Interviewed by Brian M. Maher
I was born in 1974 into a Buddhist family in Kompong Cham Province of Cambodia and I grew up living in and around the Pagoda because my grandfather was the Buddhist Patriarch of the Pagoda. The Pagoda was my second home until I graduated from high school. My youth had been highly influenced by Buddhism as I was expected to study Buddhism regularly. After I finished high school in I went to Phnom Penh to study at the Phnom Penh University in 1992 where I studied the philosophy of Education. It was there that I had heard the good the news of Jesus Christ for the first time in 1995, but I took no interest in Christianity, and as matter of fact, hearing it angered me and turned me off to Christians. A friend of mine invited me to join in his church’s Christmas program and he gave me a special gift. I thought the gift was a shirt, money or something special until I got home and opened it. It was simply a bible which I threw in the river on my way to Kompong Cham for a school break. I had no interest in Jesus until I finished at the university.
When I finished my Bachelor’s degree in 1997, I became an official in the ministry of Education. Shortly after, I went through training in order to evaluate the education levels in government schools. Therefore, I was enjoying my work and it was great but the salary was extremely low but those around me were getting rich because of corruption. As for me, I did not appreciate corruption and often confronted those involved. My life was difficult because of the low salary so I had to find some additional work to make ends meet. I contacted a lumber company from Hong Kong who bought timber from Cambodia and after some training I became their manager which provided a great salary. I saved up my money, quit my two jobs and opened my own lumber company of which I partnered with the Hong Kong Lumber company for a short time before they closed up. I produced lumber at my saw mill and began to partner with a Thai family which made me quite wealthy. This was in Koh Kong province which was like the American Wild West, and had no rule of the law and there were many poor people living close to my mill. We had a gang who ruled the area and fleeced the poor through violence and intimidation. When I saw this take place, I began to help the poor who were being ripped off by the gang. I created my own gang and we had automatic weapons to fight the bandits as I had become a soldier as well during that time. It was now 1998. I ended up killing the leader of the bandits and gang dispersed and ceased to oppress the people. I am the only one left alive from our original group of modern day Robin Hoods, because, as I thought at the time, my good luck came from the magical powers of a Khmer Witch doctor bestowed upon me.
Business was going well, too, but soon my partner ripped me off in Thailand and I lost everything but the shirt on my back, including my fiancé which broke my heart. I had to sell my mill to pay my creditors.
My life by then was a big mess, and full of problems. My mother really worried about me and called me to meet with a Khmer fortune teller who told me I would never have a wife or children. This often made me hopeless and I often remembered that friend who encouraged me back in 1995 with the words of Jesus. I took a break from life and stayed with my sister in Phnom Penh and went to Campus Crusade for Christ to ask them about Jesus and they explained quite a bit of the gospel to me. They gave me a New Testament and I took it home to read. When I was free, I read it. It was two months before I finished it, after that a particular verse really interested me. It is found in John 14:6: “I am the way, the truth and the life…..” I remember that Buddha said, I will show you the way, but that Jesus was saying I am the way. During this time I was considering the difference between Buddhism and Christianity but I did not believe just yet. The book of Romans talked a lot about salvation and that we cannot save our selves, only Jesus can. The teaching in the Pagoda told me we could receive salvation by doing good deeds. If we did good things, good things would happen to us. But for me, I wondered why when I did good things, bad things happened to me. Romans said we are not always able to do good because we are sinners and this made a lot of sense to me. It gave me a clear answer. Romans said that Jesus is the only one who can forgive ours sins and give us salvation. Again, it was a clearer explanation than Buddhism, one which I was looking for. I also sought Christians to answer the questions I had until I was invited to attend a Sunday worship service and when I went, they sung a lot of songs, one of which made me cry. It was “Jesus, the Rock of Salvation.” When they sung that song, I got goose bumps. It was the singing of hymns that brought tears to my eyes and I wondered why this never happened when I studied Buddhism with my father. I had the feeling of excitement in my heart. Because of that, I decided to follow Jesus that day which was August 15, 1999 (my spiritual birthday) and I wanted to transform Cambodia and rid my country of crime and corruption. I wanted to join a political party that was against crime and corruption but my family told me I would be dead in two years if rose within the party. How could I change Cambodia quickly? My parents and friends asked me to consider my plans so I prayed to the Lord to ask him. I prayed and fasted many times and God told me the answer was in sharing the gospel with the Cambodian people so I wrote out a covenant that told God I would give my life to spreading the gospel in Cambodia whether it meant life or death.
When I first believed, I met up with some heavy persecution from my family. My father wanted me to work with the government having a big title and a big salary but I was intent on serving the Lord. My father commanded me to stop following Jesus and join the government to become an official. I felt caught between a rock and a hard place. The tension between my written covenant with God and the demands of my father caused me so much angst that I sought God in times of silence and solitude, and the Bible showed me that my sacrifices for the Kingdom will bring much more blessings than that of what is “lost” in return, so I offered my life and everything I had to Jesus again, including the idea of working for the government of Cambodia. I decided to serve the Lord through Campus Crusade for Christ.
