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.
For believers in Jesus Christ, Easter is the ultimate celebration. We’ve made it through betrayal, death and now resurrection! Alleluia! Alleluia! The Lord is risen! If we’re not careful, though, we could see it as a culmination of the liturgical calendar and sit back until Advent rolls around to gear up for Christmas.
However, after the Resurrection, Jesus promised His Holy Spirit to empower His disciples to be His body and bring His kingdom to the earth. Specifically, He imparted boldness and power to bring His message of healing and salvation to all the families of every nation, starting at home in Jerusalem and extending to the ends of the earth. This promise, though, was coupled with a mandate, so the “go and make disciples of all nations” is not optional. Said positively, everyone gets to participate!
Anne leading a workshop in Cambodia last year
While all believers are on mission, the how and where look different. Some are called to leave homes, land, and families and go to distant places. This usually requires learning a new language and adapting to a new culture. If you’ve never tried it, this is not an easy task! It can be quite humiliating and overwhelming even for those who enjoy the challenge; and not all do. This definitely requires the Holy Spirit’s power! I would suggest that it is also a perfect opportunity for the Body of Christ to respond to Jesus’s command by offering support to the cross-cultural missionaries’ language and culture learning. How?
If you’re not familiar with it, I’d like to introduce you to the language and culture acquisition ministry, specifically coaching. While missionaries usually receive some type of pre-field training, there is often a lack of ongoing support once they’re on the field to help apply all the things they have learned to their specific situations. Even seasoned missionaries who go to a new setting will have different needs, which require new strategies and resources that they may not have needed or would not have worked in their previous environment. As a language and culture coach, I help learners–especially missionaries–identify language or cultural challenges, set goals, locate resources, overcome obstacles, and provide a source of accountability and encouragement through what is often a difficult and sometimes lonely journey. What’s great is that the language or culture learner actually gets to be part of the solution. We work together!
“While missionaries usually receive some type of pre-field training, there is often a lack of ongoing support once they’re on the field to help apply all the things they have learned to their specific situations.”
To give an idea of the impact that coaching can have, I will share just a few examples from the past few months:
multiple missionaries identifying and receiving freedom from shame for not being further along in their language learning (which can be a major obstacle)
a couple of missionaries shifting from avoiding speaking to actively pursuing opportunities to speak the language
several missionaries changing the way that they communicate cross-culturally to relate to the local people in a more culturally appropriate way
A language and culture coach truly partners together with the missionary to equip and enable them to bring the Gospel to those who have never heard – or in some cases water seeds that have already been planted.
Recently, a new ministry called Connect Global was birthed to encourage and provide a means for the Church to join together to support missionaries in their language and cultural acquisition journey.
If you would like to know more about this ministry, I welcome you to contact me or visit my personal webpages in the bio below. I also ask you to please keep this ministry in prayer. As we celebrate Easter and consider Jesus’ mandate as Pentecost approaches, may we hear the call to join together as the Body of Christ on His mission to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth to make Jesus known. He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia!
This article has been adapted from its original publication on the New Wineskins blog.
Anne Schaffer is a SAMS missionary, language and culture coach, and founder of Connect Global, a ministry serving to support cross-cultural workers in language learning and cultural adaptation. To learn more or connect with Anne, please visit Connect Global or SAMS, or email Anne Schaffer. She serves as a lay representative for the Anglican Diocese of South Carolina on the Anglican Missional Partnership Committee and as Vestry representative to the Mission Task Force at St. Michael’s Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Anyone who has taken part in a harvest knows the value of a team. Whether picking grapes by hand in a vineyard or using combines and grain carts to harvest a cornfield, a team of workers carries the process along. Many hands make light work, produce is picked at the optimal time, and laborers experience joy as they celebrate fruitfulness together.
The kingdom of God is like a great harvest. God is the Lord of the harvest, and, to our honor and joy, he includes his children in the endeavor. In Matthew 9:37-38, Jesus tells his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
SAMS is a missionary-sending community engaged in relationships with the global Anglican Church to reach the world with the Gospel. We desire to see the kingdom of God expand, and to see a great harvest! SAMS seeks the kingdom and the harvest in two crucial ways:
By partnering with our brothers and sisters in the global Anglican Church so that the Gospel may be known, and
By praying for the Lord to sustain today’s laborers and to raise up new laborers for his harvest.
