The Men & Boys in Svay Pak

Each day as our van entered into Svay Pak there is a local hangout at the top part of the main street corner where groups of men from the community tend to gather. Their daily ritual appears to be sitting around, smoking and playing cards or billards all day long or sleeping. I have been told that the men and young teenagers in Svay Pak often act as pimps. It is hard not to judge these men and at times keep an open mind that they too are in need of a Savior. Initially when we first drove by the local area, we received a bunch of stares from them. It’s almost as if Satan had parked his own bodyguards at the entrance of his territory and was trying to intimidate us. But in recent days we started getting waves or smiles from these very men when we drove by. Yesterday I went with one of the AIM helpers Ratanak and walked over to where they were---the main reason really was that I wanted to get a photo of them so we decided to ask them directly if it was okay. Their reaction was positive and not what I would expect. But then again, the darkness disguises itself as light.

On a second street corner we have also observed another set of men who daily stand around and appear to take note of all who walk up and down the street. Each day I have passed them by enroute to pick up the food packets for the kids at the VBS. Both Ratanak and I usually smile at them and greet them in Khmer. I took a photo of them as well and they chuckled when I showed it to them. Interestingly enough there is one guy who deliberately avoided having his face taken. I can only imagine why.

Around Rahab House we have noticed that whenever the Newsong girls come by on Tuesdays and Thursdays there is a group of young men---probably around 18 years who are trying to get the girls attention. They usually play with a hackey sack just outside Rahab house but yesterday they peered into see what we were doing. At one point, some of them appeared to be taunting a couple of the Newsong girls through their comments. Fortunately Clay a young American guy who works with AIM was also around. He was acting as bodyguard outside the building and would act as a barrier between them and the girls. At one point I found myself quite irritated with these boys as they seem to be jeering the girls on---perhaps they were just trying to get noticed and obviously were not having too much success but something in my spirit told me otherwise so I took the liberty of also speaking a few words to them in Khmer. They laughed at me and said a few words. In this environment, there is a mocking mentality---we see that with some of the kids as they pretend to say ‘sorry’ but don’t really mean it as a few minutes later they will hit another kid. These young men act the same way. It is not surprising, and so one learns not to personalize their reactions to us. I figure the best way to respond to this attitude is to give them a dose from heaven---ie: pray for transformation of their hearts. After all, God is the One who knows their hearts and it is ultimately the only One who can change them.

Friday is our final day at Rahab house...we are already having mixed feelings of leaving as our time with the kids here have been very meaningful. We see their joy and enthusiasm each day whenever we arrive as they run after our van on the main street screaming and waving and then crowd around us when the van's doors open. Each of them wanting us to notice them as they call out our names and touch us. It will be difficult to leave here as we have grown attached to them and they to us.

Physical and Spiritual Food

In the past few days I have been thinking how often we come to God with our own agendas. We think we know what we need and we come asking Him to meet that need. Yet God knows far better what we really need versus what we want. With each new day we continue to see an increase in kids as well as their mothers coming for the morning program. Yesterday we provided 125 lunches and we believe many of them are coming perhaps for the physical food. In the eyes of the kids and their families in this community, this is the immediate need…to satisfy the physical hunger. This is their agenda. But God is using that medium to draw them in for something better---the spiritual food that only He can provide. His plans for us are so much bigger and larger than what we envision for ourselves. We are seeing the unfolding of the holistic aspects of the gospel to provide an environment where both the physical and spiritual components work hand in hand. Jesus said that He is the Bread of Life and it is our prayer that as much as the children and adults are coming for physical nourishment, that God is feeding their souls with His spiritual food that will satisfy the deepest longings within their own hearts. Indeed may each of these who come taste and see that the Lord is good.

Partnerships in the Gospel

Our AIM Friends Ratanak and Yosef

A picture of Kimsin and Gannaya from CEF Cambodia teaching the morning VBS lesson.

