Customs -- Marriage

Traditional Cambodian marriage is greatly different from traditional Chinese marriage. Usually, when a man is interested in a woman, he will go to the woman's family and request the head of the woman's family to allow him to live with the woman's household for a year or even longer. He will work for the woman's family and if everyone is satisfied, then they will first be engaged and later married. After the wedding, they live in the woman's household. All of the adults, men or women, help out with household chores; this is not just women's work. If a woman has no close family, then after the wedding they live in the man's household. Now, however, there is no strict rule. Whoever's home they choose to live in after the wedding is accepted.

In the villages, people usually get married in their teenage years. They also like marrying within the family, because they don't have to divide the family property, and the daughters also have a share in the family property. Our secretary is in her early twenties and her grandmother and parents are pushing her to get married to her uncle. (I don't know how close the blood relationship is.) This sister is a new believer, just over half a year, but she knows it is not right to marry a non-believer. So, she feels put in a terribly difficult position and keeps putting off the wedding. All I can do is to encourage her to keep praying for her uncle and think of ways to share the Gospel with him. She also wants to request your prayers for her, so I am sharing this with all of you. Ask the Lord to open up her uncle's heart to see the secret of the heavenly kingdom. He works in the government, and seeing all kinds of infighting in the government sector, he just wants to leave Phnom Penh and go out to the province to teach school or something, far away from the government sector. After I heard this sister's sharing, I felt like giving her uncle a photocopy of Ecclesiastes to read. Perhaps his feelings will resonate with Solomon's message.

In the village, there are quite a few young people who after getting married, no longer attend the worship services. We missionaries and local pastors need to provide guidance and support according to the brothers' and sisters' individual situations. We need to help them put their faith into practice in daily life, especially in their marriages. We really need relevant materials in Khmer (Cambodian language) so as to systematically teach Biblical principles. I have only been able to find one book designed for the men, a practical and simple Bible study published by C&MA International. We also need Khmer Sunday School materials for the young people, Ask the Lord to enable us to find these.

House of Joy Childcare Centre

With everyone's hard work, including overseas and local Childcare staff, ¡§House of Joy Childcare Centre¡¨ officially started operation on Kaoh Sachtunlea (Kaoh=Island) on October 14th. In all of this we experienced God's care. I am a person who easily worries, but every time I felt like I didn't know where to get a helping hand, He prepared the help either from above or below. That from above was my supervisor's help and guidance. That from below was the local workers' ideas and assistance. Theoretically I am the person overseeing everything at the centre, but practically I am the person least familiar with the administration of the Childcare work and the situation in the village. But, the Lord's grace is truly sufficient, and each time I shared my concerns about something with my coworkers, they were all eager to encourage and help out. Although there are quite a few difficulties and limitations, the ministry has still gotten started smoothly.

Short Term Medical Missions Team

In less than two weeks I had to temporarily set aside my House of Joy work and receive the 32 member short term medical missions team that came from Hong Kong. Of course this was not something I could handle all by myself. With the hard work of the other missionaries, local church leaders and young people, and with the training of the short term team, the several groups all cooperated together without a slip. Our large team of over sixty people from different cultures, split into two groups each day and went to nine local villages to provide medical help and distribute medicines, do children's evangelistic work and house to house evangelistic visits. Thank God for His grace and protection. When things got chaotic we were able to work together with one heart, and with each one acting to solve the difficulties. Despite this short term team's tightly packed and busy schedule, there wasn't any kind of anxiety, probably because these were all people familiar with their work. No matter whether Hong Kong or Cambodian brothers and sisters, or missionaries, everyone was experienced. Only I was the one who had never before tried to take care of all the preparatory work out in the field before. But, we all experienced the lesson that the Lord wanted us to learn: everyone was joyful and unwilling to part with the others. What I need to learn is to regain the young people's feelings for real cordiality. For me, it seems like there is never a time, even a moment, when I am not meeting or seeing off what feels like a constant stream of visitors. I just hope that I can truly bless each one I meet, whether they are staying a short or long time.

Rebecca Chung