Cambodia Outreach July 2015

Cambodia Outreach July 2015

 

Neville and myself departed from Bangkok to Poi Pet, Cambodia the next day after we concluded the Thailand leg of the trip (http://dejagermw.blogspot.com) on the 12th of July 2015. We were welcomed by our friends Perlito and Peter at the Cambodian border. They took us to the local casino for lunch. It is a beautiful building and the restaurant there is quite popular. We fellowshipped and discussed the program for the week and headed to our hotel to relax for the rest of the day.

Cambodia has been suffering from international and civil war now for decades. Human trafficking, drug abuse and these kind of crimes have crippled the nation for many decades and more! All these people know is the bad side of life. Poi Pet in some areas, was still forest about five years ago. Today it is city buildings and houses everywhere! I believe it is one of the fastest growing economies or building expansions in the world! With all of this development going on, English is becoming more and more in demand and a necessity for the Cambodian people. Foreign trade is rapidly on the increase and the tourist market grew tremendously over the last few years. The church of Cambodia saw this as an opportunity to expand the message of the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus and many churches started schools. Some schools are for the higher income children, and others again is for free or very cheap to the lower income group. They teach English to the kids and Bible study is also a compulsory subject. The Buddhist parents seems not to care to much about this as they want their kids to be able to speak English and be educated. The children now become the evangelists! I strongly believe that this is a God-given strategy to the church and that God is raising up a next generation that will fear the Lord and follow Jesus! A new generation of Believers to step into the promises that God has for this amazing nation!

The Monday morning we went with Peter in to the streets to see some of the places they work and what they are panning for the future. We walked through rural areas. Many people build temporary shelters for them and their families as they migrated from other areas of the country to find work in town. Living conditions are horrible as people do what they must for survival. During the day mostly women (grandmothers mostly) and children will be at home while the men and some women work. As we walked we entered some of the houses and shared the Gospel with them and prayed together. The children are amazing! They almost stampede you as you walk! They give you smiles, hugs, hold your hand and just stare at you with great joy! I'm happy to say that this is because of missionaries that comes here more often these days and the children loves the missionaries! 

On one of our stops we stopped at a lady's house who is blind. To get into the house you have to climb into this smallish kind of tree house. The house is build on pillars because of the many waters there. Cambodian people are generally small people in stature, which made it quite scary and interesting to enter their homes! I loved the experience to be in their home to witness how they live every day. The blind lady's mother told us her story. One of the many challenges she regularly faces (except for the obvious challenges) was people mocking her. She painted her nails to make herself look pretty. Unfortunately she smudged it a bit and went over the lines with the paint. People made a lot of fun on her expense because of this! Our hearts quickly filled with compassion for this lady. We prayed for her with everything we had but unfortunately she did not receive her sight that day; She did however received freedom as she forgave those who wronged her and God's Love came in to the room and on her in a very tangible way! We will continue to pray for her!

Perlito's church is also a school. We spent a lot of time there to see what they are doing and to fellowship with all the people. There were missionaries from America, Canada, Philippines and even Israel there to help with voluntary work.  They helped with the school and the one helped with all the computer stuff. What I loved was the love amongst everybody there! We were all strangers, yet one big happy family! Neville was fortunate enough to present one of the classes in school and I walked through the different classes observing what they are doing. It was a blessing to see Neville stepping out of his comfort zone and do what it takes! He blessed the kids tremendously! 

After our time in Poi Pet we left with pastor Peter to Battambang. We met pastor Sam there at the hotel the evening for dinner and had a great time fellowshipping with him again. We also visited pastor Sam the previous year when we came to Cambodia. The following morning we left with pastors Sam and Peter to a small remote village near the border. The village people gave us a very warm welcome and we went to sit down with them on the floor to start the church service. We all sat in a circular form on the floor in the church, making the atmosphere very informal and way more intimate than just a normal church service! We started with amazing Cambodian worship as the team of mostly Philippine's who were with us, led us in worship. Neville shared a message and then I followed. Three people became born again! We also witnessed deaf ears opening up and many other healings like back pain, stomach pain and all sorts of pains and deceases! The Holy Spirit came upon many of us as we ministered to the people! Just a Blessed Holy time in His Presence!

