Friday was a great day of salvation in the Cambodian village we are ministering in. We have been teaching English and Bible to about 120 young people since the middle of July in this beautiful village. There are two Christian families in the entire village and the rest are Buddhist families. They are primarily Buddhist only by culture, not necessarily by practice or conviction. However, “To be Cambodian is to be Buddhist.”

For the last couple weeks as a team we have had a growing sense that the young people we are teaching are very receptive and hungry to know Jesus. In prayer, we felt that this Friday was going to be a day where many would come to Christ. We have learned from our hosts that in Cambodian culture people will raise their hand when asked to in response to a Gospel presentation out of respect for the speaker. We were wrestling through how to give them a chance to authentically respond to the Gospel and not simply respond out of respect for our team. In prayer we felt that we would ask anyone who had a desire to commit their lives to Christ to stay after class so we could clearly lead them through the decision to say no to every other religion and say yes to Jesus. We wanted it to be very clear that you cannot worship Jesus and Buddha, but only Jesus!

All week we had been sharing the reality of God’s desire for relationship with us, our separation from God because of sin, and God’s solution through the sacrifice of His Son Jesus on the cross. Friday we reviewed all these details and gave them all a chance to respond by staying after class and out of 120, 37 stayed after to commit their lives to Christ! Our team is thrilled that this village is being transformed by the love of Jesus Christ! This is only the beginning and we believe that there is going to be many more young people that give their lives to Jesus. We are trusting for an entire village to turn to Jesus and follow Him alone for the rest of their lives!

This has been one of the greatest highlights of our outreach in Thailand and Cambodia! The great thing is we still have four weeks to disciple our new brothers and sisters in Christ and believe for more and more to come!

In 2003 I wrote two songs to help our church learn the books of the Bible and also how Christ is portrayed in each book.  Click here to download these songs on iTunes! We memorized these songs and sang them to deepen our understanding of the Word of God.  It’s hard to believe that it is now 8 years later!  And now, at the request of some YWAM leaders in Kona I have released these two songs on iTunes.

We are pleased to announce that Aaron’s album “Rise Up” is available to purchase on iTunes. You can buy individual songs, or the whole album.  Click here to go straight to iTunes.

Rise Up, the studio album by Aaron Barker has been released. It is available to purchase at live events, or online at CD Baby. The purchase price at CD Baby $11.99.