When my father heard this news he was livid. He said I was crazy to fall into the influence of a western religion such as Christianity and that I was now brainwashed. When I visited him, he had to get drunk in order to talk to me. He said I was the one of his children who destroyed his heart and he remembered when he used to brag that I was one child that brought him the most pride and honor. Through all of this, I still followed the will of God as I knew for my life with Campus Crusade for two years. Because Campus Crusade was not a church planting organization, I resigned because I had the vision to plant churches and so joined a Baptist Denomination. For three years I studied in their Bible school, learned a lot, and gained some experience in the process until I had some conflicts with some of the foreign missionaries running the denomination. I wanted to do holistic ministry even though I did not fully understand just what it was. The missionaries said God only cared about spiritual things like Bible reading, worship and evangelism, and the physical or social needs of people so I prayed about this for a long time and came to the conclusion that it would be best for me to leave and so I volunteered to serve at an independent church as an associate pastor.
After getting more experience with church problems and politics, and persecution from my family, I decided to add another name to my given name which is “Abraham,” because my character was akin to that of Abraham in the Bible. Like Abraham, who left his family in Ur to travel to the Promised Land, I left my parents to follows God’s call. Now I am called ‘Abraham’ Simting Hang, but my nick name is Abe. I had to go through a lot of red tape with the government to get all my identification documents changed but now even my father calls me Abraham.
In the church where I served, I noticed a young woman who had a servant’s heart in the youth group. I was very impressed and decided that I was going to marry this girl. After knowing her 7 months, I boldly asked her to marry me. She was shocked and said she would pray about it. Three weeks later she agreed and I had to go meet her father and he wanted to meet my parents to talk about the engagement. When my parents heard, they were angry with me again. They would not come to meet my future in laws. So I went by myself with another young person from my church. I apologized for the rudeness of my family but since Sophin’s family were Christians, they understood and said, “No problem.” The first time my parents met Sophin’s parents were at the wedding. When my family came to join the wedding they saw me crying because I was so excited about the wedding. When the service was over, we had the reception at noon. As I sat with my parents, my father asked me why I cried. “A man should not cry because it is not culturally appropriate.” I said to him, “I am crying out of joy because this wedding is where God brought Sophin and I together as one.” My father did not answer but his face showed how he felt. After two months, I told my wife I wanted a son but I remembered what the fortune teller said, and we prayed to God that God would bless us with a son who we would name “Purith,” which means in Khmer, “one who brings blessing to family in the way of good relationships.” God answered our prayers and gave us a son who ended up bringing my family together with my parents and extended family and until now, we have a great relationship and they are trying to understand what our faith is all about.
This is about the time when I became a student at EFC KEY’s Diamond Program in 2004. I was surprised by the uniqueness of the lessons, and especially the lesson that articulated what Holistic Ministry really was and this gave me more impetus to do holistic church planting.
In 2005, I left my church and started my own ministry in early 2006 and focused on holistic ministry. I prayed that God would help me fulfill the vision I had for holistic ministry. When I shared my vision for holistic ministry with many church leaders, they didn’t like the idea and said it was only good for community development, not for church planting. I was convinced otherwise so I continued to pray and an American missionary friend encouraged me to pursue God’s vision for me.
After that, I began to work with the poor because of Luke 4:18 and 19 and I wanted to follow Jesus’ model of ministry to the poor and oppressed. I found a whole bunch of IDPs living on the river bank that fled the war since 1979. They were squatters who were very poor and who were forcibly evicted from the riverside and thrown into a rice field north of Pochentong Airport with only tarps and rice bags for shelter. They had very little food and the field became a quagmire because during the rainy season. Their new location was called Andong Village. There was no infrastructure-sewage, drainage, electricity, clean water, health care, etc, so I moved my ministry from the riverside to Andong and spend my time just visiting among the former squatters. When they began to ask about me, I told them who was and that I was a Christian. Then some began to ask me about Jesus and I shared the good news with them and they became believers. Eight of us gathered for worship outside of a Korean Medical Clinic and after a while we began to grow numerically bit by bit. When we got big enough, I rented a small house with some land for worship but the house soon became too small so I built a simple thatch church building that could hold about 100 people.
