One Prayer Cambodia Update: Young Monks

An update from the One Prayer church planting movement in Cambodia

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He will bless those who fear the Lord, both great and lowly. ¹⁴ May the Lord richly bless both you and your children.¹⁵ May you be blessed by the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Psalms 115:13-15 (NLT)

Those who go out to share the good news of Christ leave a trail of blessing in the families they reach, especially among Cambodia’s youth and children, who make up 50% of the population. You can clearly see God’s blessing in the life of “Ben” and his family.

Ben is a typical 14 year old Cambodian youth. Like 85% of Cambodians, he lives in a rural village with his family and works on the farm. He is required to go to school, but is not highly motivated, so he finds himself “walking around” a lot, as he describes it. Although he is growing up in a deeply religious Buddhist culture (95% of Cambodians are Buddhist) and dutifully attends rituals at the pagoda with his mother, he describes the experience like this, “I follow my mother to the pagoda but I do not really understand much. I am not really interested. It seems to have no meaning to me. Other religions do not really interest me either.”

Then one day a man named “Peng” came into his village. Ben says, “He came to our village and shared about God and about the good news of Jesus Christ. At first, I didn’t want to hear about Jesus, but every time Peng came to our village he would take time to visit me and my family. For six months I learned about God from the word of God as Peng shared it with us. Now I pray to God and learn word of God at home with my mother. After I understood clearly about God’s love for my life, I decided to believe Jesus Christ to be my Lord and Savior. Since I trusted in Jesus Christ, my life has been changing from day to day. I have happiness, true peace, hope and joy in my heart. I stopped just walking around and wasting time. I now obey my mother and help her do to housework. In my schoolwork, even my grades have improved!”

Ben has also learned of God’s special blessing in answer to his prayers. He relates this story, “One day my neighbor lost one of her earrings. I and other people tried to find it, but we couldn’t, so I had an idea, I prayed to God and suddenly I saw the earring, I picked it up and I gave it to her. I know that it was because I have God leading my life and He will help me when I need Him. I thank God that He has forgotten all my sins and is helping me be freed from the sins of my past and lets me know Him and His love for me.”

Comments

[Kristin Baker]

Ok, I know you're busy and all, but there is a tragedy occurring here. You are married to a beautiful and talented writer. You have access to thousands of stories of Jesus transformations like Ben's...remember the cookie sermon? Share the wealth, dude...share the wealth. : )
(P.S. Thanks for your kind words at SWAT. I hope I get to meet Esther in heaven. She sounds awesome.)

[Rental Property Chicago]

Thank you for this nice post. The story of Ben made me smile, and gave me encouraging words. God is really real. He does answer our prayers.