Cambodia (MNN)—More than 14,000 people gathered together in Siem Reap, Cambodia, in January for a Christian Bible school and festival, put together by 470 local churches across five provinces.
According to John Pudaite of Bibles for the World, his team prepared 80,000 Gospels of John and 6,000 Bibles for new believers.
They ran out in two days.
“The hunger for God’s Word and the gracious way in which they accepted it, those who were immediately engaging with it, was just so encouraging to see,” says Pudaite. “Cambodia is one of those countries where a majority of the population is 18 and under now, and we’re seeing tremendous population growth, since the year 2000 and onward. So this whole generation doesn’t know the Khmer Rouge, doesn’t remember that, and so now this is a generation that is open to the Gospel. I don’t think we’ve seen that many young people at one of these international festivals than what we saw in Cambodia, and that’s just really exciting.”
Cambodia’s history under the Khmer Rouge of the 1900s included bloodshed and Christian persecution. Currently, only approximately two percent of the population is Christian. However, there is a movement of home churches growing at a grassroots level within the country. A goal of this event was to help connect new believers with some of these churches.
“Part of this festival was that those who profess faith in Christ were connected and assigned to some of the different churches, depending on what village or what locality they came from, for their early discipleship. Many of them may not have even known other Christians existed in their town or in their village,” says Pudaite. “It’s very exciting to spend time with some of those pastors and workers and just be able to equip them and encourage them in the work that they’re doing, and that’s the part that we try to play as Bible school. We know that we’ll be there a short time and, ultimately, it’s the local church, it’s the Nationals, it’s the indigenous people who have to carry on the work. And so we look at it from the from day one as what can we do to go in, equip, and encourage them in the time that we are there.”
The outpouring of support from local churches and the younger generations is happening amidst a backdrop of conflict, with Thailand invading and dropping bombs about 100 miles away from where the festival took place.
“And so in the midst of that crisis, or perhaps in part heightened by that crisis, people have been asking spiritual questions, as their lives and very livelihoods have been threatened. Their villages have been destroyed,” says Pudaite. “So that was, I think, a really fertile ground. In the midst of crisis, we’re bringing Jesus Christ, who brings true hope and peace.”
Ways to pray for Cambodia:
- That the Gospel seeds sown in the hearts of those who attended the event would take root.
- That the cooperating churches that put together this event will continue to be strong.
- That the violence and incursions by the by the Thai Army into Cambodia would cease.
Header photo is a representative stock image courtesy of vicky_t via Unsplash.