The people were suffering and unorganized as the government paid them little attention. No NGO was able to have a voice or organize this group of high independent and unruly squatters but I decided to become an advocate for these squatters as many groups were out to steal their land. Soon I partnered with some churches in Seattle and a local organization called LICADHO to build new roofs for the people that were living in terrible makeshift dwellings. Some days, after putting in the poles for framing, we’d wake up in the morning to find them pulled out and torn down. I decided I needed to sleep out there in Andong in order to prevent this gang from doing it again. They were not happy with me. With funding from Seattle, we were able to rebuild houses for about 500 families. This helped my reputation with people and they began to seek me for counsel but a gang sponsored by someone with bad intentions for the Andong residents threatened to kill me many times. I told them, “You can only kill me if God wants me dead.” We built roofs which really helped, but the extreme poverty and health problems were taking a big toll on the people. But mainly, I noticed three things: 1) many of their problems stemmed from not having Jesus in their lives, 2) they had no education, 3) they had no confidence in themselves, and depended on others to sustain them. I wanted to change these three main obstacles in lives of the villagers. We already had a church, but this was for the believers. Most squatter children were not allowed to attend public school because they could not pay the fees and most of their parents were illiterate. I was concerned that the children would grow up to be illiterate like their parents. This gave me the idea to build a school for the children of the 1000 families at Andong. I shared this idea with many but they thought this was the job of an NGO or the government. So in the beginning, I built the school with money from my wife’s savings which was about $5,900, and she was in agreement. After the school was built, we had a problem finding funding for the teachers but I shared my ideas with the potential teachers who decided they would volunteer their time to teach so the school began to operate with three grades and 65 students. After that, the Seattle churches began to help fund school supplies and the school began to operate smoothly and funds came from Tasmania for teacher’s salaries. The process I began with a concept began to show fruit on the ground so I offered the fruit back to God. When I was invited by the Christian and Missionary Alliance in the US to travel to America, I had the opportunities to preach at their youth camps and in churches about holistic ministry. The offerings I received for my personal use totaled close to $10,000 which I invested back into the school and general development of the village.
When I came back from America, a group wanted to evict the IDPS once again as the land increased in value so I gathered the villagers together to urge them not to let anyone displace them again. After a few days, I was bringing my pregnant wife (2 months) to Phnom Penh on my dirt bike and suddenly I saw a motorcycle coming up behind me at a high speed. They shouted at me and kicked the bike. I called to God for his help as we were crashing and God answered. God protected my wife and our yet to be born child. My knee suffered damage and the bike has never been the same. In spite of these problems, I prayed with my wife and we compared our situation with that of the Apostles. We were happy to have the privilege to suffer for Jesus.
Shortly afterwards, I received encouragement from Australian, Mike Frost who shared from his book Exiles which really touched my heart. His teaching affirmed that what I was doing was God’s will. This gave me more impetus to continue along with seeing the fruit that God was giving me through Holistic Ministry despite outright persecution. I began to see my vision become clearer each day and this gave me joy.
We had a church and a school so I thought I would start an NGO in order to partner with other organizations and NGOs that were hesitant to trust churches. Through the quality of our work, I hoped we would be a testimony to the secular NGOS and this is happening now to a measurable degree.
Two years after we put new roofs on the house, they needed to be replaced. Many villagers came to see me, full of tears, as the rainy season was approaching. I told the people to pray and believe in Jesus and he will hear their prayers. I gathered 50 villagers to pray each night and two weeks later Medical Teams International and Imago Dei Church from Portland, Oregon responded with funding for corrugated tin roofs and water sanitation. Through them, we built 103 new houses and the people were amazed and praised God. I would like to continue with the new houses/roofs until all the villagers have good roofs, good health, and good infrastructure. These holistic efforts, done after Jesus’ model, have caused the villager to come to my office at the church to ask to become believers. They used to call the village a hopeless case but since transformation is happening, they now have much more hope than they had in the past. In addition, many onlookers from NGOs, neighboring villages, etc, are surprised to see such transformation in this squalid little village of 800 families. This is an example that we can use for community development in other villages in rural areas.
I recently preached in churches in Australia and they were surprised to see the model of ministry I was using and have recently sent interns to come learn with me. They are now changing their model of ministry to become more holistic and more akin to Jesus’ own model.
Just yesterday, there was a meeting of organizations and NGOs working in Andong Village which I was unable to attend. News reached me that these secular and Buddhist organizations who initially hostile to my work had voted me to represent this association. I was overjoyed that our testimony and work had impact on even Buddhist organizations.
My future plans are to plant churches and build a school in Oddar Meanchey Province (near the Thai border) among the former Khmer Rouge. I have been given seven hectares of land by a government official in order to this. Just this week, after traveling to Anlong Veng with MTI and Imago Dei church I was able to share the gospel with many former Khmer Rouge leaders as I slept in their village for two nights.
I look forward to what God will continue to do in the Kingdom of Cambodia through my NGO and our many partners.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
HISTORY OF THE EFC “KINGDOM EQUIPPED YOUTH” COMMISSION 1995 -2010
The birth of EFC Youth Commission was born largely of one man’s vision to see the Youth of Cambodia, discipled, trained and mobilized as a force that would stem the decay of the Khmer society and function as a preservative, salt and light within the Cambodian contemporary youth culture. This man was the Rev. Chhon P. Kong, Khmer expatriate who escaped from Cambodia to the Thai border in 1979. He was repatriated to a third county, the United States, where he pastored a Cambodian Church for 12 years. Chhon with Radha Manickam, were perhaps some of the first overseas Cambodian Christian Leaders to return to Cambodia in 1989 when the doors opened. On Chhon’s second short-term mission trip, Chhon brought me (Brian Maher) along with him. Working with the youth both on two short-term trips in 1990 and 1992, I was convinced that the future development of the country was largely in the hands of the Cambodian Christian youth generation. Chhon & family moved to Cambodia in 1992 under Mission to Unreached Peoples to run Cambodia Christian Services. Chhon had been successful in helping me catch a vision for Khmer youth in 1990 so my family and I came shortly after Chhon with the same organization in 1994. The two of us planned to set up a ministry to the emerging leaders of the local Cambodian churches under Cambodia Christian Services which became the Evangelical Fellowship in 1996.
