This was a wonderful trip of contrasts...holding our first training in a new country of ministry, Vietnam, and visiting an 11 year old remarkably mature work in Cambodia. Here are some quick sound bites on a trip with deep impact.
Vietnam
We did our first-ever training in Vietnam with 50 people and about 70% were from provinces, very rural and made their living from farming, and the rest from the 8 million person city of Saigon. We found a number of young men and women who deeply love kids and are gifted leaders..just needed training. The movement the people are a part of has grown from 15 to 400,000 in just over 20 years. This is clearly a place where the Spirit of Jesus is blowing in a fresh way.
Two of the standout people we met were:....Guy, top picture above, has spent 3 years in prison for his faith. He has 50 acres of land which he farms and plans to spend time doing contact work with kids he hires to work in his fields and also in the local village. He had one of the kindest hearts of anyone I have ever met...."he who has suffered in his body is done with sin" 1 Peter 4:1.
Lang (second picture with Rob and I) is 21, lost his father 2 years ago, supports a mom and 6 other siblings on $550/year made from rice and sugarcane that he grows on a farm, is a volunteer pastor, oversees 5 other older pastors, plus he knows over 100 kids in the local high school. He is a remarkable young leader and grabbed the idea of contact work quickly...he will go home and teach others how to spend time with kids.
The principle of joy and humor in reaching kids with the Gospel continues to be a breath of fresh air to our friends in Asia. The most basic skits would draw hilarious laughter. They laughed uproariously when their leader, Johnny, and his wife Pearl, finished with the YL kissing skit as a couple. He ate M&M's and then of course she had chocolate syrup in her mouth which oozed out after they kissed The depth of their laughter on very simple things gave us great joy.
When asked about what was most meaningful to them our last day in Vietnam, wonderful truths about incarnational ministry were shared by many: "we loved learning how to reach kids outside the church", "we appreciated learning how to give a club talk with a story and in a way kids could understand", "we are excited to do a camp designed just for kids who have never heard about Jesus", .....
Clif Davidson has asked me to help take leadership in both training the current leaders there as well as help establish a funding base here in the US to continue training but also bring on our first staff people. If you are interested in helping to start Vietnam Young Life send me a quick email and we can talk specifically about what that might look like.
Cambodia
1. Cambodia as a nation had 3 million people die in about 1000 days. Everyone with an education of any kind and their family, a gov't. official, etc., all were executed during the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge carnage between 1975-1979. Many others died of starvation or sickness working in the rice fields (came to be known as the 'Killing Fields"). We made a brief visit while we were there and I talk about it in detail in my blog. Cambodia was known as the "Jewel of Asia" with plenty of food for everyone until this devastation hit in April of 1975.
2. Today there is a noticeable lack of leadership in the country...no surprise given what the country has been through.... That is why Pyneath, our national leader, is so remarkable. Eleven years ago Bob Reeverts selected him out of three young men who had been presented to him by a group of pastors who wanted to see YL start in their country. He started doing contact work and leading kids to Christ. Today we have many spiritual generations that flow from Pyneath....ie., he led Sophe to Christ...who led Sokha to Christ....who led Rita to Christ....and there are many kids each of these "senior leaders" have led to Jesus.
Kids regularly meet Jesus in the midst of this amazing ministry.
3. We have three computer labs in the three largest schools in the city. YL provides the teacher from our YL staff and they teach 5 classes of 20 kids, 100 each day. 300 plus kids are on each waiting list. The curriculum has all been written by Sophe and includes many Proverbs, bible passages, maps to the YL center away from school, an explanation of how to be sure you are going to Heaven,.....you get the idea. And the schools love us.
4. There are three Community Centers where kids come after school for tutoring, use computers in our smaller lab, learn English at a number of different levels, play guitar, play games, have clubs, participate in bible studies, etc. Most kids would say the two most important skills they are learning are speaking English and knowing how to use a computer....both help them immensely in future vocations.
And in the midst of this, many are meeting Christ and being discipled.
We know over a 1000 kids by name...
5. All this ministry operates on a budget of $67,000 a year. 11 staff, centers, computer labs, camp, etc. We get tremendous leverage there. Currently Cambodia Young Life survives because a handful of very committed financial partners write checks every year. However we have a huge opportunity to expand this support base by allowing donors to partner with specific staff people (staff sponsorship), pay for the lease of a center, start a new computer lab, or send multiple kids to camp. A full time staff person typically costs between $250 and $350 a month. If you are interested in this type of involvement in Cambodia send me a quick email and we can talk further.
5. And we ate frog legs, chicken stomachs, goat liver....need I say more. But so many were grateful for a cup of rice to eat at the training.
Finally, I traveled with two wonderful brothers, Clif Davidson and Rob Crawford. We laughed, cried, smiled, were filled with joy, were challenged with the sheer courage of our friends, were asked to pray for the healing of the sick, found wonderful new friends for a lifetime, and tasted the Joy of the Lord. In all of this we were deeply humbled to be used in some small way to point our friends to Jesus and kids.