First, SAMS partners with our brothers and sisters in the global Anglican Church so that the Gospel may be known.
As SAMS sends missionaries to minister alongside Anglican provinces and dioceses around the world, our missionaries are blessed by the cultural insight, historical perspective, and contextualized leadership of national bishops and church leaders. It’s these brothers and sisters who provide oversight and assist our missionaries in discerning how to best serve the people around them. Together, we form a team, so that believers worldwide are working together to bring the message of the Gospel to the corners of the earth. Here are just a few of the ways that SAMS is currently engaged in partnership around the world:
In Cambodia, SAMS missionaries are seeking to reach university students through campus ministries and to connect them with a Khmer church community.
In North Africa, SAMS is serving within a diocese by providing direct support to a bishop who is pioneering new ministry initiatives in the region.
In Rwanda, SAMS missionaries are partnering with diocesan leaders to provide spiritual care to families in the midst of widespread church closures.
In Chile, SAMS is responding to a bishop’s invitation for pastoral presence and leadership in Santiago, the country’s largest city and capital, by preparing new missionaries to serve.
In the Netherlands, SAMS is helping to send experienced missionaries who will be part of a seminary faculty equipping leaders for the Church throughout Africa and Asia.
Angel receives a children’s Bible in rural Rwanda
“Ask the Lord of the harvest to send workers…” (North African street scene)
SAMS believes that our missionaries are called and equipped by the Lord – ready to serve, with sanctified spirits and imaginations to guide their ministry. At the same time, SAMS missionaries are guests in their host countries, committed to working under the established Anglican oversight within their location of service. Proverbs 27:17 states that “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” We are teammates with our global brothers and sisters for the sake of the kingdom: co-laborers in the harvest, sharpened by one another’s wisdom and experience.
In addition to partnering together, SAMS prays for the Lord to sustain today’s laborers and to raise up new laborers for his harvest.
Strikingly, in Scripture, the kingdom of God is less something that people create or fashion, and more something they receive. Prayer, then, is crucial to our participation in the kingdom. It is a posture of reliance. Prayer is the way that we call on the Lord, the giver of all good gifts and the grand designer of salvation for a world in need.
The whole Society – staff, missionaries, and senders – is united in praying that the Gospel would be known throughout the world. SAMS’ staff prays together, individually, at our churches, and on calls with and for missionaries. Our senders, too, are part of the team, praying and being prayed for as they offer themselves through intercession, friendship, financial giving, and more.
University students in prayer during a campus event in Cambodia
The SAMS community is committed to praying for the Lord to raise up new laborers for his harvest. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Won’t you join SAMS in praying for the Lord to call and equip more individuals who are willing to serve cross-culturally for the sake of the kingdom? SAMS’ desire is to see people and nations reconciled to the Father through Jesus Christ — to see the harvest increase! We wait expectantly, seeking to empower those already serving, and hoping boldly for more individuals to partner with the global Anglican Church to bring the Gospel to the world.
Chelsea Weeldreyer serves as Co-Director of Missionary Care and Mission Engagement at SAMS. She and her family were SAMS missionaries in Rwanda from 2022-2025, focusing on theological education, lay leadership in the church, and ministry to under-resourced women and children in the community. Chelsea and her husband Wade now serve together as co-directors and are delighted to retain a global focus on mission in their new role at SAMS. They have two wonderful children, Evie and William.
by James Long, SAMS Associate Missionary to Indonesia
One old theologian used to describe ministry as “watching God work,” and that comes awfully close to the nub of it. The Lord is not only the wind in our sails, but also the hand on our rudder. He sends us where he wants and when he wants, and on this recent mission I felt that old familiar sense that I was being carried along according to his purposes.
I spent the end of January in Bali at the school I had seen go from an old ruin into a beautiful seminary. The seminary aims to draw students from every Island of Indonesia, then send them back to minister all across the archipelago. Dean Stevanus had asked me to teach church planting, something I had never taught before. With much help from the Holy Spirit I focused, not on human strategies, but upon the patterns found in Acts. The invisible purposes of God were powerfully on my mind, as I considered how many miracles had been made manifest in the planting of Providence Anglican Church in Pluit, Karawaci, and Canggu. With the Pluit congregation being the only one to survive the pandemic fully intact, the point is pressed home that God’s ways are unsearchable. He is sovereign and our role is simply to do what he gives us to do with the gifts he gives, and with the time and energy he allots. The results are up to him. I knew these students were likely to face similar challenges, and that they need to see that from the biblical perspective that faithfulness is success.