At the Cambodia Christian Service’s annual meeting in February of ‘95, Chhon, as General Secretary, made a call for volunteers to join me in establishing the CCS Youth Working Group. Responding to this call was Swiss National, Harry Zuberbuhler who had come to Cambodia in ‘91 to begin YWAM’s ministries here. Time was set aside for those attending the CCS Conference to come together and discuss the possibility for future youth ministry among Cambodian young people. Before the conference I done some research and interviewing which helped inform our mission for working with Cambodian Youth and during the Conference, Harry and I began what we would call the "Youth Commission" and soon after Mr. Uon Seila joined us. Harry and I worked together as co-directors with Seila as our cultural advisor. We began with a handful of committed and talented Cambodian youth such as Uy Pheara, Ouk Vannarah, Chea Vuthy, Khan Rasmey, Chhinho Saing, Bun Sambath, Hang Rasmey, Son Ti, Seng Vuthy, Tith Vannseam, Thong Romanea, and Kim Tha.
Mr. Uon Seila was our resident expert advisor on the cultural relevance of our goals, direction and content of teaching. Seila steered us toward a focus on teaching sexual awareness to Christian Young people for two reasons: the blow up of AIDS and other STD’s in Cambodia and the fact that the only way to learn about sex was on the street. Cambodian young people did not even have basic information about reproduction and bodily functions that we in west learn in eighth grade biology. Seila began teaching what Harry called BGR (Boy-Girl Relationships) in our weekly youth training program that turned out to really meet the needs of Cambodian emerging leaders. Seila later published a booklet for the Youth Commission on Sexual Awareness called, ‘Sacred Love’, written from a thoroughly Biblical perspective.
Our first event in April of '95 was an alternative Khmer New Year's Event in Kean Svay, a picnic area just out of town on the Mekong. At this first event there were 13 churches represented and about 250 youth.
The Youth Commission operated under CCS or a year, doing youth leader training, and special youth events. Chhon, Harry and I had been wanting to do a youth camp from early on and Seila had the opportunity to attend a Scripture Union Youth Camp in Malaysia and brought back many helpful ideas so in 1996, we ran the first National Cambodian Christian Youth Camp ever in the history of Cambodia. This was held in the seaside town of Sihanuokville. The Youth Commission also held it’s first provincial seminar in the province of Kompong Chhnang, using the emerging leaders who regularly attended our youth leader training program in order to disciple them and give them hands on experience. In late 1996, CCS closed shop in order to give room for the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia, a movement birthed from within Cambodia, to grow without competition. The Youth Commission then came under the Umbrella of the EFC. In mid ‘96 we had two Khmer interns. First, Mr. Tep Samnang, a young man studying at the Phnom Penh Bible college and then a Phnom Penh Bible School graduate, Mr. Bun Chan Veasna. Soon after, Harry and I hired our first full time youth worker, Miss Sidara Ieng.
We have had many very successful national youth conferences since then and many provincial seminars and a number of sexual awareness seminars here in Phnom Penh for Christian youth as well as other programs and activities. We also gathered youth from Christian Churches each year to take part in National Environment day to teach Christian youth about stewardship of the environment and community service. We also began a ministry to the child commercial sex workers. These children are a part of World Vision Cambodia’s New Ship Ministry. The girls of the Youth Commission minister love and the Word of God to these girls on a monthly basis. In 2000, we began ministering to the orphans at UNICAS orphanage. Both ministries were arranged so that young people could catch a vision for holistic ministry.
In February of 1998, Mr. Harry Zuberbuhler left the field leaving me as sole director but I was on home leave from June 1997 to June 1998 so Rev. Steve Scoffone of International Teams filled the gap until I returned the following June. With Seila's help, we put together a Board of Directors. The board came together in 1998, consisting of some national pastors, missionaries, and gifted Cambodian young people with Uon Seila serving as board chair. Also, in 1998, Dawn Landes from Mennonite Central Committee began to volunteer her time to help with board and staff development. In 2003, Mark Fender of International Teams and Todd Smith from New Zealand also came on as official advisors. In 2004, Graham Symons of ICC replaced Dawn Landes as Financial and Capacity Development. Elijah Penner of MCC began to serve as our liaison to Mennonite Central Committee.
In 2004, former chairman of the board and one of the founding fathers, Mr. Uon Seila, accepted an invitation to come on as a full time co-director of the Youth Commission. This move brought us closer to national ownership and ultimate sustainability. The same year we began to teach drug awareness and a trainer of trainers (TOT) program for those elders in the churches who want to teach their youth groups about drug and sex awareness.
