March 20, 2006

Dear Friends,

We want to praise the Lord for giving us strength , even though I am having fever now.  It is starting so hot in the village during our visitation, and when we came home, I had a fever already. Every summer, even though we are used to the heat,  one of us always seems to have a problem, either Grace or I. While we were doing our visitation, I told Grace that if only I had brought an egg along, I'm sure I could have cooked it on my forehead with this kind of heat.

Last month we went to Phuket for the Asia Missionary Retreat, and we really admired and appreciated the beauty of God's creation in that place. We came home refreshed and renewed, and are thankful when we go back to work to remember the nice place where we were staying and the beauty of nature.

Psalms 31:23-24 says, "Love the Lord, all his saints! The Lord preserves the faithful. But the proud he pays back in full. Be strong and take heart all you who hope in the Lord."  In every difficulty that we had over the past month, through God's word we can get strength.   For example, our daughter was being operated on and we worried about her completing her requirements before graduating this month.  We also were trying to save money in order to go home and attend her graduation.  In times like this, it will come to your mind right away that we are not the owner of  the future, only God. After Mimi's appendectomy operation, we thought of not going home because of limited resources, but we want to thank the Lord for providing for our needs and especially for our daughter's air travel in going back to Cambodia with us after graduation. God is really good because He used other people to provide our needs. The other thing is that we were able to get a ticket with a very cheap price through the Internet. PTL!

Annual District meeting February 17-18, 2006

God put things in order despite the Nelsons' absence because they are on home assignment.  We asked God to help us, especially in the preparations. We praise God for protection and wisdom in preparing the reports and in the Ministerial Appointments Committee decisions. We recognized this time that our leaders and Pastors have begun to understand what the district meeting is doing every year. They learned to ask questions during the session and participate in the discussion. So, every year we have observed increased understanding and more transition in leadership to our local leaders and pastors.

University Students

We have 27 young people who are in higher education through the sponsorship program, helped by Christian friends from outside countries.

We want to thank the Lord for using the Theological Education by Extension (TEE) to nurture our students in college so that they'll become mature and our future leaders. Through them, the Higher Education Committee has planned to have an extension ministry to the parents, since some parents are not Christians. So, on May 21, 2006 we will have a University Students' Parents day and invite them all to Phnom Penh church so that they can see the place where the students stay.  We will also have a program for the parents and have lunch together with the parents (their responsibility is to pay half the price of the food). Please pray for this big event for the University students' parents' fellowship in May. Some parents are devoted Buddhists. Pray for God's protection and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Theological Education by Extension (TEE)

Some of our leaders have no chance to go to Bible school because they are already old and handling a fellowship right now. We are encouraging them to enroll in TEE.  Right now Miu-ling is giving her time to teach both the men and women university students, using the "Abundant Light" book from TEE.  Daniel is teaching the students who are now in Book 3 of the TEE course. Joshua Kung Ty is also teaching the members in Prek Thei church in order for them to grow spiritually. We are planning to train leaders to become teachers of TEE. This year, our goal is to train the Free Methodist pastors and leaders so that our local people will be trained through this TEE program.

We also have Continuing Education once in every 2 months, and on April 22 (Saturday), Pastor Daniel will teach about Seventh Day Adventists, the New Apostolic Church, and Bahai.   The pastors, leaders and pastors' wives can attend these one day sessions.   We also have a Pastors' fellowship once in every two months

Christian Education

Grace is the chairman of the Christian Education Committee.  This coming August 7-11, 2006 will be our Vacation Bible Schools in every place. On May 6 we need to choose the teachers to teach in the different places.  We need to have VBS in 4 different places in the week. We will have teams from outside countries to help with puppets and handcrafts. They will come from Snohomish, Washington, and Hong Kong. Please pray for God's protection.

Kampot ministry

This month is really dry and the people cannot plant rice in the fields.  Some people from that area will go to the city and look for jobs because if they stay in Kampot, they have nothing to eat. When Grace and I did visitation together with our leader in Takhmau, Barnabas and his wife, we noticed the people suffering - they didn't eat during the day because they don't have food.  One child was crying, and when I asked why, the mother said she was hungry and looking for food. They have rice, but when it is harvest time they are going to sell it. They harvest rice once a year only. But one thing that amazed me so much is that since Davis Lam started  the piglet project in Kampot, I noticed that the pigs are fat but the owners of the pigs are really very thin! Aha! They always say this is Davis Lam's pig.  So, we named Davis a pig because he is famous in Kampot church.

Phnom Penh Thmei

During our Missionary Retreat in Phuket, we heard that the covered sports  pavilion at Phnom Penh Thmei collapsed. The team prayed about it and encouraged Davis Lam, as he is the one responsible for the development of the new property. When we were at the airport we were talking about the covered court, and one missionary said, "I pray that the roof will all fall, not only a portion."  When we went to the place after that day, we found it the whole roof and also the posts had all fallen. It is really a sad thing, but we noticed that workmanship was really very poor.   It taught me a lesson and also Davis - we didn't supervise enough.  

We just want to praise the Lord that nobody was under the pavilion. Pauline and Lemuel, who live there, told us that day they were wondering why there was such a strong wind and little rain!  This is usually a season of really hot weather and no rain.  But that day, the wind was really strong. Well, God sent that wind in order that we wouldn't have a bigger problem later.

We hope you can pray for us because we are leaving this week for the Philippines.  This is our annual leave for 30 days. Our daughter's graduation is on March 31, 2006.

Prayer concerns:

•  Our daughter's graduation from her nursing course on March 31.
•  Travel on March 24 - going through Kuala Lumpur to Clark air base near Manila, then flying to Butuan City; we come back on April 29.
•  University Students' Parents' day on May 21, 2006 at Phnom Penh FMC
•  Pastors and Leaders and also their families
•  3 Child Care centers, House of Peace, House of Love, House of Joy
•  VBS this coming August
•  livelihood projects
•  Pastors' fellowship
•  Continuing Education for the Pastors and leaders.
•  Different FMC churches
•  Our members who are really very poor - how to survive.
•  Sopheap, the wife of Joshua, is sick.

With much love,

Joel and Grace Margin

NOTE: You can still use our email address to reach us when we are in the Philippines.