Giving which costs

Today has been our first of two days in Kandal province. The church leaders here are very motivated to learn and most of them have grasped the teaching easily. The topic of the two days here this time is "The missional lifestyle."

Before we even started with the sessions I noticed the church collection at the front. Rice, this is brought bey the very poorest people as their gift to the church. They bring rice not cash because that is what they have. A hand full of rice on a Sunday might be percentage -wise much, much more than any of us in the west give in offerings. This is an offering in the true sense of the word.

The observant among you will have noticed the Christmas tree on the stage. It has merry Christmas on it and even a snow flake although it never snows here, Cambodia is too near the equator. My guess is that it stands there all year rather like we leave a cross up in our churches all year and not just for Easter.

Below are some action shots of the team in action during the day today. There are none of me since I didn't think to ask anyone to take any.

Although not part of the team he was on the wall of the church. This little chap has a great apatite for insects including mosquitoes, something I am rather pleased about. 

We have been privileged to hear some fantastic testimony about what God is doing in the Agenda 1 churches. This pastor has his church under a tree in the village. They are experiencing growth there.

Here is a group avidly discussing how they might implement what they have just learnt in their church.

It was raining so heavily today as we finished the teaching sessions for the day that everyone stayed in the church until the rain passed. This created time for an interesting conversation, through the translator (in black top) about this ladies passion for sharing with her family, friends and neighbours about Jesus.

We are now heading off to the market-place for a meal.

Food and endings

What did you have for breakfast today? Here there is a choice of two things, marinated pork and rice or noodle soup with meat or meat balls. I chose noodle soup. Once you loose the idea that the meal you are eating is breakfast then it is fine. I had a cup or two of hot green tea as you see from the picture.

When we are here we are almost never in hotels, restaurants or place that tourists go. I love the  fact that we get to see, hear, taste and smell the country as it really is. It is an honour that I don't take for granted. There are lots of small things that remind me of that each day. One example is cutlery, there isn't any as we know it. Whether it is soup, rice or meat we use chopsticks and/or a small broad Asian-type spoon. Here is Sunniva in full control of a pair of chopsticks and a peace of meat at breakfast time. When we are hungry we learn to used them very effectively.

It was our last day in Tboung Khmum and a group photo taken. I particularly have struggled with the heat this morning. The room was very small and the air so heavy with humidity that your skin was always damp, not just arms and legs but every bit of skin was constantly hot and wet. We had only two fans for all these people.

Never the less we had a good day with teaching for us and group-work for the participants. Then we reviewed the last two days with the organisers and the last two years before coming to some conclusions about what happens next. Agenda 1 is in principle only two years long.

We then headed back to Phnom Penh to drop off the Ravnås family before continuing to Kandal province where we will spend two days holding Agenda 1 for church leaders and their leadership teams there. The journey to PP usually takes 4-6 hours but this time we were back in the capital in just over two hours!

Hot, hot, hot!

The alarm rang at 6.30am this morning. Those of you who know me well will know that early morning is not my best time of day. Here you see Markus under his mosquito net. We are getting used to the temperature here. This is evidenced by Markus saying it was cold in the bedroom, the temperature was showing 19 degrees at the time!

Today has been a very hot day with extremely high humidity. At the lunch the mini-bus driver felt so sorry for us that he offered to drive us back to the guest house. Today has been a three shower day in the hope of staying cool. It wasn't enough, we have all been running with sweat all day. Teaching and leading in this climate is the most challenging thing about the trip. 

Something else which is very warm is the way we are received by the church groups. This is our fifth trip to this province and lots of the people are well known to us and we are met with genuine warmth and joy. Here are a few people as we are starting.

 Language is no problem with a bit of goodwill and some hand signals. Here Åshild is playing with a new friend.

Tom Kenneth teaching. The whiteboard is balanced on a number of plastic garden chairs and tied fast with farm twine. It did the job just fine.

Prayer and worship are an important part of the day. I love hearing and seeing the Khmer worship style even though I don't understand the words I do understand the language of the heart.

Below you see one of out team writing what the church pastor is saying on his action plan. Illiteracy amongst the adults is very high.

Having fun together.

 Tom Kenneth in action.

Interesting wall plugs are just one aspect of the very eccentric and dangerous power system in this country.

 We stand together to pray and there is a tangible sense of the presence of God.

The team is together again

Today is the first formal day of the team trip. We started a bit later than usual, at 8am with a 45 minute tuc-tuc drive to the Light for Living church which was at the opposite side of the city. Markus and Åshild (below) like the rest of us, are enjoying the ride.

Because there were at that point six of us plus baggage we needed to tuc-tucs and so we drove in convoy!

It is fantastic to be part of the worship here even though we don't understand what they are singing about I always find that God speaks to me in other ways. One of the things he showed me is the way the whole-hearted worship of the church attracts children from the neighbourhood to come and see. I pray that this witness and the children's curiosity will be a witness which leads to faith in the area.

Below are pictures of a couple of the local children.

