by Anthony and Anna Pelloni | Jun 5, 2026 | Asia, Cambodia, Discipleship, SAMS Missionaries, Worship
One of the things that Anna and I love about the Anglican Church no matter where you are in the world is the emphasis on liturgical seasons of the church year, and daily spiritual rhythms. It is a great blessing that liturgy helps focus our sights on Christ in new ways! This year, I was prayerful about how our student dorms at Church of Christ our Peace in Phnom Penh could embody something new; something to help the leaders and students be more intentional about their faith in Christ and their fellowship with one another besides their normal rhythms of Bible studies, church attendance, and the other regular aspects of life like work and school.
One of the helpful rhythms in my own life has been adopting the Anglican Service of Morning Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) into my daily rhythm. I have found that Morning Prayer allows me to anchor my day in communion with Christ regardless of what I may be feeling or what may or may not lie ahead that day. Unfortunately for our dorms, most of the students have irregular schedules during the day due to work commitments and study commitments, making liturgical rhythms and activities challenging. I prayed about what we could offer to help the students incorporate simple but effective disciplines or rhythms into their busy lives that draw them into daily communion with Christ.
‘…Morning Prayer allows me to anchor my day in in communion with Christ and fills me up for whatever lies ahead…’
Thankfully, the BCP also has a service for Evening Prayer! This service fits our students’ rhythms a little better because most of the students arrive back to their dorms later in the evenings and they are able to close their days with communal worship with their fellow housemates living in the dorms. But why even consider something like this at all? Is Evening Prayer simply a service or thing that we or the students need to add onto their already busy lives so that they can be better Christians? Certainly not!
One of the biggest challenges for some of our students will ultimately be that they end up leaving our student dorms to go back to their province or village. Many of these students will be the first believer in their family or have no stable church community in their hometowns. One of the things we regularly discuss in our dorm leader meetings is how we can help students grow in their faith as young believers while also equipping them to have ownership over their faith after they graduate university. I shared with them a story from my own life: I became a Christian through the Cru movement in 2010 and was heavily involved during my time at university. While I was encouraged by my campus pastor to be an active member of our nearby church, looking back I never took ownership over my faith, but relied on my campus pastor and friends to spur my spiritual growth. When I graduated and my Cru community was dispersed into the world, I found it challenging to continue the rhythms I had while a student without the people and life I had known previously. I thought I was a great Christian, but I realized that I hadn’t taken ownership of any rhythms or tools I had been given to find and engage in a new Christian community in the place that God was trying to give to me.
‘One of the things we regularly discuss in our dorm leader meetings is how we can help students grow in their faith as young believers while also equipping them to have ownership over their faith after they graduate university.’
As I reflected on how impactful Morning Prayer is for my walk with Christ, I wondered if Evening Prayer could give our students a similar experience. The three dorm leaders and I talked about how we can equip our students to be faithful Christians when they leave our dorms, potentially have no believing community, and possibly no access to a stable church. After an initial Evening Prayer service with the dorm leaders, they were very excited to implement it in the dorms. By implementing spiritual rhythms in our student dorms, students who do not believe have an opportunity to experience Christ, and students who already believe have their faith strengthened within their believing community. Most importantly, it gives them a beautiful liturgy in which they are able to embody and experience genuine worship of the Lord, and which they can hopefully take with them when they leave our student dorms upon graduation. Many Cambodians do not simply become Christians upon hearing the Gospel. They often must live and practice what the faith asks of them before they are willing to commit to baptism or commit their lives to Christ. Life in the dorms, therefore, offers this opportunity to safely experience Christian fellowship in a believing community and experience the rhythms of the Church. The uniqueness of Anglicanism offers students an opportunity to experience the love of Christ grounded in Word and Sacrament.
‘Many Cambodians do not simply become Christians upon hearing the Gospel. They often must live and practice what the faith asks of them before they are willing to commit to baptism or commit their lives to Christ.’
After practicing Evening Prayer in the dorms for several weeks, one student dorm leader offered this reflection on the communal impact that daily Evening Prayer brought about for their students:
“One of the things that we noticed was that many of the students made a real effort to join for Evening Prayer every evening even though they had other things to do in work and studies. While all parts of Evening Prayer were good, the most valuable part was afterwards. We saw that many of the students would not go immediately to their rooms, but they would ask each other about their lives, what was going on, what hardships they were facing, and then continue praying for one another. We were happy to see that the students were able to be more relaxed and engaging with one another through daily Evening Prayer, especially considering that it was optional for them to participate.”
