May - June 08: Guests Jason and Fiona Rezannah and Life Skills Training June

Between May and June we had some first time guests from Melbourne (of all places!) stay with us for approx. 6 weeks - a young couple Jason and Fiona Rezannah (part of CityLife Church, Wantirna). It was great having another aussie couple stay with us and especially since they had a good sense of humour! We shared many laughs and funny stories and were able to show them around some of Phnom Penh city in their time staying with us.

Jason and Fiona volunteered with New Life Fellowship over their 6 weeks in PP - assisting with a number of NLF ministries. These are some of their comments from their visit to Phnom Penh:

"This is a must see for all people visiting the amazing city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We were blessed to go and be in Phnom Penh for 6 weeks from April-June 2008 whilst we were involved in outreach work through the local church New Life Fellowship.

Mark and Jo have a great home in the heart of Phnom Penh. Jason and I really benefited from Mark and Jo's love, especially Jo's thoughtfulness and mothering nature and Mark's relaxed "Aussie" approach that we are sure serves him well to cope with the challenges faced there. Mark and Jo shared with us so many amazing stories that afterwards you think "only in Cambodia". The change in culture and adjusting to Cambodia was made so much easier being alongside such fun-loving characters. We are very thankful to Mark and Jo for so willingly opening their home to us and embracing us – they have such a gift of hospitality!

Cambodia was an amazing experience for Jason and I. The culture, the smells, the traffic and un-said road rules whilst at first may appear confronting quickly became a comfort and home to us.

We were blessed to work alongside the church and lead bible classes, work with the children's ministry which involves outreach to the street kids through a ministry called "Joy Club" held weekly. We also ventured into some slums – eye opening to say the least, and frequently visited orphanages where the children captivated our hearts!

This journey certainly has enlarged our hearts for compassion! Jason was blessed to preach in one of the provincial churches where 5 gave their lives.....The previous week we also had another decision for Jesus in our bible class so Jase and I are so excited that God has used us and that 11 more beautiful Khmer have been added to the Kingdom!! And we have been blessed in So many ways beyond counting and we look forward to our return to this wonderful nation....."

Some pics from Jason and Fiona's time in Phnom Penh:

"Open house" dinner at our house - with our neighbors and some folk from NLF that Jason and Fiona built good relationship with over their time in PP

Last day in PP before flying to England - Jo, Jason, Fiona & Mark (L to R)

As part of CCCW's support of the NLF Dorms we have continued training both girls and guys who stay in the dorms in various life skills. In June, we taught on the topic of understanding mindsets and how they influence behaviour - it was lots of fun (as usual - we have run this training at many locations now!). Below are some pics from the day:

UPDATE OF ACTIVITIES - JUNE 08

Church Sustainability Forums

Monthly forums for Church Pastors and Business owners. Currently we are working with approx. 7 different Churches (incl. some province Churches) with numbers increasing each month.

In addition, we're assisting the following forum members in a specific sustainability project over the next 12 months:

Churches

• New Life Fellowship, Phnom Penh (Ps. Samdy Leang and Snr Ps. Jesse McCaul): 1)Assisting with implementation of new financial management system (supporting the main effort led by Benkorp organisation); 2) Assisting in review and re-structure of Office Skills Training Centre (OSTC); 3) Advice and assistance with development of micro-enterprise opportunities to help support the needs of the NLF young men's and women's dormitories; 4) Advice re: setting up a Church advisory Board/Committee


• New Life Fellowship, Kran Tnong (Ps. Ty Pros): Business advice re: income generation proposals including chicken farming project in the provinces


• New Life Fellowship, Samroung Young (Ps. Chao Chantheoun): Monthly leadership training for the key church leaders at Samroung Young NLF church


• Church Celebrating Jesus Christ (Ps. Inpa Eliezer): Business advice re: Inpa's church forming a business partnership involving the church members


• Russey Keo Baptist Church (Ps. Toun Kakada): Providing monthly business foundations training for church members


• New Generation Community Church (Ps. Joko): Planning for potential kingdom business to support Church.

Business Owners

• OneSherpa Cambodia (Veasna Uk): Personal mentoring


• Compass Design (Selah Sin): Personal mentoring and assistance with Compass Design business processes


• Women's fashion market shop (Vathey): Business planning and advice re: expanding the business


• Chicken Farming business (Kran Tnong Church): Advice and business planning for chicken farm business


• Khmer translation service (Vatha Ouk and Hak Heng): Advice and business planning


• RTC Cambodia (Marion Fromm): Advice and assistance in project planning for business expansion

Vocational Training

We are presently conducting market research and reviewing specific opportunities for development of vocational training programs in the following four key market segments:

1. Hospitality / Customer Service


2. IT services


3. Motor mechanic / servicing


4. Homewares /soft home furnishings

Our aim is to develop at least one vocational training program for commencement in 2009. This training will initially be offered to members of New Life Fellowship and other churches in the Forum program.