One of the many blessings we have experienced on this trip is the local Cambodian partnerships that God has given us as a team. We could not accomplish much if it were not for these different partnerships. We are grateful for the two young men: Ratanak (yes what a name) and Yosef who are currently in a discipleship training program for pastors by AIM4Asia Founder Moses Seth. Both Ratanak and Yosef are sons of pastors and they were assigned to help us out at Svay Pak since they have spent a lot of time ministering in that community. They both have different gifts yet work so well together. Yosef helps us with the bible story time and leads the kids in worship in our afternoon sessions. He is very talented and has a natural ability to connect with the kids. Ratanak stands at the door and welcomes the kids and monitors the kids behaviour while we are doing our activities. He also ensures that Rahab House is kept clean and each afternoon any one of us on the team will follow his lead as he will go outside of the centre and pick up the garbage that is littered all around the front of the building. The kids also notice his servant heart and some of them will offer to pick up the garbage as well.

Yesterday Ratanak, Yosef and I along with three little tour guides who were no more than 3 feet tall led us along the narrow alley ways in Svay Pak to deliver a little lunch packet to one of the little girls who had attended the VBS in the morning session but left early as she had a bruise on her head. I had taken her home with some of the other little ones earlier that morning which gave me the perfect opportunity to pray for her and the two other girls who directed my path to her home. When we all got to the little shack where the family lived Ratanak took the opportunity to pray for the family and also to let them know about the VBS at Rahab House and to invite them to the church service that has started there. It was such a precious moment for me as God was using all of us in different ways to be His salt and light.

Our other partners have been the team from Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) in Cambodia. The teams from CEF have had an amazing ability to engage the kids and to manage their unruly behaviour in such a way that the kids calm down and participate in all the praise and worship and listen to the bible lesson. We have also noticed what a blessing that CEF is for Josef and Ratanak as there has been indirect mentoring going on as both young men observe how the CEF workers lead the kids in the morning activities. IN some sense I cannot help but wonder that our main purpose for this VBS is really to connect the AIM workers with our CEF friends. God has used that particular partnership to enhance the program and allowed all of us to gain a greater understanding of how to minster to kids in this context.

Svay Pak - Pastor Lap?

There are some kids who stand out in their kindness and their leadership skills. Over the past few days we have observed Lap and one thing that stands out about him is his thoughtfulness and the way he looks after the other kids. One morning when he arrived he took the initiative to arrange the slippers of all the kids so that they lined up properly. Most of the kids would tossed their slippers aside but not Lap. He has a very sweet and gentle spirit and each day we see him listening to the bible stories. He is the one who lines up the kids for us when we are playing games. Other times he is helping the little ones as seen in this photo. One day he and a few boys led my teammate Genie to the Catholic church which is down the street in Svay Pak and showed her a statute of Jesus. He wanted his photo taken with that statue.

Following that, the Lord spoke to Genie about some of the boys who had displayed leadership tendicies. As Genie and I were praying one night for the boys and particularly ones that we had connected with him, the Spirit seem to give an impression to me to pray for Lap as the Pastor of Rahab House. Since that day as we watched him, he seemed to exhibit those shepherding qualities. We don't know what the future is for these kids in Svay Pak but God knows and we have felt the need to pray into what we see. For Lap, we see the attributes of a servant heart, a tender spirit and leadership qualities.

Church and Old Friends

On Sunday we attended the International Church and were all blessed by a sermon we heard on Genesis 15 which talked about God’s covenant with Abraham. We were reminded that that submission and faithfulness are the roots of obedience. As we continue to submit to God’s agenda and trust in His faithfulness here, it has been such a blessing to see Him work through our feeble efforts.

Today 4 of our team members ---Brenda, Genie, Hiroko and Janice went off to visit the Killing Fields, while Char and I connected with our missionary friends Cathy and Kim as we were busy buying backpacks among other gifts that we plan to give to the kids at the end of the VBS this week. This coming Friday on our last day in Svay Pak we are having a Kingdom Banquet that will be our final celebration and end to the VBS. We can’t wait to see their faces as we hand out our little kingdom packages to them.

Our team got a bit of a taste of shopping in Cambodian markets as we spent the afternoon in Psar Tuol Tompong otherwise known as the Russian market. It is here that I get to hone my bargaining skills as we haggle with them. Often the vendors will say to us ‘cannot, I give you good price’ to which I reply ‘yes you can, you are my friend’! And so the banter goes back and forth. Some people find bargaining draining but I get energized by it.