They also prepared a feast for us and we all ate together after the service. The Asian people love rice, so we had rice together with vegetable, beef, fish and chicken dishes! In the salad there were some beef tripe. All looked very delicious and the people really did a lot of effort for us! We dished up as if we were feasting and even took seconds and thirds of the beef dishes. It was divine! The previous night at dinner pastor Sam asked me if there is anything that we don't eat. I immediately replied no, thinking I eat a lot of tripe in Africa so this should be ok; Plus the Bible says to eat whatever is set before you. So we gladly accept what the people offer in love! They told us that the beef was goat meat and we all enjoyed it without saying a word. I eat a lot of goat meat in Africa and I knew that goat looked different! The taste was also sweet, but I thought it was because of the way they prepared the meat. No questions asked, just enjoy!! 

A lady approached us after we had lunch who the Lord healed of back pain and some other things. She asked if we could please walk with her to her house and pray for her son. He suffered from many things and also attempted suicide by drinking poison. He failed but unfortunately the poison did a lot of mental damage to him. We gladly accepted her invitation and started walking to her house. On our way there the dogs quite aggressively barked at us. I first thought it was because we are white and these dogs do not know white people, or that this is demonic spirits attempting to scare us off from going to this guy. Either way, we will go fearlessly in the Name of the Lord! As we got to the house they carried a young and very thin man from the back of the house to the front and laid him on a wooden platform that looked like a bed. He was all kind of curled up and couldn't talk to us nor look at us. It didn't take much to see that this guy's self-esteem was non-existing! Our hearts broke for this guy as we got to knew his reality more. To respect culture I sat opposite him and started praying for him. Nothing happened! I decided to get out of my comfort zone and stood up and approached the guy. I put my arms around him and started releasing the Kingdom of Light into him and prayed over him. He started to show positive response! We asked him if he wanted to accept Jesus, and he did! As he repented and accepted Jesus, I got really fired up! I knew that he was a new creation! Even if in the natural nothing much had changed, in the spiritual world EVERYTHING changed! The Lord looks differently than we do. We saw a young thin man with no hope and no life; Jesus saw His son and the awesome plans He has for his life! We prayed for about half a hour nonstop and did deliverance on him. I suddenly felt the tangible love of Christ came over me for this guy. Throughout all of this he did not look up once. I stopped and asked him to look into my eyes as I knew Christ was now looking through my eyes. He didn't want to or more likely couldn't look me in the eyes. I kept my eyes locked on him being very much aware of Christ looking through me. He will not see me, but he will see Christ when he looks. A pastor saw this and took the guys head and lifted it, making him look right into my eyes. Our eyes connected for a few seconds only. This was it!!! The Love of God penetrated him and destroyed the strongholds in his life!

 

I walked with the pastor outside of the house to talk to him in private. I asked him if he would look after this guy, disciple him, teach him relationship, love him and see that he stays with Jesus? The pastor agreed to my request! The other people also quickly came outside and saw this photo opportunity. Asian people love photos! As we posed for the group photo, the guy that we just prayed for came walking out of the house and stood next to us for the photos! Jesus healed him!!! Everybody rejoiced! He physically looked different because of the new Kingdom that now rested in him! Again the dogs barked at us as we walked back to the church. Only later did they reveal the secret of our lunch! We ate local dog! On the one hand you want to freak out because of what you ate, but on the other, it really was very good! We had second and third helpings! Plus the love in which it was prepared was so humbling and amazing! It was just interesting to see how all the dogs knew that we ate one of them!

