CHÚC MỪNG NĂM MỚI 2025

Romans 10:9
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Wow, it is 2025 already! And Happy Lunar New Year!

Thinking back to 2024, a highlight from early December was the joint Hope Churches baptismal service. When we arrived at the baptism location, we were once again reminded of some of the hard realities and challenges that these young believers face from their families. The actual number of people present to get baptized was lower than those who had signed up to get baptized. Many of them were teenagers, who, when baptism day came, their parents didn’t allow them to participate for various reasons. Pray that these young believers continue to trust in God and that their faith continues to grow and deepen with their understanding of His word. Pray that they are able to openly share their faith with their unbelieving families.

We are grateful to be able to partner with another ministry that aims to provide Vietnamese bibles wherever it is needed. What a blessing to be able to share this resource with not only all the Hope churches, but with others who are also co-laborers in Christ to reach the Vietnamese in Cambodia. We were able to resources churches and partners with approximately 700 bibles these last two months. It was exciting to see the joy on the faces of those receiving a Vietnamese bible of their own. Praise God for partnerships!

Jan 11 was the general meeting for the Hope Churches and a new Committee needed to be elected for the next term. However, there were only a few people able to serve. As a result, those same few people were voted into the committee again. These offices of leadership are important as the Hope Churches continue to develop and grow. We see how the current leaders are discouraged by the seemingly few possible individuals who “can” serve. This still is the crux of why we see leadership development as a vital part of reaching the Vietnamese communities in Cambodia. Pray that God will give us new ideas and pathways to engage and train new leaders. Pray for Dave as he walks alongside these pastors and lay leaders. Pray that the local church leadership will be open to new ideas and that God will give us wisdom in how to set goals and plans together.

We continue to find joy in building relationships with the Scholarship Students, many of whom are already leaders or are potential future leaders in their respective churches. This past Saturday, we had our first meeting of the year, where we emphasized the importance of continued growth in our walk with Christ. We talked about how building healthy habits are often so difficult when you do it alone, and so if we encourage one another and keep each other accountable, we can better succeed. We are going to try to walk through David Chotka’s book “Living Out the Lord’s Prayer – Line by Line”. It has been recently translated into Vietnamese, so we are excited for this resource to use with our students!

We praise God for the relationships we were able to develop over this past year. We praise God in how we were able to be listening ears, to be there for the joys and the sorrows. We thank God that we could take part in dreams and discussions regarding what is next for the Hope Churches. We praise God for how He has allowed Joyce to continue to develop in her Vietnamese language skills so that she can communicate better in the heart language of those we are in community with. Praise God that Joyce was able to finish the Abundant Life workbook in Vietnamese with a pastor’s wife. This has helped her build vocabulary to use in leading devotionals in different situations as well as having great discussion on the importance of the basics of Christianity. Being able to send messages of encouragement in Vietnamese has opened new avenues for Joyce to connect with different women and students, to pray with them, and to have deeper conversations.

Thank you for lifting all these items up in prayer,

Blessings

David, Joyce, Jadon, Elisabeth and Josiah

This is the lastest updated information from Joshua Project (March 2024). The areas marked in brown indicate where the Vietnamese or concentrated in Cambodia. Please see https://joshuaproject.net/people_groups/12700/CB for more detailed information about the Vietnamese Diaspora in Cambodia.

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Praise and Prayer
- Praise God for the locals that we work alongside. They have such a heart sacrificial heart to serve God.
- Pray for wisdom as we work with local leaders to expand His kingdom in Cambodia.
- For our focus on leadership development, that we can have new pathways and ideas that are from God to raise up more leaders.
- Pray for God to lead the Hope Churches as they elect persons to fill the still open oppositions in the the Women and Youth Ministries role.
- Pray for God to pour out his protection, strength, power and wisdom and Holy Spirit upon all our leaders.
- Pray for the partnership between the churches and the New Hope elementary schools. Pray for better understanding of how to work together to reach their communities.
- Pray for our children as they have just begun their second semester of school at Hope International school. (If you have a heart to serve overseas in an international school, please reach out to us)