After the Harvest…

Matthew 9:37-38

37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

In Matthew 9, Jesus talks about the plentiful harvest. We praise God that the harvest is still plentiful in Cambodia.  Over the past 6 months we have been able to be a part of outreaches that have seen over 25 young people commit their lives to Jesus. However, the biggest obstacle has not been people making the commitment to receive Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, but it is the work still to be done afterwards.  What happens after the harvest? How do we disciple and help these new believers build a solid foundation in their faith and continue to grow? How do we help them be firmly rooted in Christ so that they don’t get snatched away, wither or get choked out (Matthew 13); as many do in this country.

Many of the young people we encounter in Cambodia come from non-Christian backgrounds. They do not have the luxury of receiving support in their new faith at home, so we as “the church” need to respond in even more intentional ways.  We praise God that over these 6 months, we have been able to work more closely with one of these churches in the southern part of Phnom Penh to respond to this need.

After about a dozen young people came to faith at Christmas, the leaders asked us, “What’s next? What do we do with these believers?” Together we decided that the next step was to teach a new believer’s class using the Abundant Life curriculum.  After the first class one of the youth stopped coming because he realized that he was not yet a believer but still in the exploring Christianity phase.   We encouraged him to come back and join us and prayed that through learning more about Jesus and the Christian faith, it would lead him to a decision.

And Praise God!!! A few weeks later during our Good Friday outreach, this young man came forward to accept Jesus.  To say our hearts were overjoyed is a vast understatement.

It has been such a joy to co-teach the Abundant life classes alongside the local leaders.  The students are inquisitive, they are not scared to ask questions and they readily admit when they do not know the answers.  Their hunger to keep on learning about the Bible and what it means to follow Jesus has been such an encouragement to us.

This season of ministry has been filled with more preaching and teaching commitments than in the past. We are thankful that we have had the opportunity to walk more consistently alongside some young believers and leaders to build closer relationships with them.  We are praying that God continues to give us more wisdom as we think of new and creative ways to disciple and equip all those we walk alongside.  One thing that we have seen is that no matter how old you are, pictures are amazing tool in teaching.

We thank you for your consistent prayers.  Please continue to pray for these new believers. Pray also for the leaders of this church as some of them themselves are still young in their faith journey. But what they lack for in experience, they make up for in their love of Jesus and love of one another.

Pray also pray for us as we walk alongside these new believers and leaders in this particular season of our ministry in Cambodia.  Pray that we can continue to empower them to become the harvesters of the vast harvest that is still to be reaped among the nearly 1 million Vietnamese in Cambodia.

Blessings

David, Joyce, Jadon, Elisabeth and Josiah

Joshua Project – Vietnamese in Cambodia: https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/12700/CB 
Nguyens in Cambodia Facebook: www.facebook.com/djnguyen.ca
The Alliance Canada Global Ministries page: https://thealliancecanada.ca/global-ministries
The Alliance Canada Bio Page: https://thealliancecanada.ca/gift/david-and-joyce-nguyen