In the evening we went to Soriya the one and only mall in Phnom Penh and probably Cambodia. Soriya has a lot of stores and eating places but you would not necessarily find your average Cambodian here as the prices are quite expensive than if one went to a local market. Our purpose for going there was to go to the Pizza restaurant to meet up with some old friends from Transitions Cambodia (TCI). Jaya who is the director of TCI along with Srey Neth who is a spokesperson for TCI and Sochea (not her real name). It was so good to see them all and to hear how they are doing. Srey Neth is about 21 now and God is using her to speak up and give a voice to many who have experienced the horrific atrocities of being sold into a brothel. I am so proud of her and as she spoke about her life in the brothel which consisted of servicing 10 to 20 men a day, being beaten or tortured with electric shock if she didn’t cooperate, I just smiled at her and put my hand over hers. She is a testimony that He who is in us is greater than he that is in this world. I cannot even fathom what it must have been like for her but as I listen to her speak, I can see that God is giving her strength ---that the horrible ordeal that she went through does not debilitate her. Instead her desire is to tell other girls who are at risk of being sold into prostitution about her journey so that they are aware of the darkness that so envelops a girl who enters that environment. What man intended for harm, God is using for good. One of the unexpected blessings of this dinner was that both Srey Neth and Sochea are now planning to join us for an afternoon to help with the VBS in Svay Pak later this week. I am looking forward to having them there with us and am excited to see what God will do in their lives as they offer themselves in service for His purposes

VBS Photos in Svay Pak

Uploading photos take a long time here but I hope this one gives you all a little glimpse of what is happening on this corner of the earth.

Svay Pak - Day 4 (Lisa)

I’m writing this blog on Saturday as we have all been quite tired after spending time with the kids. Day 4 started out with great enthusiasm from the kids and with each passing day we are seeing an increase in attendance. Our first day we had about 55 kids but as the week went by the numbers increased and we are now having a VBS for 85 kids. One of the highlights has been providing lunch to them after they have sat through the bible lesson done by our CEF partners. Trying to organize a lunch for 85 kids is not as complicated as it seems as we have been ordering little food packets from a local Vietnamese family restaurant in Svay Pak. God has given us much favour with this particular family that runs that restaurant as with each passing day, they have been giving us discounts on the food so that we are paying less and less per head.

With each lunch box that we hand out it is a privilege to just say to each child ‘Jesus loves you’. I pray that these small acts of kindness will be remembered by them long after we have gone. That they will know that He is the One who ultimately is their daily bread who will provide for their every need. It has been a real joy in serving the kids despite the fact that they make a mess often spilling the fish sauce on the floor. In a strange way I look forward to cleaning up after them. This is truly a gift from God given that I am not inclined to domesticity! In many ways, I am reminded that the God of the universe who created the heavens and earth humbled Himself and stooped down to lift us up and in a similar way when we clean up all the dirt and mess made by these kids, we are hopefully demonstrating to them that there are worthy to be loved and served.


One of the unexpected benefits of feeding the kids is that we have had the opportunity to also connect with some of the vendors along the street where Rahab house is located. On Thursday myself and one of the AIM helpers who ironically is named Ratanak had the privilege of praying for one of these street vendors who was selling us pop. It turned out she was a Christian but goes to a church outside Svay Pak so we took the opportunity to invite her to the church service that AIM recently started about 3 weeks ago on Sunday at Rahab House. In all of these activities we are able to see God connecting the dots as He is the one orchestrating all these different interactions.



While these were some of the good things that have been happening, we had an incident on Friday afternoon that made us mindful that we have to be on guard and be alert. One of the kids had become angry with us for not allowing him to participate in the afternoon activities after he had received 3 warnings for creating disruption in the classrooms. As a result he decided to lock the outside gate of Rahab house with some type of rope at the end of the afternoon session so that we were locked inside Rahab house and could not get out.. Fortunately we were able to get some other kids to untie the rope so that we could open the gate and let ourselves out. This incident was a sharp reminder how easy these kids can turn on you if they feel rejected and more importantly, how Satan can use them to attempt to harass or intimidate us. It is times like this when I am so thankful that Christ has won the victory for us on Calvary and we need not be afraid but simply stand firm in Him. For this is His battle and not ours.