In addition, we are presently holding monthly Life Skills Training (held at NLF Church) for young men and women in the dormitories.

Business Training:

Currently, aside from informal business training & advice offered as part of the Church Sustainability Forum program - we are investing time in strategic planning relating to development of a more formal training program to be provided in the future. The context of training material we are seeking to develop will be suitable for micro-enterprise or small business owners in a cambodian context. At this stage, we are pursuing development of a foundations (introduction to business) level training course. We are in dialogue with several key organisations who we will potentially be partnering with in the development of this training program. Stay tuned for more details!

NLF Dorms:

We are currently partnering with New Life Fellowship (Phnom Penh) in financial support of 2 No. young men's and women's dormitories over the 2008/09 fin. year period. We are, in conjunction with assisting with operations of the dorms, exploring both vocational training opportunities as outlined above and also potential micro-enterprise opportunities. Our goal is to equip the young men and women in the dorms with skills and opportunities to see them develop a sustainable livelihood through employment or business, and in the longer term to see how these dormitories can become more self-supporting.

Other Activities:

• Christian Business and Professional Leaders Lunch Events: We are part of a small group of dedicated people coordinating quarterly christian business and professional lunch & networking events in Phnom Penh. The last event was held in April 08 with Talmag Payne (CEO of Hagar Cambodia) as guest speaker.


• Adhoc training for Christian NGO (Non-government organisations): To date, we have provided staff training in key areas of: Understanding mindsets, Understanding personality types, teamwork, communication and conflict resolution. To date, we have provided this training for staff at New Life Fellowship International Christian School, International Cooperation Cambodia (ICC) and New Life Fellowship Church.

April - May 08 update

Photo on celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary - we went out to enjoy a very nice meal at Raffles Hotel. Funny story was coming home and finding our guests (a couple from Aust. staying with us for 8 weeks) had actually locked the front gate and the latch to the padlock ...so we couldn't get into the house!! After several failed attempts at trying to call them (their phone was turned off as we later found out!!) - we had to resort to climbing over the front gate (which is quite high..well, that's Mark's excuse anyway...) long story short is ...well..Mark's stamina and fitness is not like it used to be sooo....we ended up having to ask a neighbour (a youth who came to have a laugh at the big barang trying to straddle the gate!!) to climb up over and open the latch for us...a great way to finish a nite out for our wedding anniversary!!

Celebrating Mark's birthday - a surprise cake from Jo - planned nicely to fit in with the May forum!

The elephants are a rare sight in Cambodia nowadays...this particular one is a local of PP being employed to work at Wat Phnom in giving tourists rides around the Wat. This is a pic of the elephant's slow walk back to its home via the Riverside Boulevard...obviously doesn't mind stopping for the odd snack or two from local restaurant owners.

A classic example of PP infrastructure investment from the Government...not sure I'd like to live in the house adjacent this pole!!

The wedding of Ps. Phally finally came around ! ..a very happy couple indeed!!

A group shot at Ps. Phally's wedding..(the couple are wearing one of up to 8-10 different outfits that they display throughout the wedding day...!!)

Jo & Mark at Ps. Phally's wedding reception

Jo with a group of ladies from Hagar catering...spot the one not wearing a tonne of make-up!! The locals tend to like doing the wedding thing in style and with a lot of accessorising !!

Mark with some local friends Oudum and Frank Woods - who both work at Hagar Catering (At Ps. Phally's wedding)

A group photo of Frank and the team from Hagar catering...it was great to share the table with them at the wedding..plenty of laughs all round!

Example of Sustainability Project - Business training at Russey Keo Baptist

As part of the monthly Church Sustainability Forum program that we've been running - we have offered to each pastor and business owner involved in the program the opportunity of assistance in a specific sustainability project over this year in 2008.

Ps. Toun Kakada who pastors the Russey Keo Baptist church and is a regular attender in the Forums asked us to run some training for his church members in business skills. So, we have begun teaching basic business principles (business foundations) to a small group of his church members. Approx. two of the members in this group have small businesses (a women's clothing shop owner and a CD seller), several are self-employed (motodop driver, food stall operators), and the rest are students wanting to learn some business skills.

We have held training at Ps. Kakada's church since March 08 - holding 1-2 hour training sessions each month (based at his Church in Russey Keo district in Phnom Penh).