The following week I spent at St. Paul’s seminary in Bandung. Bandung is home to the Sundanese, the most unreached people group of Indonesia. St. Paul’s draws mainly local people and has provided ministers for the churches planted in its region, and beyond. I was assigned three courses to teach in one week, and once more the Spirit guided, and the work was blessed. Not only students but staff and parishioners from the local Anglican churches came to participate. My lectures never went over time because the public prayers from directly across the street from St. Paul’s rang out at six o’clock each evening and were so loud that class had to come to an end!
Sundays were filled with preaching engagements and other days I was running from meeting to meeting, but the highlight was my final day in Indonesia when I met with the son of one of the members of ourcongregation. I was invited to share the good news about Jesus with him, and together with a small group gathered in my hotel lobby, we went from Genesis to Revelation. This teenage boy’s face was receptive, and the miracle only God can do, appeared to be done for him as he prayed to embrace Jesus as Savior and King. What a privilege to be able to share Christ in Indonesia!
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph. 3:20-21)
Ugandan Healthcare Projects Advance thanks to Apprentices Guided by Good Leadership
For the past nine years Patrick Lutalo, a Denver-based commercial carpenter and a SAMS Bridger, has spent many nights huddled over blueprints while on a video call with his construction workers and apprentices working in Uganda. This close coordination has been the key to his leading others in the work to construct the kind of healthcare facilities that are much needed in this rural part of sub-Saharan Africa. Patrick and his team of construction workers have been so busy building its meant that Patrick travels back to his native country up to three months out of the year. In partnership with the Church, Patrick’s organization has already completed a maternity clinic near Mityana, called the Naama Maternity Clinic, a much-needed facility in a country that annually tops the ranks with some of the highest birthrate populations in the world. In its first year of operation in 2022, the clinic had already helped mothers deliver over 400 children there, and today it is in constant use.
Naama Maternity Clinic was finished in 2022. It is in constant operation today.
Outpatient Healthcare Center
Today Patrick and his team are beginning the final phase of a building project to construct the 18,500 square foot, two-story Outpatient Healthcare Center in nearby Myanzi. It’s been a three-year project that Patrick and his team of workers plan to finish in December 2026. The ultimate goal of the facility is to serve the surrounding rural communities with outpatient care in this region of central Uganda currently with a population of over 100,000 people. The Anglican Diocese of Mityana is partnering with Uganda Christian University to staff the healthcare center once it’s completed with nurses and other healthcare workers. It will provide and enable much needed preventive healthcare and annual exams, women’s healthcare combined with public healthcare, radiological and lab services, as well as immunizations and disease research.
Water and power needs
Even though the plans are to begin occupancy of the Healthcare Center this December, water and electricity are crucial next steps for the Center to be fully operable. Patrick and his team are currently looking for those with expertise in establishing a well-water system as well as a power system for electrical generation. There is no current piped water supply anywhere near the healthcare center, but fortunately, the water table in this part of Uganda is very high and so the team doesn’t anticipate that finding water will be a problem, especially with the rivers and the Lake Wamala watershed close by. However, they are looking for someone with the resources and the expertise to construct a well water and filtration system to connect to the hospital’s tanks.
Additionally, the healthcare center will require either an off-grid standalone Solar Photovoltaic (PV) system with battery storage or a hybrid system that combines solar panels with a backup fuel-based generator in order to reduce the size and cost of the battery bank, ensuring continuous power during low sunlight periods. Patrick and the board members of Teach Men to Fish, the non-profit enabling these projects, are seeking resources and expertise to build and install this kind of standalone power system.
Apprentices Sustain the Projects
Over the past 30 years Uganda has placed much emphasis on healthcare and education across the entire country. This has significantly improved health outcomes for many people, and the young people of Uganda are better educated now than they have ever been. And yet this has created a problem with many well-educated young people available and desiring to work and support themselves, but who cannot find jobs. Uganda’s economy simply can’t supply the kind of labor demand needed to employ its young people, regardless of their education level.
Patrick experienced this firsthand while in Uganda in 2017. He was worshipping at the Cathedral in Mityana one day and met some young people there. They were mostly teenagers with some who were in their 20’s who needed work. What they shared in common is that they hadn’t had the opportunity to go to school. Patrick listened to their stories and afterwards he asked himself, “What can I do to help? How can I begin to address this situation?” He also heard how many of these young men’s friends were migrating to urban areas in Uganda with no skills, but in search of work. Many were making the wrong choices and getting in trouble.
