Dear Friends,

Psalm 138:6 "Though the LORD is on HIGH, he looks upon the lowly, but the proud he knows from afar."

There are a lot of things to praise Him for because of His wonderful works! The price of many commodities here is really high, mostly due to the price of the gasoline increasing. However, we praise the Lord for His faithfulness to us. 

Kampot Land

We want to praise the Lord for providing land in Kampot. The money to buy it was given by a friend from Australia who has a heart for missions, especially in Cambodia after participating in the TMI training here last year. The piece of land is almost one hectare in size. It is a rice field. Now the church members are plowing the field to plant rice while praying and waiting for money to build a church. 

The members in Kampot have been divided into 4 groups. Each group has its own leader to visit the members and help us in the ministry. At this time we are enjoying the rain, but also aren't so happy because the way to our church in Kampot is really bad now, and slippery. The fish along the canals and the rice fields are happy to have the rain, but it's hard to drive through the fields! Now we can hear a lot of frogs, and some people are happy because they are going to sell frog meat along the road to Kampot. 

A lot of our members have been sick recently. Last Saturday a lot of our members asked us to pray for them. Some have coughs, colds and fever. 

We want to praise the Lord for the literacy class. They enjoy reading and memorizing their verse every Saturday, and singing with us during worship. We bought hymn books and they enjoy learning songs from the hymn book. Last Saturday we taught them "How Great Thou Art" in Khmer! They like it! Several mothers come to worship bringing their Bibles and hymnals and stay for three hours just to learn from the Bible. Next time we will teach them another song from the hymnal. They can practice their Khmer script too.

The discipleship class is still going on and, we are looking forward to training a lot of male leaders. They are now in Chapter 5 of their lessons. Barnabas is really working so hard in Kampot, and also his family. His wife cooks the food for everybody. and Eunice, his daughter, teaches the children. Sophanny, the son, helps with in praise and worship. We just want to thank God for these people who are working with us so hard. 

Please pray for the man who teaches English in Kampot. He wants to enroll in Bible school. He's been a Christian for 5 years. For awhile he was in Phnom Penh working among the Koreans, but now that he is married, he has a place in Kampot where he is farming. We have been praying for a leader in that place -- he may be the one. It's been a long time that he has wanted to study in Bible School, but hasn't had the resources to do so, plus he lives far from Phnom Penh. His name is OUK RITTY. Please pray for him. Right now, we are giving him books to study at home to prepare himself. He is also studying the discipleship training with me and Barnabas. I speak in Khmer, but Barnabas is the one who explains it well to them in Khmer.

Now that it is raining, we cannot have our classes outside under the coconut tree because it is so muddy and wet. The house where we have our worship is congested when it rains hard. Sometimes we cancel our classes because there's no place to study and put the chalkboard. 

Takhmau

Last week, we had a recognition day after a year of teaching English using the book "Headstart." Before, we used a preschool book, but they wanted to use the books that all the other English schools use here in Cambodia. Grace found that the lessons are not appropriate for the culture, but they want to study that book anyway. The food that the author introduces is really different from Khmer food. After a week of vacation, our visitor from Australia (his name is Jarrod) is going to teach this class and Grace will continue teaching how to play the guitar. 

We want to praise the Lord because we no longer need to ask for help from the youth in Prek Thei - we have our own youth being trained to lead the praise and worship, and in the future they will become our leaders in the field. 

Our English students have been coming to worship on Sundays. Last month, we baptized four young people who had received Jesus as their personal Savior. We continue our Bible study every Friday with the students and they are required to attend. Some of them attend worship services, but some cannot because the parents won't allow them to come on Sundays. Before, some of the students just played volleyball and didn't want to come to the fellowship until their friends invited them to come inside. Later, they were able to come for fellowship and some came for Sunday worship. Please pray for constant good relationships with them. We ask Eunice and Sophanny to encourage them always. Barnabas' children help so much in Takhmau and also in Kampot.

Our daughter has left Manila and went back to Mindanao this week. She said she had a lot of joyful experiences in the city, but she prefers to stay in Mindanao because it is more peaceful. She stayed in Manila for one and a half months but never enjoyed the busy and crowded place. She has to enroll now for her last year in nursing. Before going to Manila she was able to take a Missions course in Davao, and she said she wants to become a missionary too! However, she joked that she needs to find a missions-minded man for her life.

Pray for:

• God's provision for Mimi's nursing board exam
• Barnabas & family who work with us everyday
• Kampot members who are physically sick
• Takhmau students - new and old 
• Worship in Takhmau every Sunday morning and also the children's work
• Kampot discipleship training
• Khmer language study
• Teamwork among the team
• Children's camp in August - Grace is busy preparing
• that the parents of children in Takhmau would allow them to come to worship
• that more people would come and accept God
• for God's provision for our daughter's last year in nursing

Warmest blessings,
Joel and Grace