Third time planting rice this year.

So, why, with thousands of orphans, widows, and pastors praying daily for a good rice crop, have we seen two crops die? Have we missed God? Is there sin in the camp? The truthful answer is, “With so many people involved, at times, ‘Yes’, on both counts.” But, as a movement, we are answering the “call” to see Cambodia come to Christ, and that is what propels us forward, not our failures or mistakes. The worst thing we can do is quit moving! God can turn a moving wheel, even if it is headed in the wrong direction, but for the sake of the kingdom, make the best decisions you can, based on the knowledge you have, and move! That’s why we plant rice. I know rice. God prepared me for this. And, I don’t know how to quit. We do need to develop reservoirs, but it will cost $300,000, and we don’t have that yet.

Why so much emphasis on the rice farm? Wouldn’t it be better to take the money and just buy rice? This year that may prove to be true, but in the long haul there is one overriding fact, as Oral Roberts said, “Without a successor there will be no success.” This work in Cambodia must be bigger than Ted and Sou Olbrich; it must change a nation. That means we must transition form being dependent upon outside sources, and foreign leaders, to promote the benevolence of the church, and start to grow internal provision through both human and material resources.

Much of this will come from Cambodian giving, but even now, Cambodian church home enterprises, (the tractor factory, car washes, beauty school, fish ponds, carpentry shops, weaving, mushroom production, pig enterprises, and vegetable gardens, etc.) along with internal giving is supplying nearly 50% of the support for FCOP orphans. But, to see this work endure in the long run, we need developed leaders and an internal source of supply and funding. God has given us young leaders raised in our homes, and rice is the one commodity that Cambodians will always be dependent upon, as they eat it three meals per day. There will always be demand for it, and land doesn’t burn down, rot, or walk away. It is a solid foundation for future provision.