On our way back to Battambang we stopped at a mountain where a buddhist temple is and is also a memorial site for the genocide that happened a few years ago. We visited this place last year but wanted to show Neville and one of the guys from the Philippines as well so pastor Peter took us on a tour. We saw a lot more of this site than the previous year and it was good to experience a part of Cambodian history. Of course in the spirit, we had other plans; to release as much of God's Kingdom as possible in to the atmosphere! Thousands of people were brutally murdered here and I believe their blood cries out! As we walked around we released the Kingdom of Light into the atmosphere we prayed for Truth, Freedom and the Love of Jesus to be revealed to the people there. We do not fight the darkness, we simply release Light! There is a lot of stairs and it is extremely hot and humid, but we walked and prayed. I noticed in one of the many temples on this mountain a father and his small son sitting kneeled before a blue calf. The father was busy teaching his son to worship a dead cow. However sad this might be, I saw a lot of beauty in this picture of a father spending time with his son and teaching him what he knows.

The people are very friendly there and there are a lot of tourists. We walked around like normal tourists just observing the place, but in the spirit we prayed! Even the monks are very friendly, well most of them! In the one cave I went in by myself as the others didn't want to climb the stairs and Neville felt a bit sick with flu. As I walked the caves and prayed, blending in with all the other tourists around me, a group of monks came walking straight towards me. They immediately wanted to know what I was doing there and what my intensions were. The communication is a challenge so I just said that I was walking through the place. The one wanted to take a photo with me so I handed another one my phone to take the pictures. Now in Asia, one photo gets taken many times, so it is quite a timely process. I was still a bit surprised and caught off guard with their approach. The monk stood next to me and I put my hand on his shoulder posing for the photo. While I touched him I prayed in my spirit for the Father's Love to embrace him. No warfare, just love! I started feeling sorry for him as his colleague was taking a lot of photos and I could see  how the demons in his head were manifesting. His head started twitching in a funny way. I really felt sorry for the guy! But, I will not stop the love! Another one of the monks also wanted a photo with me. Firstly, they don't ask any other tourist for photos! They directly approached me! So as this second monk posed with me for the photo, he grabbed my hand and stood there smiling. He tried to squeeze my hand as hard as he could attempting to overpower my hand. He is a lot smaller than me so his task was great! If one should look at us, it will simply be two men standing for a photo, but with his hand he really tried to wrestle me! He had me by my fingers and not in the palm of my hand. There was a fleshly "Afrikaner" testosterone inside of me that wanted to squeeze the hell out of him, but instead I fed him the same medicine as his colleague, Love! 1Corinthiens 13 says Love overcomes all things. I saw here that the Scripture is absolutely true! The poor guy tried his best to squash my hand, but his head started twisting as well and he quickly lost power in his hand! This was a real good sign for me that we need to operate in the spirit and not in the flesh and that walking in praying really does more than what we sometimes give it credit for! 

We went down the mountain and waited for very long for the bats to come out. Millions of bats leave this mountains every day around dusk and only return at dawn. The evening we enjoyed fellowship and dinner with pastor Sam and his family getting to know each other better. The next day we visited pastor Sam at his house, church and school. They are busy building a three storey building which consists of classes and hostels for the children to stay. The demand for schooling and English is huge! This project was started with the help from a South African pastor who helped funded most of the project. Unfortunately the pastor got old and no one is taking his vision further. The project is now placed on hold due to insufficient funds, even though the first children are already scheduled to start their studies there. This is really sad for me! I truly believe that South Africa has seed in the ground here and we need to be good stewards of it. America is so successful for one because they have a lot of seed all over the world pioneering the way open for many. South Africa also has a pioneering spirit and we need to start leading by example. The next generation of Cambodians is a great Kingdom investment that will give return for many generations to come! If you feel that you want to invest and help pastor Sam (and even Perlito!), please contact me and I can connect you or play the middleman! 

