On Sunday December 26th, Mak Sou and I attended church for the first time in 20 months. As we watched our kids at Chom Chao perform different parts of the service, I was reminded that ever since coming to Asia (Laos) back in 1968, I have been amazed at how different cultures and languages interpret the same thing differently. A few years ago I was back in the USA in December visiting donor churches. I was driving with my daughter between weekend meetings when the song, “Last Christmas” played on the radio. I commented, “I’ve never heard that one.” My daughter responded, “Dad, that’s not a very good Christmas song, about breaking someone’s heart.” I had to agree. Imagine my surprise when one of our churches had the kids sing and dance to it for Christmas, as it never mentions Christ in the lyrics. Their interpretation of the song is very different and it goes like this: Last year, I gave You (Jesus) my heart, the very next day, Jesus gave His salvation away again to someone else, this year they plan to give God’s gift of salvation to someone special. You see, in Cambodia, at least for the millions of Cambodians that have been touched by our churches, Christmas is about the birth of Christ, so all songs about Christmas are interpreted in that light. I like this version! We thank God for the salvations we’ve seen in this special season as we celebrate God sending His Son to this earth.

Christmas services are some of the most significant events that take place at our FCOP churches throughout Cambodia. Not only is it a celebration of the birth of our Savior, but it is one of our greatest times of evangelism. At over 100 locations, Christmas celebrations start in early December and will continue to take place through the middle of January. The churches rotate their Christmas celebrations so that they can join with one another as a family. In Phnom Penh, due to COVID-19 restrictions, we were expecting only around 150 people to attend service. We were thrilled to see the church building overflowing with people coming to hear about Christ; it shocked us because this was without our being able to take our vans to bring in those that otherwise have no other way of getting to church. Following the service, our team distributed over 300 bags of food.