The service lasted about two hours and was completely led by the students from the two Normisjon dormitories except for the sermon. The older man in the picture below preached the sermon. He spoke on the power of the Holy Spirit and opened what he shared with some of his personal experiences under the Pol Pot regieme in the late 1970's.

We were invited to share in the fellowship meal after the service, the food and the fellowship was inspirational.

Then we had a long drive which in the past has taken up to six hours. Thankfully today we had very few hold-ups and we got here in less than 4 hours. Thank you to all of you who have been praying about that. To give a flavour of the ride here is a picture of a row of the Ravnås family catching some ZZZZZ on the drive.

Here is a moped or motorbike with a whole shop balanced on it! A flavour of a drive in this country. Sorry about the quality of the pictures, were taken in a bouncing mini-bus!

No car trip is complete without a snack on the way. We bought corn on the cob and ate it straight away. It tasted sweeter than the corn at home as well as it being fun to eat!

June 2017, safely arrived.

We left Stavanger airport at 12.30 Friday morning, flew first to Stockholm and then an over-night flight to Bangkok. we then picked up out transfer to Phnom Pehn arriving here at 08.45 local time or 03.45 Norwegian time. Everyone except Tom Kenneth slept at least some of the way.

Today is the only free day we have and we need to get used to temperatures of over 30 degrees centigrade and humidity of over 85% which is very different from the cold spring we have had at home.

The first thing we did was to jump in the hotel pool to cool off.

After a long time swimming and relaxing under the bamboo sunshade which covers the pool area, we decided to go and find something to eat. Trip advisor has given us lots of exciting restaurants to try on our trips here. They have all been local food and all very good. Today's was no exception, we ordered six dishes to share between all six of us and everything was delicious.

After we had eaten we had a walk around the city in the area of the royal palace. As we wandered the sky turned black with rain clouds. It is the start of the rainy season here and when it rains it is more like standing under a shower than it is like the rain we get at home. Today was no exception but thankfully it passed quickly leaving us wet and warm: and splashing around in warm water heated by the paths and roads it landed on.

Splashing around in water that is as warm as a bath was a new and fun experience for the younger members of the team.

We wandered along the edge of the river and sat for a while to look at the point where two major rivers become one, the Tonlé Sap and Mekong which flow through the delta areas of Cambodia and Vietnam before joining the South China Sea.

There were two small boys with a very sharp knife and a coconut which Åshild was fascinated by. What she hasn't yet noticed is that all the Cambodian people, especially the older ones stare and stare at her. All Cambodian children are born with dark hair and it remains black. Åshild has true viking colouring with white-blond hair, something which I think is very rare here. They stare as if they cannot believe their eyes before breaking out into a huge smile. 

Studying the boys with the coconut.

We caught a ride in a tuctuc back to our hotel, all three children, and some of the adults could not keep their eyes open and had to be shaken awake when we arrived.

Last day in Chhuk

The day started with a man of over 80 talking about how he uses the story of being raised from the dead (yes, you read that correctly) to tell people about his faith. It seems that he had a massive stroke, was taken the the main hospital in Phnom Phen where he was pronounced dead and put in the morgue.

This was a totally unexpected story. We made the decision to film it and it will be translated and texted into English and will also be made available in Norwegian. We also interviewed and filmed Madam Kung Yoo who is the pastor who prayed for him and the man's grandaughter who was part of it all too.

Madam Kung Yoo

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The elderly man and his grandaughter

Sharing what has happened to him with the other pastors

 

With the translator as she talks about it with them.

Filming

 

 

 

 

 

The only reason we heard about this was as a result of us asking if there was anybody present who has used their testimony to tell people about their faith. He came forward and what he had to share was dynamite! The film will be made widely available and we will certainly be showing it in Norkirken.

After that everything else appeared insignificant. When we were holding a session on healing we saw someone healed. It really has been a day of miracles.

Teaching about the power of sharing our testimony.

Group work preparing the plans the church groups will work on for the next six months.

Praying for each team after they have presented their plan to the other church leaders.

A bit of shopping on the way to the airport.

We are now in Bangkok airport waiting for our overnight flight to Oslo and on to Stavanger

Chhuk

Today has been a hot, hot, hot day in Chuuk. I had the after lunch session and it was 36 degrees in the church. The power kept going off so the fans would stop. The fans don't seem to do a lot until they stop!

Every centimeter of me was running with sweat and my cloaths were saturated, here's a picture of my back after 20 minutes.

The day began at 8am with prayer and worship. Every time we have been here the worship has been fantastic and today did not disappoint. The teenagers who live at the on-site children's home have led it each time.  One of the values in this home is that every child shall have the change to learn to play a musical instrument. The drummer is very talented. There are currently 22 children in the home. Here are some pictures of the worship, notice the boy who is jumping up and down as he is singing!

Lunch was served under a tree and we enjoyed rice, fish and a type of meat soup.

 After lunch one of the local boys invited Tom Kenneth to play volley ball with him. Here is a sequence of pictures. Note the huge smile on Tom Kenneth's face!

Then it was my teaching which was ok but the temperature was a challenge. It really is important to drink water constantly.