We met pastor Perlito again half way between Battambang and Poi Pet. Pastor Peter went home and we went with pastor Perlito to Siem Riep. Together with Perlito was one of the American volunteers, a young woman. She is not born again but came and helped at the schools and church especially with their website. She was a real blessing to have with! Our time with Perlito was more relaxed in terms of ministry and we just enjoyed this beautiful country. We stopped at a huge silk fabric, seeing how they produce silk. The evening we enjoyed a massive Asian buffet restaurant seeing Eastern dances on stage and enjoying all their different foods. 

The real reason we wanted to come to Siem Riep was to visit Ankor Wat. It is a thousand year old massive temple and is the pride of Cambodia. It is the largest religious temple in the world (162.6 hectares)! Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones are but two of the movies that have been filmed there. If you ever are blessed to go there, go there very early! We arrived while it was still dark to see the sun rise over this temple. It is a breathtaking site! Absolutely amazing! We were tourist there for the day, but we had a very specific mission from the Lord. Before this trip the Lord showed me Ankor Wat and said He wanted us to go and pray there. There was a very direct and specific thing the Lord wanted to do there I believe to release into Cambodia on a governmental level; shifting the Kingdom of Heaven in place over this nation. We walked through all the big temples taking a lot of photos and enjoying God's Presence and each other's company! Ankor Wat consists of a few temples in the park. At the one temple we were privileged to walk around the temple on the back of an elephant. This was a dream come true to me! I always wanted to sit on an elephant and Jesus blessed us! Prayer-walking on the back of an elephant! I loved it!

 

As we walked we prayed and the Lord opened up visions for us on specific things that we must pray for. Also a lot of the visions we saw before we came, we now saw those things in statues as we walked giving us confirmation on what the Lord wants to do.  We then wanted to go into the king's quarters but the queue was at least 4 hours long! We went one side and sat in the shade to pray in faith from the king's quarters! In the spirit I saw that this was a governmental seat over Cambodia. Maybe not the one, but definitely one of them! We do not always fully understand all the things in the spirit as we are still growing and learning, trusting Holy Spirit to guide us. I believe He knows the bigger picture and all the details, so our understanding is not necessary for obedience. God simply needs faith!

After we left Ankor Wat we went to eat at a Korean restaurant. This was really interesting food! You order one thing the many side dishes comes "for free" with your order! The restaurant went from empty to almost full when a group of Korean people wearing the same orange t-shirts. It was Christian t-shirts! I approached one of the tables, wanting to ask if I could take a photo of their t-shirt. When I spoke to these Koreans I used a very flat and broken English so that they could understand me. They replied in perfect English as they were all Korean-Americans from a congregation that went to Cambodia for an outreach! It made me feel really small but also blessed to see the Americans reaching out the way they do! 

We drove back to Poi Pet and enjoyed a local birthday party that evening. One of the church members celebrated his birthday. On our way back we stopped at a friend of Perlito's house. He spoke our language, Afrikaans, as he is a missionary from Namibia! Him and his family has been in Cambodia now for many years. His stories are absolutely amazing as he reaches out into the very most rural areas of Cambodia. He used to be a practicing dentist, but now uses his skills in the mission field. The places they visit are so remote, that they have to cut open a road through the muddy forest. Sometimes no car can drive there so they take bikes! They have faced witchcraft, sickness, accidents, hopeless situations and many tribulations for the sake of the Gospel. He really lives a fearless life, living for the people of Cambodia to share the Gospel with them. He eats what they eat. He sleeps where they sleep. And he goes right to where they are at! It was such a honour to have met this family. People who don't only talk the talk, but they rather walk wherever Jesus leads them! Not having any excuse as to why not, but simple childlike faith and obedience. Normal Christians!

The Sunday Neville preached the morning service. He did very well and people got born again and healed! The feedback was overwhelming as people wanted to talk to him! It was really amazing to see! I preached the evening service and we also had an amazing time and experienced Gods Presence and miracles followed! Our time with Perlito and his family came to an end and it was almost sad to say goodbye! We really connected well with all of them and grew tremendously in Love for them! We would love to visit Cambodia again and we are very excited for the future of this great country!