Vietnam
We did our first-ever training in Vietnam with 50 people and about 70% were from provinces, very rural and made their living from farming, and the rest from the 8 million person city of Saigon. We found a number of young men and women who deeply love kids and are gifted leaders..just needed training. The movement the people are a part of has grown from 15 to 400,000 in just over 20 years. This is clearly a place where the Spirit of Jesus is blowing in a fresh way.
Two of the standout people we met were:....Guy, top picture above, has spent 3 years in prison for his faith. He has 50 acres of land which he farms and plans to spend time doing contact work with kids he hires to work in his fields and also in the local village. He had one of the kindest hearts of anyone I have ever met...."he who has suffered in his body is done with sin" 1 Peter 4:1.
Lang (second picture with Rob and I) is 21, lost his father 2 years ago, supports a mom and 6 other siblings on $550/year made from rice and sugarcane that he grows on a farm, is a volunteer pastor, oversees 5 other older pastors, plus he knows over 100 kids in the local high school. He is a remarkable young leader and grabbed the idea of contact work quickly...he will go home and teach others how to spend time with kids.
The principle of joy and humor in reaching kids with the Gospel continues to be a breath of fresh air to our friends in Asia. The most basic skits would draw hilarious laughter. They laughed uproariously when their leader, Johnny, and his wife Pearl, finished with the YL kissing skit as a couple. He ate M&M's and then of course she had chocolate syrup in her mouth which oozed out after they kissed The depth of their laughter on very simple things gave us great joy.
When asked about what was most meaningful to them our last day in Vietnam, wonderful truths about incarnational ministry were shared by many: "we loved learning how to reach kids outside the church", "we appreciated learning how to give a club talk with a story and in a way kids could understand", "we are excited to do a camp designed just for kids who have never heard about Jesus", .....
Clif Davidson has asked me to help take leadership in both training the current leaders there as well as help establish a funding base here in the US to continue training but also bring on our first staff people. If you are interested in helping to start Vietnam Young Life send me a quick email and we can talk specifically about what that might look like.
Cambodia
1. Cambodia as a nation had 3 million people die in about 1000 days. Everyone with an education of any kind and their family, a gov't. official, etc., all were executed during the Pol Pot Khmer Rouge carnage between 1975-1979. Many others died of starvation or sickness working in the rice fields (came to be known as the 'Killing Fields"). We made a brief visit while we were there and I talk about it in detail in my blog. Cambodia was known as the "Jewel of Asia" with plenty of food for everyone until this devastation hit in April of 1975.
2. Today there is a noticeable lack of leadership in the country...no surprise given what the country has been through.... That is why Pyneath, our national leader, is so remarkable. Eleven years ago Bob Reeverts selected him out of three young men who had been presented to him by a group of pastors who wanted to see YL start in their country. He started doing contact work and leading kids to Christ. Today we have many spiritual generations that flow from Pyneath....ie., he led Sophe to Christ...who led Sokha to Christ....who led Rita to Christ....and there are many kids each of these "senior leaders" have led to Jesus.
Kids regularly meet Jesus in the midst of this amazing ministry.
3. We have three computer labs in the three largest schools in the city. YL provides the teacher from our YL staff and they teach 5 classes of 20 kids, 100 each day. 300 plus kids are on each waiting list. The curriculum has all been written by Sophe and includes many Proverbs, bible passages, maps to the YL center away from school, an explanation of how to be sure you are going to Heaven,.....you get the idea. And the schools love us.
4. There are three Community Centers where kids come after school for tutoring, use computers in our smaller lab, learn English at a number of different levels, play guitar, play games, have clubs, participate in bible studies, etc. Most kids would say the two most important skills they are learning are speaking English and knowing how to use a computer....both help them immensely in future vocations.
And in the midst of this, many are meeting Christ and being discipled.
We know over a 1000 kids by name...
5. All this ministry operates on a budget of $67,000 a year. 11 staff, centers, computer labs, camp, etc. We get tremendous leverage there. Currently Cambodia Young Life survives because a handful of very committed financial partners write checks every year. However we have a huge opportunity to expand this support base by allowing donors to partner with specific staff people (staff sponsorship), pay for the lease of a center, start a new computer lab, or send multiple kids to camp. A full time staff person typically costs between $250 and $350 a month. If you are interested in this type of involvement in Cambodia send me a quick email and we can talk further.
5. And we ate frog legs, chicken stomachs, goat liver....need I say more. But so many were grateful for a cup of rice to eat at the training.
Finally, I traveled with two wonderful brothers, Clif Davidson and Rob Crawford. We laughed, cried, smiled, were filled with joy, were challenged with the sheer courage of our friends, were asked to pray for the healing of the sick, found wonderful new friends for a lifetime, and tasted the Joy of the Lord. In all of this we were deeply humbled to be used in some small way to point our friends to Jesus and kids.
