A Ministry of Relationship

A Ministry of Relationship

Hello friends!

I am back in Thailand, starting my second semester here teaching at Cornerstone Student Center. I am feeling refreshed after some sweet time with family over the holidays and a couple of weeks traveling in Japan (there go my savings, but so worth it). What a beautiful country!

How to make up for an entire semester neglecting to post any blog updates at all…I will try to summarize; bear with me while I catch you up and try to do a bit of justice to the last four months. Let me start with describing the ministry that I am participating in.

At Cornerstone Student Center (CSC), our service is offering classes to university students in English conversation. We serve students at all English levels, covering different topics each week (i.e. vacations, friendships, roles and responsibilities) to help students learn relevant vocabulary and gain practice and confidence speaking. Although the function of our ministry is teaching, our purpose is relationship building. Teaching English provides us with an opening to connect with students and begin the slow but rewarding process of investing in them and building friendships.

Many factors, including cultural and language barriers and the hectic schedules of our students, tend to make relationship building pretty slow-going. Thai students are lovely, very friendly and enthusiastic about learning, but the work load and academic standard in their university setting is extremely high, leaving them with little time to attend an extracurricular English class regularly. There are of course additional limitations to connection stemming from the fact that our cultural contexts have little overlap and we have different ways of relating and making friends. Though I adore my students and really enjoy teaching, I would say that this is probably the biggest challenge that I face in my work and ministry.

Though it has its hurdles, investing in students has also been the most rewarding piece of my time in Thailand so far. There are several students who, through CSC, have started to become curious about Christianity and are now asking questions about faith and their life purpose (this may sound small but trust me, it is a big deal!). This has been a long process that began several months before I even arrived in Thailand, and the groundwork was laid by volunteers before me. But I am fortunate to witness the fruits of their labor, and this encourages me and gives me hope that the time and energy I am pouring into students will establish roots of Christ’s love that may begin to inspire them to seek, challenge them to ask questions, and slowly but surely transform their attitudes, perspectives and hearts. It is definitely a test of patience to trust that God is working in His own time and to simply be available and love. But it is one that I believe will be worth it, even if growth isn’t visible until long after I am gone and settled back in the States.

Please join with me in prayer for our beloved Thai students. I pray that God would give them peace despite their over-loaded schedules and many responsibilities, and that they would find a safe haven in Cornerstone Student Center and joy in learning English. More than anything I pray that they would see Christ’s love in us and that ultimately they would desire to know Him.

Thank you for your prayers, love, and support.

Till we ‘meet’ again,

Amy

World Mission Sunday

World Mission Sunday

World Mission Sunday is February 4th, but your church can observe it any Sunday. How is God calling you and your church to get involved in this year’s World Mission Sunday?
SAMS is a part of Anglican Global Mission Partners. AGMP unites the needs in the mission field with people in the pews. Many from AGMP have joined together to provide you and your church with several resources for World Mission Sunday. Explore these various resources below:

RESOURCES

Ways to Pray

Pray for your SAMS Missionaries with this Prayer Calendar, and signup for the SAMS Newsletter to receive monthly prayers to your email inbox.

Prayer Litany

Use this AGMP Litany to lead your parish in praying for world mission.

Ways to Give

Consider taking up a special offering during World Mission Sunday to support a SAMS Missionary or another SAMS Fund. Click here to support.

VIDEO

Discover even more resources on the New Wineskins World Mission Sunday page.

Cambodia Anglicans Chart a New Path

Cambodia Anglicans Chart a New Path

SAMS Missionaries Gregory and Heidi Whitaker serve in Cambodia where Gregory leads the pastoral team at multi-ethnic Anglican Church of Christ Our Peace (International). Heidi is involved in medical outreach to several communities. In addition, SAMS Missionaries Jesse and Sarah Blaine are focused on church planting, outreach, and discipleship with the Anglican Church of Cambodia. Jesse serves as a priest and Sarah ministers with the youth and is training young women in the faith. The Lord is working in the Anglican Diocese of Singapore and the Deanery of Cambodia where your SAMS Missionaries serve:

Space is tight in the Phnom Penh chapel where Cambodian Anglican Christians have gathered to worship on a Sunday morning.

“If you can’t find a seat, just stand for a few minutes and seats will open up when the children go to their Sunday school,” advises Pastor Jesse Blaine, a Khmer-speaking American who leads the congregation.

Circulation fans whir in the quaint rented space that offers stained glass windows and a central location in the bustling Southeast Asian city, but no air conditioning. The church has posted significant growth in the past year. A missionary outpost of the worldwide Anglican Communion, it is one piece of the growing Christian community in Cambodia, where church attendees weigh the truth claims of Christianity a generation removed from the Khmer Rouge genocide.