Neville and myself went back to Thailand and rented a car and drove to a small town Hua Hin. We wanted to relax and enjoy Thailand a bit after out time in Bangkok and Cambodia. Our mission here was also to go and pray at a specific temple. We first drove to the wrong temple. The temple was in a cave and we had to walk past aggressive monkeys to get in! A mistake, maybe, but I think God wanted us here! We prayed and released the Kingdom into the atmosphere and also had some interesting experiences with the Lord and some people here. Many young westerners come here to find "inner peace". We did pray for them to have an encounter with the Prince of Peace!! The other temple (Phraya Nakhon cave) was far away and we had to take a boat around a mountain a like a million steps up and down this mountain to get there in extreme heat! I nearly gave up with this walk! When we finally arrived, it was worth it! It was not a buddhist temple as expected but the king's temple! It is a beautiful cave with a round opening at the top. Very high! Then as the sunlight shines through the bushes and into the cave, it falls on this small king's temple. This was really profound again for me and to think what kind of weight this place carries in the spirit! There is also a statue we saw on our way out that shows exactly what is happening with Thailand in the spirit and the bondage they are in. We felt how God is busy shifting things in the spirit over Thailand and He is getting ready to pour out His Spirit in Thailand in massive unprecedented ways! 

We again stopped at sister L's house where we visited before our Cambodia leg of the trip and again had a Powerful time with them in the Lord! Our flight back was booked on Ethiopian Airlines and it was at 1am in the morning. As we boarded our flight and took our seats, we almost immediately passed out with the majority of the passengers. About 5:30am I was woken up by a passenger screaming at an airhostess and immediately was irritated with the guy. I was still half asleep and looked out of the window to see that the airplane did not even left the parking bay yet! The people were very angry and some demanded to exit the plane. The staff only replied that either everybody must get off or no one but they can not only let a few passengers off the plane. It made sense to me and I decided to keep my cool. They eventually let all the passengers off the plane and guided us to a waiting area. As people were very upset and some even rude to the airhostesses as they exited the aircraft, the airhostesses almost bow down as they tried their best to remain friendly and apologise to the passengers. We decided to greet the airhostesses in a friendly manner as they are only doing their job and it is much worst for them that the plane is delayed than it is for us. Almost no one on board were friendly to them!!! When we greeted them in a friendly manner they were so surprised and pleasantly shocked, that they wanted to know where we are from and almost tried making conversation with us! After waiting in the waiting area a while they booked all of us in to the hotel. It is like a hotel in "no-man's land" because we already cleared customs. We received our room and Neville went straight to sleep. I wanted to know what is the arrangements from here on and what is the situation. I mean do I set my alarm, will they wake us up, how long etc!? So I waited for them to book in all the passengers and then approached the airhostesses. They helped all of us to be booked in to the hotel.  I politely asked them the situation and they explained that there is an engine malfunction and the engineers are busy fixing the problem so they have no idea how long it might take. Disappointed, but still friendly, I turned to go and rest in the hotel room. Just as I turned another one off the staff members (the same one we were friendly to as we got off the plane!) who saw all this called and asked how many people is travelling with me. I said we are two and she instructed me to go and call Neville immediately and say nothing to no one! They will upgrade us to the Emirates flight leaving in about 2 hours! We rushed and the airhostess helped us to book in on the Emirates flight. She even arranged for our luggage to be taken off of the Ethiopian airplane and put on to the Emirates flight! Well done Ethiopian Airlines!!! And thank you!!! We boarded the Emirates flight and it was on the new Airbus A380. It is like a hotel in the sky! We had emergency seats right in the front and service as if we flew first class! There is even free WiFi during the flight!

This is how our Father spoils His children! He loves us and looks better after us than any other part of creation! He is the best Dad EVER!!! Small spoils like I mentioned in this post and others, really makes a huge difference in our hearts as it is the Father just romancing us and expressing His Love for us. He loves you so much!!! You are worthy to be loved because the King of kings said so! You simply need to respond to the Father calling your name! Be Blessed!