It’s hard to believe but for the last 10 years, since the home was built, our kids at the Krolai Church Home have been playing near three, 250 pound bombs, dropped more than 40 years ago on what was then known as the “Ho Chi Minh Trail”. “Those suckers make a lot of noise!” And, to think our US “birds” laid those eggs! I honestly felt a little guilty, but thanked God no one was hurt. Christmas got started with a “Bang” in Rattanakirri Province, maybe “Kaboom” would be more descriptive.  Some of the boys at the home were …  

It may not have been as noisy in the natural realm, but the devil got his teeth jarred this Christmas! As you’ll see in a couple of paragraphs, he had it coming! We were experiencing continuous Christmas programs since the beginning of December and they are still continuing into January. We estimate that over 35,000 people made decisions for Christ. The biggest event was about 3500 young factory workers attending an evening service at Chom Chao, more than half received Christ! There is a lot of curiosity about Christmas here in Cambodia. The Cambodians see Christmas trees everywhere, and are very …  

  We are still harvesting our mediocre rice crop, just not enough water in 2014. There was some rice that was irrigated which is pretty good, but seed is so scarce that we will probably not mill much of it. Since it was raised from foundation seed, we’ll sell it as seed to help the neighbors out. There’s been a lot of activity at the rice farm with the extension of our runway (drying strip about 1/4 mile long), and the building of a large machine shed. We got some new “Tonka Toys” for Christmas as well! FCOP now has …  

FCOP is really gearing up for the 1000 hectares of rice land which will provide for building up the church, and feeding, raising, and training the separated children under our care. We need to become less dependent!  FCOP must have trained people to do that. There really isn’t a good agricultural school to teach commercial scale rice production in Cambodia, but we have one, and there are about 30 young men enrolled in it at our rice farm. They are learning by doing, and getting paid a fair salary to boot. I promised them uniforms and couldn’t find anything sturdy …  

 

Rice is being harvested! It’s too early to tell how good it will be, but even though many people questioned the wisdom of planting the third time, it looks like it will pay off. When you farm you don’t quit. It is the same principle used in ministering to the hopeless. Ecclesiastes 11:4 states: “He who observes the wind will not sow, and he who observes the clouds will not reap.” We keep on plugging away, and the only farmers with a crop of quality in our region, is FCOP. We’ve already harvested some seed rice which we knew was …  

Dr. Derrick Dauplaise, Dr. Mike Callan, and Gary Houzenga have been visiting Cambodia several times a year for several years and always have a huge impact with their group of faithful servants sent through Medical Teams International. Dr. Mike brought some dental students from the University of Iowa, and it looks like it may become a regular feature. They served hundreds of our kids, church members, and needy people from the community from Khampong Channang Province. The love of God shown in practical ways is our prime motive for bringing in so many medical and dental teams. Infected teeth make …  

We were out of rice. There were four, 40 foot long, shipping containers heading for port and even though they’d been donated for free, we didn’t have the money to clear them through Cambodian customs. Then came our financial miracle. We paid up our past due fees and rice started to flow. Four containers of food stuff were received in November. That’s 88 tons! It may not have been turkey dinner, but it was surely something to be thankful for!