Our aim in this sustainability project is to provide a basic understanding of business principles to the business owners present in this group and teaching for students willing to learn (who hopefully will start their own business in the future). It has been lots of fun and as always we're continuing to learn how best to target training to the audience in question. In this case, most of the group have little if any formal education - so we have to bring lots of practical examples and life experiences into the mix of training provided. All in all - has been heaps of fun - and we're starting to see some fruit come out of it - with one of the business owners - a young lady by the name of Vathey asking us to help further with her plans to expand her small women's fashion business (located in the old market - near the riverside).

The intent of this project is to help with Ps. Kakada's vision of building a self-sustaining church through: Equipping business people in his church to grow and develop their skills - so that through these businesses growing and being more profitable - people's livelihoods can be improved and more financial resource can be added into the local church through the members.

This is a pic of Mark with Pastor Kakada taken last year:

These are some pics taken during some of the training conducted to date: Enjoy!!

May Church Sustainability Forum

In the May Forum we discussed some key criteria to assist business owners and pastors determine if the way they're building reflects a Kingdom or worldly (cultural) values system. In this we had some great discussion around what it actually means to be self-sustaining in the context of the local khmer Churches and in kingdom business. We also talked through the need for taking steps towards sustainability, in particular - how the model we're using will impact on our ability to reach the goal of sustainability, and the ways in which organisation "culture" is established in the process.

We had a great time of prayer at the end of the forum - as we encouraged each person to identify what "seed" they needed to start planting in their business or Church - encouraging them to take steps towards being more sustainable in sowing this seed right now. We asked the pastors and business people to draw their "seed" as a picture or write it down in words - and we encouraged each person to pray over this seed, to speak to it's destiny/prophesy over it and declare God's promises for the reaping of a great harvest and to ask for God's blessing. For some - this was the first time they had experienced prayer in this way - and for some it was even the first time of drawing something on paper!!

Overall - this was quite significant - as during that week, the khmer people celebrated what is known as the "royal ploughing day" ceremony which is a buddhist spiritual festival (public holiday) involving an invitation to the (demonic) spirit world to speak and determine which crop would have the blessing for the coming year's harvest.

We believe God is calling his Church in Cambodia to rise up and claim its rightful inheritance - God's goodness for the nation. In this we seek His blessing in building kingdom business and partnering with Him in building the Church - so, the act of praying over our seed (God's vision, prophetic word) was a great way to end the Forum! ..Here are some pics:

Cambodia Prophecy May 08

Jo & I, together with 6 other expats living and working in various organisations in Cambodia attended a conference at Jakarta recently which was a really great time for us all. God healed many people throughout the week - with some amazing miracles. Below is a YouTube link to a prophecy we as a group received on the first day (session 1) ! of the conference from a pastor from Canada - Charlie Robinson...if we only came to conference for this alone - it would have been worth it !! Hope you are as inspired watching this as we all are every time we re-visit the prophecy. Enjoy!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dscALNCYNzI

Introducing our new cambodian staff members..

Virak Yang (Vocational Training Coordinator)


My name is Virak Yang. I was on in July 1987 at Kampong Chhnag Province the middle of Cambodia. I live in the Nuclear Family. I'm single son in my family. I quite experienced about the lonely life, because I have no brother and sister.

I had finished high school in 2005, after that I moved to Phnom Penh to continue at the University. Now I'm studying at Cambodian University for Specialties(private school) in course Hotel and Tourism.

I have been a Christian almost two years. I first time came to study English at New Life Center through my friend. Firstly I started join the Youth Party on Saturday night at New Life Fellowship. After that I started to join the Sunday Meeting and Sunday School also.

Day by day, God had given me a promise about my future. I've been waiting for his and I nearly give up and run a way from him. But now his will be done for my life. I get employ at Connect Cambodia as Vocational Training Coordinator.

I believe that through my job, I'll help Cambodian youths and young adults to find the employment for themselves.

Rathana Sek (Business Development Coordinator)


My name is Rathana Sek, I was born in August, 10 1985 at Svey Rieng province, I had live in a small village that far from the capital 30km, I have 2 brothers and 3 sisters, I’m the third child in my family, I came from the farmer family, my parents are planting rice.

I start believe Jesus in September 09, 2006 when I was second year at university. My life start better than before, I have hope, peace, joy and a lot of things in my life. It the blessing of God for me because he had gives me many good friends, leaders and pastors ….As Christian life I had received many miracles from God (Healing , prosperity…. ).Now I had finished my Studying at university and I also got a great job that God gives me, I work at Connect Cambodia with Mark and Jo Dennert. I has one vision in my life, I want to see the kingdom of God is come to Cambodia in this generation, I have a vision to be a politician and I believe that through Christian politician and the power of God Cambodia will change.