With grants from Mennonite Central Committee, Global Family, and TearFund, we were able to hire six adequate full time staff members to allow the Youth Commission to build a good foundation for proper accounting, report writing, planning and organizational development. We are grateful to MCC, TearFund and Christian Reformed World Relief Committee who have helped with funding and training of our staff and board members.
The EFC Youth Commission endeavored to disciple Emerging Leaders and bring unity among Christian groups both Khmer and expatriate by including all Christian churches and Christian organizations in our planning, program and events. We want to teach youth about leadership, being salt and light, and how to minister holistically to the church and society. We endeavored to give Christian young people the tools to create vision among them selves, and how to interpret cultural trends within the contemporary youth culture and minister the Good News accordingly. We are thankful for the all the help we have received in human resources here in Cambodia from Servants, ICC, CRWRC, InnerChange, World Vision, SAO, TearFund, Samaritan’s Purse, and Action Int’l. We are also indebted to local church leadership; Rev. Heng Cheng, Pastor Mam Barnabas, Rev. Chhon Kong, Pastor Nara Runnath, Dr. Yem Tevyneath, Ms. Sen Samphos, Ms. Sen Navy, Mr. Uy Pheara, Ms. Yos Bophal, Ms. Navy Chhan, Pastor Heng Pisit and Prey Sokoin for their excellent contributions over the years.
In 1999, the Youth Commission put on a provincial seminar in Rattanakiri for some tribal groups. During this time, Seila was walking through an area where they were digging for gems with Rev. Heng Cheng, General Secretary of the EFC, when he almost stepped on a mat that had some gems on it. They were all crusty and covered in dirt so Seila didn’t recognize them as gems, but Heng Cheng warned Seila not to step on them because they were, indeed, gems. Seila found it hard to believe so Heng Cheng later brought him to the town of Banlung to see those crusty gems processed, cut and polished. This impressed Seila and over the next few years and as our youth training began to stagnate, Seila thought how training young people should be multi-faceted, not just academic. He thought we might add mentoring, field work, labs to a more specific form of training that focused on leadership development. Seila mused that most pastors saw their young people as pests, similar to those crusty gems Seila thought were useless pebbles so he was moved to gather those crusty pebbles up, cut them and polish up and return them to the pastor with great value.
Meanwhile, New Zealander, Todd Smith became familiar with the Youth Commission’s programs and offered to help develop Seila’s vision for a new type of training. Todd consulted many curriculum development experts in Cambodia and then began to develop the curriculum, asking qualified individuals to provide lessons according to his template. Many of us supplied lessons that Todd edited. We then had teacher training for those that would teach what would be called, as Seila dubbed it, the Diamond Program. “DP” was launched in 2004. The Diamond Program is a one-year ‘in-service’ training program for emerging leaders which focuses on leadership development for emerging church leaders. Participants are first recommended by their pastor, and then interviewed by the DP directors before acceptance into the program. 30 emerging leaders are accepted per year and about 23 actually graduate. Each participant meets with a mentor on a weekly basis and our mentors are trained and oriented on a quarterly basis.
Part of the idea of DP is to bridge the cultural gap between young emerging leaders and the pastors who are often in conflict. The young people how to use computers and speak English and many of their pastors do not. Their pastors have been through the Khmer Rouge Regime and have much wisdom because of their life experiences to offer the youth. DP has been intentional about putting out emerging leaders who are willing to humble themselves and serve their pastors and much feedback from the pastors has proved this to be a successful endeavor.
In 2004, we opened our first satellite office in the provincial city of Kompong Cham, overseen by Mark Fender (Int’l Teams). We are grateful to First Presbyterian Church Bellevue, Westminster Chapel, and Calvin Presbyterian (Seattle) for sponsoring the expanding work of the Youth Commission in the provinces which is also proving to be quite effective per feedback from rural pastors.
By 2006, the DP Project proved to be very successful and students began to ask to be taken to a deeper level of leadership development. Todd, Seila and I began to put together a leadership curriculum for DP 2 based on Personal Spiritual Formation, Dynamic Reflection, Praxis and Field work. Instead of personal mentors, a group of DP students would meet together weekly as peer mentors to discuss the lesson and pray for each other. This ended up being a witness to the community as they were meeting in public places.
Testimony IV: DP 2 Graduate
I am so glad to study in DP II training and I thought that it is very importance training for me and other students because when I studied the course I can serve God strongly both at church and work place.
More than ten months that I learned in DP II, I knew that God changed me a lot both spiritual and daily actions. God also taught me how to live with others and understand about the worldview of the difference people. The lessons are very good; it improved me to grow in Leadership skills and became a faithful servant of God. I have a vision and commitment to expand God Kingdom in my nation, Cambodia. I also learned about Personal Spiritual Formation that helped me to know that pains, sufferings, difficulty I met in the past were an experience for my life and I know how God shaped my life. Moreover, the course helped me to focus on both spiritual and social activity, before I thought that Christian have to focus on only spiritual. I reflected that, now, DP II helped me to become a humble leader who serve not for popular.