A second student dorm leader commented on one way that practicing Evening Prayer was transformative for students’ worship:
“In the beginning, it was a bit strange for us to do Evening Prayer, especially kneeling during confession [during Lent] because we never kneel during confession even at church. But the more we did Evening Prayer, the more we saw that we were not just doing this by ourselves, but we were doing these things before God Almighty. Now, on Sundays I see several students kneeling during confession because of their experience kneeling and confessing every evening in the dorm. I think we will keep confession as a part of our worship and Bible studies. (Very recently this same dorm leader shared that Evening Prayer has been so transformative for their dorm, that they are continuing to do Evening Prayer daily, and individual students are stepping up to lead different sections and scripture reading, how amazing! Even on a recent retreat I had with this particular dorm leader, I asked, “what will the students do while you are away” and he replied that the students are comfortable to lead and follow Evening Prayer even while he is away. It is truly awe inspiring to see how small acts of faithfully following Christ can have deep impacts on those around us).”
Would you please pray for our students and dorm leaders as we make plans and seek to help these students grow in their walk with Christ? Would you also pray for the students who do not yet believe that they would experience the love of Christ through Bible studies, daily rhythms, and the sense of safety of the believing community? And would you pray for one student in particular who said to our dorm leaders earlier this year that they want to commit themselves to Christ, but are not yet ready to fully commit to becoming a Christian? Lastly, pray that our student dorms are safe places for students to grow in faith and love of God and neighbor.
Anthony and Anna Pelloni serve as SAMS Missionaries at the multi-ethnic Church of Christ Our Peace in Phnom Penh, with a focus on reaching young students living in the dorms with the transforming Gospel of Jesus Christ. They feel very grateful to be serving in the Anglican Church in Cambodia and rely on support from faithful Senders through gifts and prayers. If you would like to support their ministry or hear more about their life in Cambodia they would love to connect with you via email here. Or you can read more about their ministry here.
by Anthony and Anna Pelloni | Mar 24, 2024 | Cambodia, SAMS Missionaries, South East Asia
So there I was at my furniture lady’s shop describing the dimensions for the cross we wanted made for our Holy Week services, when she says: “Are you going to hang someone on this cross???”
Some backstory: we have a wood shop who we go to for all our wooden furniture. This shop owner is a very kind lady who makes excellent quality furniture and we go to this shop because it’s a local shop that keeps Cambodians in business through their handicraft. We’ve had many furniture pieces made here and we know this lady quite well (at least as far as a relationship between a repeat customer and shop owner goes). So I came here to have a sturdy wooden cross made as quality wood is not only hard to come by in Cambodia, but it’s very expensive. I told her that I want to have a cross made and she replied that she did not know what a cross was. As I showed her a picture she showed a glint of familiarity in her eyes: “oh you want this for your church right?” Hooray! We’re getting somewhere. So I began to tell her the dimensions, 210 meters tall (7 feet) with 10x10cm thickness (about a 4×4 in the US) and she exclaimed, “wow, this is huge! Why do you need this to be so big?” I began to tell her that it needed to be big because in the bible, a man was hung on one of these. She replied, “but why do you want it to be so thick?”. I told her that to be hung on this, large nails had to be put through a mans wrists to hold him there and if the wood was too thin or the nails too small, the cross would break! She looks a little worried and somewhat hesitantly asked: “So are you going to hang someone on this cross?”
I burst into laughter and assured her no, that of course we would not crucify someone today. She let out a sigh of relief as I explained to her that the reason we want it to be big is for the symbolism and to see what it would have been like then. Sadly, this type of behavior isn’t all too uncommon to see in Cambodia where something so outlandish and crazy might happen. But in this instance, I was able to very limitedly explain that this cross would go in a church and people would see it and remember what a man did for us.
Here in Cambodia, we have many interactions like this both in English and in Khmer (the local language) where we get mixed up with what the other person means or is thinking. Most often these are funny stories that help foreigner and locals bond and become friends. I hope you have enjoyed this small insight into what it’s like to speak to a different culture!
