500 delegates gather at Siem Reap for the ECFC conference

I didn’t exactly “fear” the Eastern Council of Foursquare Churches Biennial Conference, (ECFC) which we hosted in Cambodia this year for 500 representatives from 21 nations, but I did flippantly pray (You know? One of those prayers that you know won’t get answered), “God if you could give me a time machine, and just let me leapfrog over those days of October 7th through the 10th, I’d be most grateful!”  Job said, “That which I have greatly feared has come upon me. ” And all hell had broken lose in his life. So, I refused to open that door. It’s interesting that in the Bible God tells us 365 times to, “Fear not”. There has to be a good reason for that! What’s the solution when the odds for disaster seem overwhelming?

Honestly, I was not looking forward to the ECFC event with joyous expectations. We preceded the event with daily prayer in our staff meetings for a full year to counter my anticipations. Problems with visas, costs, infrastructure, food all begged attention, but I knew our greater call was to Cambodia and that’s what got our primary attention. The prayer paid off big time! God sent us faithful workers. The worship team had never done a song in English before April of this year and Chanta Apodaca, my daughter, came to the rescue, and it was flawless. Our staff, three volunteers (Hannah, Katie and Colleen), and former orphan we’d raised, turned “travel entrepreneur”, made it look like we actually knew what we were doing.