A Rapidly Changing City

Blaine preaches on Matthew Chapter 19, his Khmer peppered with recognizable brands: B-M-W, Ferrari, and Lamborghini. The message is about the rich young ruler who is dismayed to learn that he must give up the material things he loves in order to follow Jesus. Members of the congregation nod. Blaine later shares that foreign investment—some of it legitimate, some not—has brought new wealth and materialism to Phnom Penh. The neighborhood in which the Church of Christ Our Peace (CCOP) Khmer ministers bears little resemblance to its appearance just a few short years ago. An upscale gym near the church advertises an $800 annual membership, a price unimaginable to most Cambodians. A new Bentley dealership has also opened.

The Khmer Rouge regime-initiated genocide, which resulted in the deaths of between one-quarter and one-third of the Cambodian population in the late 1970s, left little church presence. Christians, along with any western-educated Cambodians, were targeted by the atheist regime. The church—like the 19th-century French Gothic Roman Catholic cathedral in Phnom Penh, torn down stone by stone—was nearly completely wiped out.

Ten years after the genocide ended, only a few hundred Cambodian Christians survived. Today, that number has increased to approximately 150,000 Christian believers, according to Blaine, making it one of the fastest growing Christian populations in the world. Some estimate that 2-3 percent of Cambodia’s citizens practice Christianity. According to the Pew Research Center approximately 97 percent of Cambodia’s population follows Theravada Buddhism.

Protestant missionary activity in Cambodia dates to at least 1923, but the church grew slowly. Anglican Church activity began in 1993 after the Archbishop of Canterbury wrote to the King of Cambodia asking permission to form a worshiping congregation in Phnom Penh. Three Anglican churches now minister in the city, with four mission extensions in the provinces.

“Serving in Cambodia is very challenging for many different reasons,” explains Blaine. “There is a very strong ‘cultural inertia’ towards retaining their culture, their historical background. For many Cambodians, it is difficult for them to consider something beyond what they’ve already known. On the flip side, it is very difficult for many young Cambodians because they want to chart a new path for themselves and the country going forward. As they do that, it’s hard for them to find role models. It’s hard for them to find ideas and pathways that they can pursue.”

Blaine explains that a successful Alpha (introductory Christian beliefs) course this past autumn and a personal finance training course are pushing the church out into the community and forcing them to find ways to creatively bring people into the church.

“Our hopes were to have 8-10 people for each [Alpha] session, and we ended up averaging about 30,” Blaine shared. “It was a pure joy on our parts to welcome several participants into the family of faith and we look forward to baptizing them in February,” Blaine explained that the Alpha course helped the disproportionately young congregation articulate their Christian beliefs. Two more Alpha sessions are planned for 2018.

Blaine is also instructing his flock on the importance of the sacraments. The congregation has increased from having communion only once a year, to twice a year, to now monthly. Later in 2018, the congregation will have communion weekly.

Dania Prak attends the morning prayer service at CCOP. She is an English-speaking Cambodian who once lived in the struggling neighborhood adjacent to the church that is now transformed with western brands and boutique hotels catering to foreign tourists. Prak remembers that as a small child the free biscuits lured her to church. She kept returning—and created mischief during Sunday school. But the Gospel message took hold in her heart, and now she is a key lay leader in the congregation.

The Rev. Steven Seah leads a tour of the future sanctuary of the Anglican Church of Christ Our Peace in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo: Jeff Walton / IRD)[/caption]

The Khmer congregation has outgrown its small chapel, but there will be more room when the congregation’s new building—shared with the English-speaking international congregation—is completed in mid-2018. The eight-story building replaces the congregation’s original re-purposed villa and is slated to open in June. Classrooms, offices, guest apartments, and a sanctuary seating more than 300 persons will facilitate ministry. A separate large meeting space will permit the Khmer congregation to worship simultaneously with the international congregation.

In Transition

The Rev. Gregory Whitaker, who leads the International Congregation at the Church of Christ Our Peace, says that the congregation has found itself serving a highly transient community of educators, doctors, and non-government organization (NGO) workers.

“The challenge is not to see them as appendages or someone whom ‘oh, you’re only here a short time and it doesn’t matter what we do with you because you’ll be gone.’ If we adopt that mindset, then 70 percent of the church goes unpastored,” Whitaker explained.

On a typical Sunday, between 140-200 internationals and English-speaking Khmer meet in an auditorium for a 90-minute liturgical worship service that also features a praise band and evangelical songs. According to Whitaker, only about five members of the congregation have an Anglican background. Families with kids, Canadians, Nigerians, and Americans are in attendance.

Anglicans are also ministering among the sizeable Khmer-language ethnic Chinese population, nearly 80,000 strong in Phnom Penh, some of whom hail from the Chinese diaspora and others from mainland China.