Patrick’s Call
Patrick realized that the Lord had blessed him with a family and a good job in the United States. He’d had an opportunity to go to school, acquire skills, and even apprentice in the U.S. Yet he had continued to travel back to his homeland to visit family and friends. One day while in Uganda he found himself in the town of Mityana where God began laying in front of him an opportunity to help those in need. God didn’t ask Patrick to start something he didn’t know how to do. He called him to start the same kind of relational apprentice program that brought young men into fellowship with one another centered on the Gospel and learning a trade together. He began the program in 2017 and designed it so that it took three years for the participants to complete. They began by learning the fundamentals: How to use a carpenter’s square and a tape measure, and they progressed from there learning how to use power tools, work with concrete, masonry, rebar, to conduct field surveys, read blueprints, render plaster and many other skills. They took field trips to building sites. In their third year they put their skills to the test by building the Naama Maternity Clinic, and with just apprentices and other workers and with Patrick travelling back and forth to train and oversee, they completed construction in 2021.
The fruit of all this vocational training is the Lord’s doing. The Diocese of Mityana benefits the community with new healthcare capacity. The people of the region benefit with better health outcomes. Healthcare professionals benefit from gainful employment by treating the sick. The young apprentices benefit by learning skills as part of a trade that will help them become self-sufficient. And Patrick – how does he benefit? Patrick says, “The Lord led me in all of this, and has surrounded me with people who have been willing to help me. It has been the highlight of my life. Hard work, travel, and many long hours, yes, but to see young people come alive to Jesus and to make fishers of men themselves while learning how to build with skill, integrity and hard work in supporting themselves and their families – that has brought me such joy and gratitude to God. All glory to him! He has been so, so good to me, and I know he has many, many more good things in store for his faithful people in Uganda.”
Patrick Lutalo is called to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission by spiritually mentoring young people as they learn construction skills. He moved to the United States for higher education and began a career in the construction industry. As he reflected on the poverty and hopelessness of many youth in Uganda, God inspired him to share his skills in his home country in the context of Christian discipleship. With the support of his church family in Colorado, of which he has been a part since 1993, Patrick started the non-profit Teach Men to Fish. The program focuses on spiritual growth of young people to bless their community with hard work. As he equips young people to live a responsible life, he exhorts them to share with others instead of accumulating wealth. He does not want them to miss out on understanding the inheritance of the kingdom of God. Patrick travels to Uganda for three months annually. He is husband to Miriam and father to Edith, Jennifer, Abigail, and Isaac.
Exterior wall plastering, windows and roof truss construction underway last year (2025) of the Outpatient Healthcare Center
In October last year the Diocese, workers, community leaders, and people from the area celebrated the topping off ceremony when the final roof panel was placed. In 2026 workers are concentrating on all of the interior finishing work.
“Topping Off” ceremony October 2025 where the US and Ugandan flag and the cross of Christ are placed on the Healthcare Center
Architectural plans of the Outpatient Healthcare Center
Anne Schaffer is a SAMS missionary, language and culture coach, and founder of Connect Global, a ministry serving to support cross-cultural workers in language learning and cultural adaptation. To learn more or connect with Anne, please visit 
2025, focusing on theological education, lay leadership in the church, and ministry to under-resourced women and children in the community. Chelsea and her husband Wade now serve together as co-directors and are delighted to retain a global focus on mission in their new role at SAMS. They have two wonderful children, Evie and William.
Patrick Lutalo is called to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission by spiritually mentoring young people as they learn construction skills. He moved to the United States for higher education and began a career in the construction industry. As he reflected on the poverty and hopelessness of many youth in Uganda, God inspired him to share his skills in his home country in the context of Christian discipleship. With the support of his church family in Colorado, of which he has been a part since 1993, Patrick started the non-profit Teach Men to Fish. The program focuses on spiritual growth of young people to bless their community with hard work. As he equips young people to live a responsible life, he exhorts them to share with others instead of accumulating wealth. He does not want them to miss out on understanding the inheritance of the kingdom of God. Patrick travels to Uganda for three months annually. He is husband to Miriam and father to Edith, Jennifer, Abigail, and Isaac.