-Anthony Pelloni
by Anthony and Anna Pelloni | Mar 6, 2023 | Cambodia, SAMS Missionaries
It’s been awhile since our family shared an update about where we are in life and ministry. In a crazy but good series of events, we are back in the US six months earlier than we anticipated! We were presented with a scenario that allowed us to step away from teaching in December (which is a lot sooner than we anticipated) and through much prayer and confirmation, we felt the Lord was giving us this opportunity to step into our new season of partner raising, ministry, and adjusting to the US after not being back for nearly four years. We arrived in the US on January 28th and it’s been a truly wild ride of transition, first time meetings, and old & new friendships, homeschooling, etc. But even though everything is new and exciting (and somewhat exhausting), the Lord and others have put this word on my mind: Abide.
To abide in something means to dwell in it. Even though our lives are made up of many seasons and they usually change and look different every time, we are called to one constant and unchanging season. A season of abiding in the Father who loves us. I’ve found a great peace in this as John wrote ‘Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.’ -John 15:4 Amidst all of the goals we have set, the meetings, speaking at churches, sharing our vision for ministry, etc etc, God still calls us to abide in his presence. And there’s a great peace in knowing that no matter what lies ahead, certain or uncertain, the Father of all creation invites us to dwell with him always.
Please join with us in prayer over our season of living in the US and raising up partners in ministry. We were recently given the opportunity to write a comprehensive article about our ministry in Cambodia for the website The Anglican Compass. If you would like to read that, you can click here.
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by Anthony and Anna Pelloni | Nov 27, 2022 | SAMS Missionaries
Last week, we hosted our 6th Thanksgiving gathering! Thanksgiving is an inherently American holiday, but even more than that it’s a way of life that God calls us too. These words from Catechesis Books, a publishing company, really sum up our heart for hosting and sharing Thanksgiving to those around us here in Cambodia.
“As many of you may know from “We Believe,” the word “Eucharist” simply means “Thanksgiving.” This word has been used for over two thousand years to refer to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. When we celebrate American Thanksgiving, I always think about the Eucharist as well – how very beautiful to be invited to and to participate in a Thanksgiving feast instituted by Christ himself in his final days!
There are some distinctly common elements shared by the two feasts – both are a participation in ordinary graces (our basic food) for the sake of remembering with gratitude what we have been given and for binding us more tightly in relationship (during the Eucharist with Christ, and during Thanksgiving with one another).”
This has been our heart, to host a Thanksgiving that fits into a larger picture of fellowship that God calls us to have with other believers. We gather, reflect on the year, and give praise to God for the wonderful things he has done for us, in us, and around us.
When we first started this six years ago, we rented large tents and invited everyone from AHIS and had 120 people! We’ve toned it down since then to more of our closer friends who we walk alongside with regularly. This year we prayed about who we will miss the most since next year we will be in the States for Thanksgiving, and it mostly centered around our Cambodian friends. So this year we invited our closest Cambodian friends and our new Norwegian friends (who had never experienced Thanksgiving before!) We are so grateful for these fellow image bears the Lord has placed in our lives.
by Anthony and Anna Pelloni | Oct 24, 2022 | Cambodia, The Church and Evangelism
On October 9th, the Church of Christ Our Peace held a very special confirmation service. One of the things that was so special was that it combined all of the CCOP congregations into one large church service with members of the English, Khmer, and Chinese being able to take part in worshiping the LORD together. CCOP is made up of three separate congregations that each meet separately on Sundays, but before Covid, we used to regularly have these types of combined services four times a year, and it is great that we are able to return back to this combined worship!
For Anna and I this was a really powerful service. For this service, Bishop Titus Chung from the Diocese of Singapore came to lead the confirmation of 23 members of the different CCOP congregations and 27 members of The Church of the Good Shepherd (a sister church of CCOP). This was the first time Anna and I have been able to witness a confirmation ceremony and many of the people confirmed had been baptized earlier this year! In addition to witnessing many people confirm their faith in the LORD, we also got to witness a member of CCOP Khmer be made a deaconess! Lina has been involved with the CCOP since 1996 and has grown in her faith and involvement in sharing the Gospel of Christ all over Cambodia. It was really powerful to witness her faith in Christ being rewarded in this way. We also were able to get a small taste of what it looks like to shift out of education and into church ministry. Anna was asked to take photos of the service and I was able to help. It was really wonderful to be able to use our talents to practically serve a need for our church and it encouraged and invigorated us for the season ahead where we can fully invest in church ministry here in Cambodia.
Would you join us in prayer for the work of the church in Cambodia and also for the future combined services at CCOP. We are looking forward to seeing the LORD call people to faith in him and seeing more people get baptized, confirmed, and choose to follow Christ! Below is a photo gallery of the service.
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