At Church of the Good Shepherd (COGS) in Phnom Penh, one visiting Chinese pastor is in the process of relocating after police shut down his Bible school in China. Cambodia has relatively few religious restrictions, and enterprising pastors see the growing ethnic Chinese population as receptive to the Gospel.

Congregants sing songs in Khmer at a recent Sunday service, some of which are Taiwanese compositions instead of songs translated from English. A multi-ethnic feel permeates the space; two recently arrived students from Beijing introduce themselves. The pair will learn Khmer and then teach Chinese, with the ambitious goal of leaning the language in four months.

Rokakos Field Visit

Outside of the city, ministry takes place at informal rural preaching stations, including a small tidy building in Rokakos, where young children pile in for games and stories.

Ministry in Rokakos, by necessity, looks different from that in Phnom Penh. According to The Rev. Steven Seah, Associate Dean for Cambodia, the congregation has only three adults but dozens of children—up to 200 came on Christmas Day. The difficulty of ministering to so many children with little adult help has led to the goal of discipling a smaller number of children who, as they grow older, can serve as leaders to educate the younger children.

Children, Seah notes, are far more receptive to the Gospel than their parents, although parents encourage them to attend church ministries because they see value in the structure and moral instruction that the children receive.

Nass Sowannia, a Khmer lay pastor at the site, says they could do a lot here if they had more help.

Church growth has also been facilitated through ministries like Project Khmer Hope (PKH), where vulnerable young people in Kampong Speu Province learn skills and are discipled. Begun as a ministry of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Singapore, PKH has identified ways at-risk children can achieve financial security by preparing for work in Cambodia’s growing hospitality sector.

Susan Gok speaks with hospitality trainees at Project Khmer Hope before their morning departure for internships in Phnom Penh. (Photo: Jeff Walton/IRD)[/caption]

Susan Gok served as cabin crew with Singapore Airlines for 15 years, became a Christian in 2001, and eventually came to Cambodia to serve at PKH. With a background in hotel/hospitality management, she trains the approximately 50 people ages 17-23 who cycle through PKH’s two-year program each year. English is taught the first year. First and second year students can be placed in internships with hotels, including some of the top hotels in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.

Many of the trainees become Christians—48 were baptized last year—and the program has grown from placing trainees from its first graduating class in 2006 in three hotels to 15 hotels today.

“[Our] ongoing prayer request is that God would raise up leaders, Cambodian leaders, from within the congregation, maybe from within Alpha groups or within the financial peace group,” Seah reports, “people who have a true heart for the Lord and heart for their country.”

By Jeff Walton

By Jeff Walton

Communications Manager for the Institute on Religion & Democracy

The original story can be found here.
Four Funerals and a Wedding

Four Funerals and a Wedding

“Johann, you cannot plan anything for
December or January. Seriously, the country closes down during that period.”
Sage advice as this is exactly what happened…even some churches in southern
Namibia shut their doors as people flocked to the coast to get away from the
heat!
My aunt had died early December…she was the
last of that generation…and I was asked to participate in her funeral. It was
an interesting funeral as three denominations led the service, Roman Catholic,
Lutheran, and Anglican! A rather petite nun stole the “show” with her rendition
of Psalm 23…she was so precious we nearly stole her! There were so many folks
present that we have not seen since 1996…some were mere babes in arms back
then! So it was a good time to catch up as well…
Then, as many members of my family are not
churchgoers per se, it turned out that the ashes of three dear family friends
(also related to us by marriage) had not yet been scattered…so we scattered
them on the beach in front of their old home using the short Prayer Book
service. It was a special and memorable time. So, four funerals…
During this time we heard that my cousin’s
daughter is getting married in June…and they asked if I would preside over
their wedding service. This is a great honour indeed! It is scheduled to take
place at the Kalahari Anib Lodge in Namibia, the first week in June. So, one
wedding…
Today we had a meeting to discuss our 2018
schedule…it turns out we are tentatively booked solid until the end of October
already! We are trying to space our training sessions a little better than we
did in 2017 as we pretty much ran ourselves into the ground by the end of the
year. Not good, but this is a HUGE Province and there are still so many areas
we have not been able to access yet…like Lesotho, Angola, Namibia, and Northern
Mozambique…not to mention St Helena Island!
We are hoping to do some training in
Namibia around the same time as the wedding and Northern Mozambique following
that. But we really need a reliable and suitable vehicle in order to get
there…the roads, especially in Angola and Mozambique, leave much to be desired.
Please pray that we will be able to raise the necessary finances for such a
vehicle soon! We intend to visit these areas in winter (May, June, July, August
here), as the heat is simply too much to handle!
Dear friends from Addis Ababa, The Very Rev
Roger and Dr Lynn Kay, will be stopping with us in January. In February we are
training in Zululand, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Polokwane, and Johannesburg (we will be
teaching Foundations in Johannesburg this time – the second of the four modules
– yay!). In March we will be training in the Diocese of Cape Town (Youth) and then
later in Klerksdorp. We are then hoping to visit the US in March and April. We
haven’t yet met two of our five grandchildren, so we will spend time with them,
as well as with many supporters. Heyns and Hanna have planned to have their son
baptised while we are there, for which we are grateful. Please pray for
speaking opportunities and for new contacts as well. Our support is still not
quite up to snuff.
In May, June, and July we plan to be in
Namibia and Mozambique. We have made some great contacts in Mozambique and hope
to be travelling up with two short termers who know the lay of the land. They
will also be our Portuguese sparring partners here…so maybe we will finally
learn more than just hello, how are you, thank you, and goodbye! August and September
will be spent preparing for the biannual Anglicans Ablaze Conference in October
…they are expecting more than 3000 participants this year! We have never done
this before, but those who have say it is absolutely exhausting, but totally
worth it. We will let y’all know once we are through our first one!
And then it will be November…but we haven’t
planned that far yet.
So, it looks like we have our work cut out
for us! Thank you for your prayers, your encouragement, and your on-going
support. I know I sound like a defective CD (stuck record doesn’t cut it
anymore!), but we really can’t do this ministry without you! So, thank you,
thank you, thank you…
I hope you are as excited about this year
as we are…so many yet to train that will be enabled to train others! Come along
with us on this thrilling adventure!

