Our outreach team has spent the last 78 days pouring out love onto as many people as possible in Thailand and Cambodia. Our hope has been as we would demonstrate love and share love the people we meet would realize how much their Heavenly Father truly loves them. We met with young people everyday and shared with them everyday how much they are loved by Jesus. And as we left Cambodia last week we realized we were really getting through. How did we know? Well, all of the young people we were loving on everyday…they loved on us in return.

Our last week in Battambang, Cambodia was filled with goodbye celebrations and exchanging emails and facebook addresses. There were lots of tears, laughter, and requests for us to return to Cambodia soon. It was so easy to respond to the requests with a hearty, “Yes, we would all love to come back!” We had students praying for us, giving us gifts, writing letters, giving pictures, and more. Our whole team felt so loved. The morning we left from Battambang to Bangkok we had many young people from Cambodia and YWAM staff members come to wish us farewell. It was so special to have so many come to see us off. It was such a clear picture of the love that each one of those people had for our team. We also knew it was a testimony to the effectiveness of our time with each of them.

The receiving of love from these new friends gave our team such a since of significance. We talked often over the next few days how blessed we were to have shared the last few months together in Cambodia. Everyone felt a great since of accomplishment as we endured through the challenges and gave our lives away in this beautiful nation. That since of accomplishment was sealed in our hearts by the love we received back from everyone we met over the course of our outreach together. It would have been much more difficult to believe we had an impact on the people’s lives we touched if they didn’t express any gratitude or love in return. I’m so thankful that our new friends were vulnerable and open enough to give love back to us and express it openly!

The giving and receiving of love is so crucial in our lives and the scriptures make it clear that both of those are a necessary part of our relationship with the Lord. There is never a lack of scriptures communicating the need for us to love the Lord completely.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30

But the other side of the coin is often overlooked by us and it is the many times the scriptures speak to God’s incredible love that he pours out on us. Again, there is no lack of verses speaking to this. I love this following verse. It is one of the most colorful and expressive verses about God’s amazing love for us.

“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

My prayer is that you will walk in the deep significance that you are loved by your Heavenly Father. As an overflow of this love you receive from the Father, you will be able to turn around and love Him back and also share that love with as many people around you as possible! And just as I’ve returned home this past week, your heart will find it’s home in the place of receiving the Father’s love for you.

The most profound moment was the final evening when two Khmer YWAMers spoke on revelation they’ve been receiving lately. The first spoke to the reality that the country of Cambodia has been on the receiving end of help for years and would never consider being ones to offer help to other nations. Then he brought the strong challenge to the group that as leaders they are no longer called to only receive but to be a source of leadership to the nations around. He brought to light many lies that the nations has believed that would keep them from walking in this call and they repented and agreed with the Lord about the new day upon them! What a joy!

We responded with a roar of worship that declared how great our God is and recognized that he is appointing us all to be leaders in this generation to transform the country of Cambodia. He has already anointed us and is now sending us out to reach this nation and the surrounding nations. YWAM is to be from every nation, to every nation. So Khmer young people are being called not just to Cambodia, but to the other nations in the world to prove that out of weakness and brokenness God can bring such incredible power. I believe it was a very important night for this nation and will be a big part of this group moving into a new season. It was so exciting to be a part of it! As the Khmer prayed out in their own language I couldn’t understand their words, but the Holy Spirit was so powerful crossing every language barrier and touching the hearts of every one in the room. We sang many Khmer songs which were so fun to lead with my friend Date as they would sing out with all their hearts to the Lord. They declared from the top of their lungs that nothing will stop them from taking the Gospel across this nation and no matter the cost they would walk in obedience to this call! What a great night!

I’m so thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to hear the hearts of this nation and declare together with them that this nation is ripe for a great harvest! It is a new day here and I’m excited to hear the reports in the coming years!

I’m struck by the fact that the facets of the Lord are endless and we could worship the Lord uniquely each day for the rest of our lives and never exhaust the nature and character of God. I know for me as I have entered into missions the last 18 months I have had a new revelation of who the Lord is and the significance of worshiping Him with every tribe, tongue, and nation! It is one of my favorite things to do! The more nations, the better, and I truly believe the Lord feels the same way! If you’ve never had that experience then I encourage you to do whatever it takes to put yourself in a situation where you can worship the Lord with people of a different culture. It will change the way you worship for good!

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!

We have been sharing daily with about 100 students at the University of Nations Youth Center in Battambang and also another 60 children in a nearby village. In both of these places we have begun to see physical healings and salvation that has been such an incredible joy!

As I lead a young man to the Lord on Sunday he declared that he felt so loved by the Father as He surrendered his life to Jesus. He clearly renounced believing in every other religion and gave his life completely to Jesus Christ as the Lord of his life. It was such an incredible privilege to pray with him and see such an authentic decision to follow Jesus.

Pray for us as we continue to invest our lives into this beautiful community and believe for real lasting transformation in individual lives and this community in Cambodia. We believe that what we have seen this past weekend is just a small taste of what we will be  apart of the next 6 weeks here in Battambang, Cambodia! Join with us to see this come to pass.

We have joined Mileng in teaching English and Bible to about 60 young people each morning and have been meeting their families all week. The families have been so excited to welcome our team into their homes and are looking forward to coming together as a community this Sunday to discover more about God’s love for their community and each of them individually.

We couldn’t be more thrilled at the chance to work together in this community to see it touched by the love of Christ! Pray with us that there will be amazing fruit that will last in this community!