I will use the lessons to help teach people around me and I will apply the practical insights such as exposure trip to see and help the poor. And I will do my best to share good news about God to people as much as I can because I remembered that when I conducted a survey on Other Faiths people always ask me who is God.
Also in 2006, Craig Greenfield from Servants to Asia’s poor put their Big Brothers and Big Sisters Program under the wing of EFC-KEY which is a ministry that mobilizes emerging leaders to mentor orphans in villages in the provinces Kandal, Takeo, Kompong Cham, Kompong Thom, Kompong Chhnang and Phnom Penh. BB&BS is serving 230 pairs (pair mean adult mentoring a child) of Big Brothers/Sisters and orphans. Now there are 3 pairs in Battambang. Plans are to expand in existing provinces, especially Battambang.
In 2007, at our annual planning and review, the name, EFC YOUTH COMMISSION was changed to EFC-KEY (Kingdom Equipped Youth) and a Satellite KEY office was opened in Kompong Chhnang City to run the Diamond Program and other KEY ministries. This same year DP 2 was launched with 20 emerging leaders who have gone on to do great things; Hang Abraham, Bontok Seila, Ms. Khantey, Nov Bora, etc.
Also in 2007, KEY began a Drop in Center across from Indra Devi High School for teens at risk. This has been unexpectedly successful as up to 60 teens per day come for computer lessons, music lessons, English class, French class, and to find a safe place to hang out playing chess or ping pong while waiting for their classes to begin or for their parents to pick them up. The name of the center is Bright Spark and KEY has helped ‘drop ins’ form a soccer team that plays in tournaments organized by the KEY Sports ministry which Todd Smith helped get off the ground during this same year. Ten students have given their lives to Jesus through Bright Spark.
Our Social Awareness Program morphed into the Community Impact Program which mobilizes emerging leaders and Khmer Youth to respond to community needs and disasters such as fires and land evictions. Community Impact trains church elders to become trainers concerning drug and sexual awareness in their churches. The next Training of Trainers 3 month course will be “First Responder” training through Medical Teams International, which is similar to EMT training.
KEY now has 15 full time staffs that are overseen by their Director, Mr. Uon Seila, who has three expatriate advisors that help with different areas of KEY. They are: Todd Smith, Lynn Ogata, and Brian Maher.
KEY is now training its 7th class of Diamond Project Emerging Leaders, 3rd Class of DP 2 Emerging Leaders and will soon run their 16 annual Emerging Youth Leaders Camp. Plans for the immediate future include opening another satellite office in Kompong Thom and adding an advisor to Big Brothers and Sister’s Program. KEY is open to partnering with organizations who value discipleship and developing the capacity of this generation of Cambodia’s emerging church leaders.
We thank God for the dedicated people who have been a part of this ministry.
Brian M. Maher
At the Cambodia Christian Service’s annual meeting in February of ‘95, Chhon, as General Secretary, made a call for volunteers to join me in establishing the CCS Youth Working Group. Responding to this call was Swiss National, Harry Zuberbuhler who had come to Cambodia in ‘91 to begin YWAM’s ministries here. Time was set aside for those attending the CCS Conference to come together and discuss the possibility for future youth ministry among Cambodian young people. Before the conference I done some research and interviewing which helped inform our mission for working with Cambodian Youth and during the Conference, Harry and I began what we would call the "Youth Commission" and soon after Mr. Uon Seila joined us. Harry and I worked together as co-directors with Seila as our cultural advisor. We began with a handful of committed and talented Cambodian youth such as Uy Pheara, Ouk Vannarah, Chea Vuthy, Khan Rasmey, Chhinho Saing, Bun Sambath, Hang Rasmey, Son Ti, Seng Vuthy, Tith Vannseam, Thong Romanea, and Kim Tha.
Mr. Uon Seila was our resident expert advisor on the cultural relevance of our goals, direction and content of teaching. Seila steered us toward a focus on teaching sexual awareness to Christian Young people for two reasons: the blow up of AIDS and other STD’s in Cambodia and the fact that the only way to learn about sex was on the street. Cambodian young people did not even have basic information about reproduction and bodily functions that we in west learn in eighth grade biology. Seila began teaching what Harry called BGR (Boy-Girl Relationships) in our weekly youth training program that turned out to really meet the needs of Cambodian emerging leaders. Seila later published a booklet for the Youth Commission on Sexual Awareness called, ‘Sacred Love’, written from a thoroughly Biblical perspective.
Our first event in April of '95 was an alternative Khmer New Year's Event in Kean Svay, a picnic area just out of town on the Mekong. At this first event there were 13 churches represented and about 250 youth.
