Radstock Ministries

God is at work in Cambodia in amazing, if not startling, ways.

Disciples Church in Durres, Albania and her sister church Stopsley Baptist in Luton UK sent a team to Cambodia to work alongside their Cambodian colleague Bunna Yin. The team spent 12 days in May visiting churches in four Cambodian towns and villages. Rudina and Manjola from Disciples Church Albania headed up the work of the mobile hearing clinic -- issuing 48 hearing aids in total.  Audrey Jose and Neil Mattocks of SBC were particularly busy with hours and hours of teaching, and Abraham and Ajoke Adeyeye, also of SBC, spent many hours praying with people.

One woman's life was changed dramatically through the hearing clinics.  After being given a hearing aid, the team shared the gospel with her and told her of the God who gave himself to redeem her.  This was the first time she'd heard the Good News.   She returned the next day to hear more.  She believed made a profession of faith that day. When God changed her heart, he also healed her ears. After her profession, she began to hear properly, pulling off her hearing aid saying, "I don't need this anymore. I can hear!"   All were amazed and gave thanks to God for the wonders he had done.

        ‘I had dead ears. I came yesterday and could not hear. Now I can hear, and

        hear the truth. My heart opened yesterday when my ears were opened.'

The team took part in the baptism of two believers, including teaching on the sacrament of baptism. Ra Li is a blind 18-year-old young woman whose family abandoned her and who was taken in by Pastor Samon in Posat. The team left a gift to provide her with an audio New Testament in Khmer language though Ra Li had already memorised an impressive amount of the Bible from having people read to her. Chan Thon, a young husband and father, was also baptised. Chan Thon. a former gangster, has been brutally persecuted by local soldiers and left locked in a bird cage designed to hold poultry in the hot sun for hours at a time. Chan Thon plans to start the first church in a town in his home province.

Pastor Samon in Posat has taken in 3 abandoned or orphaned  children to care for them -- Ra Li, (blind girl, age 18, who was baptised), Sok Chea (HIV orphan, aged 6), and Si Na (orphan, aged 9).  Last year, Radstock encouraged Pastor Samon to consider a rice export business to help him survive.  This advice has helped him feed his family and support his church.  In gratitude, Pastor Samon gave a gift of about £7/$14 as a tithe of thanks.

Please join us in giving thanks for all that God is doing in Cambodia.  If your church would like to explore connecting with church planting efforts in Cambodia, contact Brian Jose at .

Brian Jose recalls a trip which highlighted the opportunities - and challenges - for mission in Cambodia.

In a church building, in a remote village, 30 minutes down a dirt track in rural Cambodia, the leader prepared to call off the meeting.  Built on stilts, and with no glass in the windows, their venue was no place to be in a tropical rainstorm.  Then a man arrived with his family, all soaking wet.  "Have you come to meet the foreigners?" he was asked.  "No," said the man.  "We have come to meet with God!"

The 'foreigners' were my wife and I, six fellow-members of Stopsley Baptist Church, UK, and Arvid, pastor of a partner church in Durres, Albania.  We were in Cambodia to encourage and train church planters and leaders.  For Arvid and me it was a return visit, building on this three-way, multi-national partnership.  

After teaching on a weekend conference, we travelled with local church planter, Bunna Yin.  Bunna is following God's call, developing church-planting teams in every province. The gospel is being spread at an extraordinary rate in Cambodia, and the big challenge with so many recently converted is how to organise them into churches.  There are issues of leadership.  But that's a great challenge to have!

With Cambodia now an emerging democracy, there is less political opposition to the church, though much of the country remains Buddhist.  The legacy of Pol Pot's genocide lingers, however: the average age is just 21.  Poverty is still a major obstacle and many pastors are unpaid.  

Bunna sees part of his role as helping people to become self-supporting, by growing rice or owning fish or goats.  Stopsley are partners in this, but the Durres connection is vital.  Arvid related really well with the Cambodians.  As an Albanian, he knows what it's like for fledgling churches facing financial hardship and emerging from an oppressive regime.

Crucially, perhaps, those involved in planting churches are largely native Cambodians.  Cultural sensitivity and following the local church's lead is at the heart of these partnerships.  The exciting part for us is the growing partnership with Bunna and the church planters, who are working so sacrificially to build churches throughout Cambodia.

Contact us to find out more about churches connecting for mission in Cambodia.