February
A Report from Cambodia
Based on statistics, there are 869 saints in Cambodia, including 264 who attend the Lord’s Table Meeting and 340 in the church life. Since the pandemic that started in 2020, the saints have been unable to come together for blending conferences and trainings due to safety concerns. Last year, through the brothers’ fellowship, the churches in Cambodia were divided into 5 groups in order to enter into and enjoy the seven annual feasts. The brothers would first get into the messages of these seven annual feasts and then translate these messages into Khmer and make videos of them. In such a way, all the brothers and sisters can enjoy the Lord’s timely speaking. In these conferences, the saints were strengthened and supplied by the Lord’s speaking and actively participated by sharing their enjoyment with one another.
The Church in Phnom Penh
Phnom Penh is the capital of Cambodia with a population of more than 2 million. The number of saints in the church in Phnom Penh is 242. Since the pandemic outbreak in Cambodia in March 2021, the church life activities, including the Lord’s Day meetings, prayer meetings, small group meetings, home meetings, and the service fellowships all went online. At present, the number of active saints in the church life in Phnom Penh is about 80, and the average number meeting on Lord’s Day is 65. In the last two years, the church life and services of the saints have certainly been affected by the pandemic, yet the saints were sustained to practice the church life in a new way through the use of the internet. The saints also learned to take care of and shepherd people by having home meetings online.
Although our physical bodies are subject to many restrictions during this time, the Lord is ever victorious, and His word grew continually among us. About 50 saints from the church in Phnom Penh watched the messages of the seven annual feasts in the nationwide online blending conferences and entered into the Holy Word of Morning Revival week by week after the conferences. In addition, the saints came together online every Monday morning for PSRP in order to be constituted with the word. The saints also set up online groups for morning revival, for Bible reading in the evening, and for pursuing ministry books. By doing this, an atmosphere of pursuing the word of the Lord was established, allowing the word to dwell in us richly.
During the pandemic, the saints could not go out to knock on doors to preach the gospel. The serving brothers prayed for the Lord’s leading and fellowshipped with the saints with the view to stir up a burden within them to preach the gospel to people around them. The saints were encouraged to make a list of 15 gospel friends and to pray for them that they might be saved and become remaining fruit. The saints responded well to this fellowship. They listed down the names of their family members, relatives, and friends, and began praying for them. Through the saints’ praying and seeking before the Lord, they began to invite one another to go to the homes of their relatives and friends to preach the gospel together.
The Church in Siem Reap
The number of saints in the church in Siem Reap is 170. The average number of saints meeting on Lord’s Day is 70, and the number actively in the church life is 102. Corporate morning revival is held at 6:30-7:00AM every morning, followed by the pursuit of ministry materials at 8:30-10:10AM (corporate PSRP of the morning revival material on Monday and corporate pursuit from Tuesday to Friday). Some saints also coordinated together to produce “Daily Manna” materials in English and Khmer to supply the new ones and all the saints. Moreover, we produced short audio messages to present the truth based on the ministry with the view to stir up the appetite of the saints to pursue the word of the Lord.
In the matter of the gospel, before the pandemic, we could contact people physically and invite them to meet in the homes. But since 2021, we adjusted our practice to contacting gospel friends online. This includes online language classes on Saturday and gospel meetings on Lord’s Day, which we also evaluate as we move on. Shepherding also went online. Through the use of the internet, our shepherding actually became more effective than before—both in terms of the use of our time and the frequency of new ones’ joining.
The Literature Work
Currently, there are 10 saints serving full-time with the literature work, including 7 sisters and 3 brothers. Besides participating in gospel moves and conferences, they spend their time working on literature translation. So far they have completed translating the following ministry titles: the seven Rhema booklets, the Life-studies of Genesis, John and Galatians, footnotes of the first five books of the New Testament Recovery Version, and some materials related to training, shepherding, and children’s work. They also do their best to closely follow the schedule of the seven annual feasts to complete the translation of the related Holy Word for Morning Revival. They are currently working on the translation of the Holy Word for Morning Revival for the 2021 Winter Training, which the saints in Cambodia began to get into on February 21.
Most of the saints use the 96 Lessons in their shepherding of the new ones. As for the saints who have been saved for many years, we encourage or accompany them to pursue the life-study messages. Some saints who had not been meeting for a long time were shepherded and gradually recovered back to the church life. After getting into the life-study messages of Genesis, these saints took the initiative to share the portions they enjoyed with their online reading groups. This was an encouragement to all the saints. Moreover, some newly-saved ones have been helped by the saints to read through the Recovery Version of the Gospel of John, thereby beginning the life practice of reading the Bible.
On the other hand, in order to allow more saints to receive supply from the seven annual conferences and trainings, the saints coordinated together, using the internet to share in Khmer the speaking they were most inspired with during the conferences and trainings. In this way, not only were the words of the ministry precious to the saints who had been in the church life for many years, but the new believers could also share the blessings of the speakings. In a recent conference, we encouraged some newer ones to participate. More than ten new ones attended and viewed several messages. Although some of them were not able to attend all the sessions, from their sharing we could tell that they received much supply from the messages. We hope that through every online conference, more new ones would be brought into deeper appreciation of the words of this ministry.
Prayer burdens:
1. May the Lord strengthen every saint to pick up the burden of shepherding and perfecting people.
2. Pray for the Lord to perfect the young people that they would be attracted by and constituted with the word of the Lord to become propagators of the New Testament ministry.
3. Pray for the literature work in Khmer, specifically for the translation of more ministry books to supply the needs of the brothers and sisters.
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Bangladesh
The new target city Cumilla, the second largest city in eastern Bangladesh, is located in Chittagong Division and is one of the three oldest cities in Bangladesh. There is currently a full-time serving family there. Through the fellowship of the brothers, some saints received the burden to participate in the Lord’s move there. After much prayer and fellowship with extensive preparations, on January 17, 5 saints went to Cumilla for a 4-day intensive propagation. By going out to contact people during the day and coming together in the evening to pray and fellowship, we studied the situation and determined the goal and the direction to move forward. The Lord was with us intimately and guided our footsteps. During the first three days we came across 5 open Christian homes (4 with Catholic backgrounds and 1 with Baptist), and we revisited them on the 4th day to introduce them to the local saints. May the energizing Triune God continue to move in the city of Cumilla and establish home meetings in these open homes through the follow-up visits and shepherding of the brothers and sisters. May the Lord’s testimony be raised up in this city through the continual labor of the saints!
Concerning the literature work, the three volumes of the Basic Elements of the Christian Life (Rhema booklets) were translated and 10,000 copies of each volume were printed. The Economy of God was also translated and 500 copies were printed. Up until the end of 2021, seventy percent of these books had been distributed to the saints in various localities for their enjoyment in their vital group meetings, small group meetings and other church meetings. The rest 30% will be distributed in 2022. As most of the new believers are from Hindu background and don’t have a Bible on hand, we also distributed 2,000 copies of Bengali Bible (William Kelly version) to them and encouraged them to read the Bible together. For the practical need of shepherding, we do pray before the Lord that the Recovery Version Bible can be translated soon to meet the great need of this country.
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