The Youth Commission operated under CCS or a year, doing youth leader training, and special youth events. Chhon, Harry and I had been wanting to do a youth camp from early on and Seila had the opportunity to attend a Scripture Union Youth Camp in Malaysia and brought back many helpful ideas so in 1996, we ran the first National Cambodian Christian Youth Camp ever in the history of Cambodia. This was held in the seaside town of Sihanuokville. The Youth Commission also held it’s first provincial seminar in the province of Kompong Chhnang, using the emerging leaders who regularly attended our youth leader training program in order to disciple them and give them hands on experience. In late 1996, CCS closed shop in order to give room for the Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia, a movement birthed from within Cambodia, to grow without competition. The Youth Commission then came under the Umbrella of the EFC. In mid ‘96 we had two Khmer interns. First, Mr. Tep Samnang, a young man studying at the Phnom Penh Bible college and then a Phnom Penh Bible School graduate, Mr. Bun Chan Veasna. Soon after, Harry and I hired our first full time youth worker, Miss Sidara Ieng.
We have had many very successful national youth conferences since then and many provincial seminars and a number of sexual awareness seminars here in Phnom Penh for Christian youth as well as other programs and activities. We also gathered youth from Christian Churches each year to take part in National Environment day to teach Christian youth about stewardship of the environment and community service. We also began a ministry to the child commercial sex workers. These children are a part of World Vision Cambodia’s New Ship Ministry. The girls of the Youth Commission minister love and the Word of God to these girls on a monthly basis. In 2000, we began ministering to the orphans at UNICAS orphanage. Both ministries were arranged so that young people could catch a vision for holistic ministry.
In February of 1998, Mr. Harry Zuberbuhler left the field leaving me as sole director but I was on home leave from June 1997 to June 1998 so Rev. Steve Scoffone of International Teams filled the gap until I returned the following June. With Seila's help, we put together a Board of Directors. The board came together in 1998, consisting of some national pastors, missionaries, and gifted Cambodian young people with Uon Seila serving as board chair. Also, in 1998, Dawn Landes from Mennonite Central Committee began to volunteer her time to help with board and staff development. In 2003, Mark Fender of International Teams and Todd Smith from New Zealand also came on as official advisors. In 2004, Graham Symons of ICC replaced Dawn Landes as Financial and Capacity Development. Elijah Penner of MCC began to serve as our liaison to Mennonite Central Committee.
In 2004, former chairman of the board and one of the founding fathers, Mr. Uon Seila, accepted an invitation to come on as a full time co-director of the Youth Commission. This move brought us closer to national ownership and ultimate sustainability. The same year we began to teach drug awareness and a trainer of trainers (TOT) program for those elders in the churches who want to teach their youth groups about drug and sex awareness.
With grants from Mennonite Central Committee, Global Family, and TearFund, we were able to hire six adequate full time staff members to allow the Youth Commission to build a good foundation for proper accounting, report writing, planning and organizational development. We are grateful to MCC, TearFund and Christian Reformed World Relief Committee who have helped with funding and training of our staff and board members.
The EFC Youth Commission endeavored to disciple Emerging Leaders and bring unity among Christian groups both Khmer and expatriate by including all Christian churches and Christian organizations in our planning, program and events. We want to teach youth about leadership, being salt and light, and how to minister holistically to the church and society. We endeavored to give Christian young people the tools to create vision among them selves, and how to interpret cultural trends within the contemporary youth culture and minister the Good News accordingly. We are thankful for the all the help we have received in human resources here in Cambodia from Servants, ICC, CRWRC, InnerChange, World Vision, SAO, TearFund, Samaritan’s Purse, and Action Int’l. We are also indebted to local church leadership; Rev. Heng Cheng, Pastor Mam Barnabas, Rev. Chhon Kong, Pastor Nara Runnath, Dr. Yem Tevyneath, Ms. Sen Samphos, Ms. Sen Navy, Mr. Uy Pheara, Ms. Yos Bophal, Ms. Navy Chhan, Pastor Heng Pisit and Prey Sokoin for their excellent contributions over the years.
In 1999, the Youth Commission put on a provincial seminar in Rattanakiri for some tribal groups. During this time, Seila was walking through an area where they were digging for gems with Rev. Heng Cheng, General Secretary of the EFC, when he almost stepped on a mat that had some gems on it. They were all crusty and covered in dirt so Seila didn’t recognize them as gems, but Heng Cheng warned Seila not to step on them because they were, indeed, gems. Seila found it hard to believe so Heng Cheng later brought him to the town of Banlung to see those crusty gems processed, cut and polished. This impressed Seila and over the next few years and as our youth training began to stagnate, Seila thought how training young people should be multi-faceted, not just academic. He thought we might add mentoring, field work, labs to a more specific form of training that focused on leadership development. Seila mused that most pastors saw their young people as pests, similar to those crusty gems Seila thought were useless pebbles so he was moved to gather those crusty pebbles up, cut them and polish up and return them to the pastor with great value.
Meanwhile, New Zealander, Todd Smith became familiar with the Youth Commission’s programs and offered to help develop Seila’s vision for a new type of training. Todd consulted many curriculum development experts in Cambodia and then began to develop the curriculum, asking qualified individuals to provide lessons according to his template. Many of us supplied lessons that Todd edited. We then had teacher training for those that would teach what would be called, as Seila dubbed it, the Diamond Program. “DP” was launched in 2004. The Diamond Program is a one-year ‘in-service’ training program for emerging leaders which focuses on leadership development for emerging church leaders. Participants are first recommended by their pastor, and then interviewed by the DP directors before acceptance into the program. 30 emerging leaders are accepted per year and about 23 actually graduate. Each participant meets with a mentor on a weekly basis and our mentors are trained and oriented on a quarterly basis.
