was an amazing time in the Spirit. Words can't describe the impact of these two days - but to say there was a significant breakthrough in the area of worship in both these churches as a result. It was fantastic !! The team consisted of Lyn McHugh, Nel Dekker, Karen Wilson, Marg Easton, Ursula Cettolin, Tim Coghill, Joel Dowling and Tavis Wardlaw. The rest of the time, the team explored some cultural sights and a range of non-govt organisations (NGO's) including the HIV/AIDS hospital for babies and young children and then on the Sunday, splitting into 2 teams, going to 2 different provinces and sharing with the local people in a local church, which was fantastic!

As Mark and I had managed to double-book ourselves during the week of this prayer and worship training - we missed one of the two training seminars in Phnom Penh. Our time was spent in training a selection of staff from International Cooperation Cambodia (ICC) up in Kratie (one of the provinces up north). We taught on 'mindsets' which is one of the topics that we have shared on in the Church Sustainability Forums and since had been asked to share this with their staff and also various churches and other NGOs here. This training was interesting for us as this particular NGO works primarily with the minority ethnic groups in Cambodia, so we got to learn a bit more about Cambodia.

Late Oct was when one of my sisters came and visited us on her way back from visiting Japan. It was really great to see her and for her to experience a bit of Cambodia. To top it off, my youngest sister came for a few days (on her way from her month break in Aus to Laos where she works) while my other sister was still here, so that was really great! It was really good to spend time with them both and in particular since my youngest sister would not be home for Christmas.