Cambodian Gospel Trip March 2025 Prayer Requests and Updates
Praise the Lord my son, Josiah, and I just got back from a three week gospel mission trip to Cambodia. The Lord was faithful to give us so many beautiful experiences sharing the gospel in Cambodia. I’m so thankful God gets all the glory. I didn’t do anything special, it’s just God somehow chose me to be His instrument of grace there the last two weeks. He is amazing! I was just telling Pastor Rin of Mercy Village on Sunday that we, as Christians, don’t *need* to see the fruit of our preaching Christ. We *know* that the Gospel seed is powerful! We just plant and water wherever God places us and then we can go to sleep knowing that God will cause the growth. I shared the lesser know Parable of the Seed in Mark 4:26-29 with the pastor and he was SO encouraged!
Jesus was saying, “The kingdom of God is like a man who casts seed upon the soil; and he goes to bed at night and gets up by day, and the seed sprouts and grows—how, he himself does not know. The soil produces crops by itself; first the blade, then the head, then the mature grain in the head. But when the crop permits, he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.” — Mark 4:26-29
There are a number of Cambodian pastors that want to bring me back next year, so Lord willing I will be back in 2026! Enjoy the report below and please pray for all of those touched by the gospel. Thanks!
Thursday March 13, 2025
Today my 18-year-old son, Josiah, and I are traveling to Cambodia for three weeks. I’m so excited! The Lord has opened a door for me to glorify God there in a number of ways:
1) Teach an evangelism course at The Highlands Bible College,
2) Hold a special day of training for a group of pastors,
3) Proclaim the gospel to the lost at a number of evangelism outreaches, and
4) Preach for local churches on Sunday mornings.
Being half Cambodian, I’ve had a special burden to proclaim Jesus to my kinfolk there. The only time I’ve been there is 25 years ago and it was very spiritually dark.
The culture there is 95% Buddhist with much demonic activity. We need the help of the Lord and His Spirit to work in the face of this adversity! Please pray for us as we go into all the world to fulfill the Great Commission. Thank you!
Saturday March 15, 2025
Today we visited one of the Killing Fields of the Khmer Rouge. It has been turned into a memorial. Very sad and disturbing to see the evil within the heart of man. Surely demonic forces were at work in Pol Pot, but the wickedness of man’s heart knows no bounds. Apart from the grace of God, there go I.
The thought kept coming to me that the gospel is the ultimate answer for murder and mass murderers. They would not have committed this genocide if their hearts were regenerated by the Spirit of God. This is why Jesus is the ultimate answer to all human depravity. It was good to visit this on the first day here to motivate me even more to point the poor souls that God will put before us, to Christ!
Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord God, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’ Ezekiel 33:11
Sunday March 16, 2025
Today a local church had a special community outreach where we gave gifts of food to the neighbors after the service. Praise God I was able to preach the gospel for the villagers! Please pray for God to work His truth into the hearts of the people. Thanks!
Monday March 17, 2025
The Christian camp we’re staying at has about 800-900 youth here daily for their two day, overnight evangelistic camp. It’s an amazing opportunity to reach kids with the biblical gospel in a culture that is only 0.3% Christian (according to the gov’t). Josiah is enjoying helping as a stage manager in the sophisticated nightly production where the gospel is presented verbally and through skits & music. Thanks for praying!
Thursday March 20, 2025
Yesterday was the first day of the Evangelism course at the Bible College. Praise God we went over the gospel in Romans as well as creation apologetics.
It’s such a blessing to equip these saints with biblical tools for sharing the gospel!
I’ve given them homework to read Romans every day while we’re in our two week training. As I often say, “The best way to evangelize is to be so filled with the Word and so filled with the Spirit that the gospel just naturally comes out of you.”
Please pray for the 30 students to understand the function of the Law in evangelism, the value of apologetics, and how to dig deeper into the gospel so they can share Jesus more effectively with their countrymen. Thank you!
Saturday March 22, 2025
I praise the Lord that today (a Saturday morning!) a local pastor invited about 25 Christians to come be inspired and equipped for evangelism. I really felt a kindred spirit with Pastor Roy because he is devoted to being faithful in the little things.
He used to run the big youth camp with almost 1000 students nightly, but he realized that many are stony ground or thorny ground hearers “When they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.” Mark 4:16-17
So now he puts his efforts toward preaching a gospel that emphasizes repentance and counting the cost. His work includes strong discipleship and church planting. It was so very mutually encouraging to spend the day together! 
Sunday March 23, 2025
On Sunday morning I had a wonderful surprise! I had the pleasure and the privilege of helping two churches distribute shoeboxes full of toys, personal care items, books, and gospel tracts to the little children of Cambodia.
Praise the Lord I was able to share the gospel with both groups of children during the services. Please pray for the salvation of these little ones, that the Lord would call them into His kingdom as soldiers for Christ.
See all the smiling faces on the beautiful children here!