Johann and Louise
And None Shall Perish: The Church in SE Asia

And None Shall Perish: The Church in SE Asia

We lived in the island nation of Singapore as expats in the early 80s and considered the Anglican church we visited “sleepy” and moved on to join a multicultural, Spirit-filled Presbyterian church. But the Lord was at work and through a powerful movement of the Holy Spirit the Anglican church came to life and grew in numbers, commitment, discipleship and mission.

As Michael Green chronicled in his exciting book, Asian Tigers For Christ, it was a mighty outpouring that has grown across the Province of South East Asia and spanned the twelve time zones and half a billion residents of SE Asia. Even though Christianity has doubled in Singapore since the 80s, Christians are still only 20% of this strategic, multicultural nation. The Diocese of Singapore has a unique approach to barriers and challenges. When Singapore MRT (the subway), needed a portion of their colonial St. Andrew’s Cathedral grounds for a station, the Diocese responded boldly by building a welcome center and coffee shop adjacent to the new station. Even though proselytizing is illegal in Singapore they have planted a church in a rehabilitation hospital, have led in Autism education, community services,healthcare and have sought to serve the nation in many creative ways.

Through evangelism, church planting, discipleship and commitments to ministry, a charism for international missions has grown. With the establishment of the SE Asian Province and a huge financial commitment to missions, Singapore reached out to establish missionary deaneries in the six surrounding countries of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal and Indonesia in the ’90s. Singapore went for the long game, carefully studying, praying, and discerning how the Lord would have them reach each people group and culture for the Gospel. They moved forward with a unique combination of patience, impatience, and holy boldness. Early in this process Singapore considered the mission vision too daunting and significant to do alone and reached out to invite partners from mission agencies, such a SAMS, dioceses, parishes and provinces across the world.

SAMS-USA alone has contributed ten missionaries and short-term Bridgers and has a contractual relationship with Singapore in this SE Asian mission, as does the Anglican Church in North America. Mission partners for this Consultation Roundtable have grown to 24 countries, four Provinces, 16 Dioceses, 26 mission agencies and 225 delegates. Through worship, workshops, scholarly papers and great fellowship the tri-annual gathering, hosted by the Diocese and the Province of SE Asia, educates and inspires.

So, what has happened with this bold mission vision? Now more than 12,000 Anglicans worship in these six SE Asian deaneries and ministries and missions are growing. Missions include language centers in some countries, schools or preschools in others, university student centers, farming, justice issues, whatever seems to be the best way to reach out to that culture and to build indigenous leaders.
In the past nine years, we have had the privilege to witness ministry and to serve in missions in Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal and another Asian partner, Myanmar. We have seen sacrificial commitment and exciting fruit born out of prayer, strategic planning and godly partnership. The need is great and the time may be short, please prayerfully consider how you might raise interest, workers or contributions to this SE Asian harvest.

By Carol Rogers Smith.

Carol is the Vice President of E412 Ministries. Her husband Clark Smith is a SAMS Board of Trustees member. When they are not supporting missionaries and ministries around the globe, they reside in Savannah Georgia. Learn more about E412 here.

 

 

Is God calling you to serve in SE Asia? Discover the many opportunities available here.