Select Page

I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:11

Greetings,
This past week marked the second time that we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving in Cambodia. Last year our family was in Phnom Penh and we had not one but two big thanksgiving dinners. This year we celebrated Thanksgiving in Siem Reap with our Canadian C&MA team who live in Siem Reap.  While we miss being able to celebrate with the entire Canadian team, we had much to be thankful for as the food was plentiful and the fellowship was great.  We are blessed to be serving alongside international workers and nationals who all share the same desire to see the gospel proclaimed in Cambodia. 
We are especially thankful this Thanksgiving to have Joyce’s parents visiting us in Cambodia. Our children were very thankful that grandpa once again made homemade wontons with them.
As we reflect back upon the past 14 1/2 months that we have been in Cambodia, we have much to be thankful for. Over this past year we were able to study Khmer full time and have gone from knowing just the word for “hello” in Khmer, to being able to have full conversations. We are a long ways from being fluent but are so thankful that God had provided for us some excellent teachers and a great tutor.
While our team of 4 have only been involved in the Siem Reap Vietnamese Ministry for about 3 months, we are thankful that God has already been answering some of our prayers.  It is so easy to become overwhelmed and even discouraged by all the tasks that are still ahead of us but we keep reminding ourselves that God has called us to run a marathon and not a sprint.  We are thankful that we have slowly learned more and more of the names of the children, youth and adults. They are very nice and often do not correct us even when we continue to call them by the wrong names.  
We are also thankful that we have been able to do more home visitations these past few weeks.  It has given us a great opportunity to get to know many families on a more personal basis. We want to thank all of you who have prayed for our Adult Bible Study groups.  Our Friday group has become more consistent and the families have invited us to keep coming back each week to study the Bible and pray with them.

When we arrived in Siem Reap, we kept on hearing about different people in our ministry getting Dengue Fever. We thank God for his protection and blessings of health on our family thus far. We are also thankful that despite having to start in a new school this year, our children have quickly made new friends and are settling in well. We are are slowly settling into a rhythm of life here in Siem Reap.

And of course we are thankful for each of you who continue to support us in so many ways. We are greatly encouraged when people send us emails and/or messages, so please don’t be a stranger. We love hearing from you and letting you know what we are up to as well.

Blessings

Dave, Joyce, Jadon, Josiah and Elisabeth

We are also very thankful that Siem Reap has $1 fruit shakes.  It is a very welcome treat on long hot days. This is our favourite fruit shake seller in all of Siem Reap.