Part of the idea of DP is to bridge the cultural gap between young emerging leaders and the pastors who are often in conflict. The young people how to use computers and speak English and many of their pastors do not. Their pastors have been through the Khmer Rouge Regime and have much wisdom because of their life experiences to offer the youth. DP has been intentional about putting out emerging leaders who are willing to humble themselves and serve their pastors and much feedback from the pastors has proved this to be a successful endeavor.
In 2004, we opened our first satellite office in the provincial city of Kompong Cham, overseen by Mark Fender (Int’l Teams). We are grateful to First Presbyterian Church Bellevue, Westminster Chapel, and Calvin Presbyterian (Seattle) for sponsoring the expanding work of the Youth Commission in the provinces which is also proving to be quite effective per feedback from rural pastors.
By 2006, the DP Project proved to be very successful and students began to ask to be taken to a deeper level of leadership development. Todd, Seila and I began to put together a leadership curriculum for DP 2 based on Personal Spiritual Formation, Dynamic Reflection, Praxis and Field work. Instead of personal mentors, a group of DP students would meet together weekly as peer mentors to discuss the lesson and pray for each other. This ended up being a witness to the community as they were meeting in public places.
Testimony IV: DP 2 Graduate
I am so glad to study in DP II training and I thought that it is very importance training for me and other students because when I studied the course I can serve God strongly both at church and work place.
More than ten months that I learned in DP II, I knew that God changed me a lot both spiritual and daily actions. God also taught me how to live with others and understand about the worldview of the difference people. The lessons are very good; it improved me to grow in Leadership skills and became a faithful servant of God. I have a vision and commitment to expand God Kingdom in my nation, Cambodia. I also learned about Personal Spiritual Formation that helped me to know that pains, sufferings, difficulty I met in the past were an experience for my life and I know how God shaped my life. Moreover, the course helped me to focus on both spiritual and social activity, before I thought that Christian have to focus on only spiritual. I reflected that, now, DP II helped me to become a humble leader who serve not for popular.
I will use the lessons to help teach people around me and I will apply the practical insights such as exposure trip to see and help the poor. And I will do my best to share good news about God to people as much as I can because I remembered that when I conducted a survey on Other Faiths people always ask me who is God.
Also in 2006, Craig Greenfield from Servants to Asia’s poor put their Big Brothers and Big Sisters Program under the wing of EFC-KEY which is a ministry that mobilizes emerging leaders to mentor orphans in villages in the provinces Kandal, Takeo, Kompong Cham, Kompong Thom, Kompong Chhnang and Phnom Penh. BB&BS is serving 230 pairs (pair mean adult mentoring a child) of Big Brothers/Sisters and orphans. Now there are 3 pairs in Battambang. Plans are to expand in existing provinces, especially Battambang.
In 2007, at our annual planning and review, the name, EFC YOUTH COMMISSION was changed to EFC-KEY (Kingdom Equipped Youth) and a Satellite KEY office was opened in Kompong Chhnang City to run the Diamond Program and other KEY ministries. This same year DP 2 was launched with 20 emerging leaders who have gone on to do great things; Hang Abraham, Bontok Seila, Ms. Khantey, Nov Bora, etc.
Also in 2007, KEY began a Drop in Center across from Indra Devi High School for teens at risk. This has been unexpectedly successful as up to 60 teens per day come for computer lessons, music lessons, English class, French class, and to find a safe place to hang out playing chess or ping pong while waiting for their classes to begin or for their parents to pick them up. The name of the center is Bright Spark and KEY has helped ‘drop ins’ form a soccer team that plays in tournaments organized by the KEY Sports ministry which Todd Smith helped get off the ground during this same year. Ten students have given their lives to Jesus through Bright Spark.
Our Social Awareness Program morphed into the Community Impact Program which mobilizes emerging leaders and Khmer Youth to respond to community needs and disasters such as fires and land evictions. Community Impact trains church elders to become trainers concerning drug and sexual awareness in their churches. The next Training of Trainers 3 month course will be “First Responder” training through Medical Teams International, which is similar to EMT training.
KEY now has 15 full time staffs that are overseen by their Director, Mr. Uon Seila, who has three expatriate advisors that help with different areas of KEY. They are: Todd Smith, Lynn Ogata, and Brian Maher.
KEY is now training its 7th class of Diamond Project Emerging Leaders, 3rd Class of DP 2 Emerging Leaders and will soon run their 16 annual Emerging Youth Leaders Camp. Plans for the immediate future include opening another satellite office in Kompong Thom and adding an advisor to Big Brothers and Sister’s Program. KEY is open to partnering with organizations who value discipleship and developing the capacity of this generation of Cambodia’s emerging church leaders.
We thank God for the dedicated people who have been a part of this ministry.
Brian M. Maher
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)