We actually pack the OCC shoeboxes at my local church and of course for years at AiG, so it was such a blessing to be a part of actually giving it to the kids and seeing their reactions! I’ve seen the OCC videos for decades through AiG, but being there live and being the one to share the gospel message was a huge joy! That experience was a gift from the Lord. It was my ‘shoebox’. 😀
Sunday evening, March 23, 2025
Did you know that Buddhism is a non-theistic religion? They typically don’t believe in a Creator. That’s why it’s really important to start with God as Creator. With Jesus Christ as the one and only Creator God, the God of the Bible.
Buddhists are taught that suffering is the bane of our existence and that the way to overcome suffering is to remove desire. This false teaching is expounded upon in the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. So it’s really important to start with the true origin of death and suffering in the garden of Eden after mankind’s rebellion. Then you can go into the good news that Jesus conquered sin, death, and suffering!
I had the joy of preaching this message to the lost last night at a special service honoring the volunteers of a local church. The volunteers brought their (mostly) Buddhists parents and siblings. Praise God they heard the message of truth with the words of life! I noticed that a number of them seemed to be very attentive, praise the Lord. Please pray for them to see the emptiness of Buddhism and the beauty of Christ!
Tuesday March 25, 2025
I praise the Lord for the opportunity to equip over 30 pastors and seniors in Bible college with Ray Comfort’s messages “Hell’s Best Kept Secret” and “True and False Conversion”. Many of the pastors were challenged and very much enjoyed the teachings on the dangers of modern evangelistic methods. Afterwards one pastor invited me to come preach this weekend for his ministry!
You can listen to these powerful messages here https://livingwaters.com/hells-best-kept-secret and here https://livingwaters.com/true-and-false-conversion
I thought you might enjoy this short testimony of the impact of the Operation Christmas Child shoebox ministry. While I was sharing with the students my experience giving away the shoeboxes, one of my students, a 23 year old girl, told me how much it impacted her! It was so touching to see.
Thank you so much for your prayers that the gospel continues to transform lives here in Cambodia. The Lord is answering them!
Thursday March 27, 2025
We’re in the last couple of days of our Evangelism course at the Bible College and I thought you’d enjoy seeing some of the biblical truths we’re teaching the young people. Praise God the students seem to be growing in the Word!
In a couple of pictures you see us illustrating the truth of Propitiation and looking at the two goats of Yom Kippur (I like to call it the Day of Propitiation). We had a drawing contest for who could draw a more realistic goat. I lost. 🙂
After teaching and illustrating the Great Exchange in Justification, I had another student come and explain it.
A different student was able to replicate the gospel message using the “Line Diagram” that I had just drawn out for the class.
Thank you so much for your prayers for these future pastors of Cambodia to be equipped with the biblical gospel to share with the lost!
Friday March 28, 2025
So today was the last day of our evangelism class. I was so sad to leave my students and they were so sad to see us leave too. ;-( It’s been a precious two weeks of evangelism training and investment into these future pastors’ lives.
For this last day I taught them how to use the “Gospel Roadmap” to navigate through a personal witnessing conversation. This is usually the most popular talk I give and sure enough even in Cambodia they were having so much fun with the role-playing!
After demonstrating how to use a gospel tract to swing the conversation to spiritual things, I showed them how to use the Ten Commandments to engage the conscience and then boldly proclaim the cross of Christ. It was just like the Testify Witnessing Training Camp that we put on during the Iowa State Fair! Watch the attached video as they paired up and practiced sharing the gospel with each other. More info at https://TestifyCamp.com
One of my students gave a quick testimony of what God taught him through the two-week course. I think he mentioned methods to share Christ and debunk evolution.
Then at the end of the day I was invited by a pastor to share the gospel with his elementary Christian school students. What a privilege! Look at those precious little children. I praise the Lord for opening up so many doors for gospel ministry here! To God alone be all the glory!!
Monday March 31, 2025
Yesterday (Sunday) was our last day in Cambodia. We visited a very poor community called Mercy Village run by Pastor Rin Yame. It was a blessing to see the joy of the Lord in the Christians there even though they have close to no possessions. They do a number of gospel outreaches weekly, along with church services. It was a joy to see Pastor Rin discipling 5 young guys in their late teens/early 20s. They are growing strong in the Lord as they live with Pastor Rin and watch him love the poor and homeless with Christ’s love.
God gave opportunity to teach about 10 of them The Great Exchange, praise the Lord. Some of them had heard these truths before but not packaged neatly like that. We also had opportunity to support the gospel work of Mercy Village financially, praise God. Please learn more about the exciting things God is doing there at https://www.mercyvillagecambodia.com
As we ended our gospel trip we were overwhelmed with the grace of God to open so many doors for the gospel, both training in evangelism and preaching for the lost. I really believe your prayers are what God used to open all those doors! Thank you so much for partnering with us in exalting Christ, equipping the saints, and evangelizing the lost!
Our next evangelism trip will be to Israel for three weeks in May! Thanks again for all your prayers. It was a huge help to the gospel success we had in Cambodia.
