Manfred's Cambodia Christmas

We are so thankful to have Joel and Janelle visiting us for Christmas in Cambodia!  The C&MA helps missionary kids with one trip back to visit the country where their parents' serve and both Joel and Janelle decided to take their trip this year.  What fun for us!!!!

The Ultimate Missionary

The C&MA Cambodia Team

A Very Merry Christmas!

A word not often associated with Christmas is "missionary". But in fact, that has EVERYTHING to do with Christmas!  A missionary, of course, is one who is sent on a mission.

We can honestly say that Jesus came on a mission.  The angel said to Joseph:  "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21 -- NIV).  His mission was and is to save us from the punishment of sin.  This was and is Good News.   Jesus truly was Heaven's ultimate "Missionary".

Jesus' Great Commission has the word mission right in it.  The Mission that Jesus had on that first Christmas has now become our mission...  to point people to the Savior.  Particularly going to those places where people have no opportunity or limited opportunity to hear this Good News...  places like Cambodia where about 99% of the people do not yet know the Savior.

Chris and I are so thankful for the privilege of joining with Jesus in His mission to Cambodia.  It has now been more than 10 years since we started serving as the Field Director couple working with the C&MA Cambodia team of about 40 missionaries.  By God's grace, we have seen significant impact for Christ and His Kingdom.

As those who have supported us in prayer, we would like to share a few ministry highlights from 2011 as an encouragement to you as our partners in ministry:

• The C&MA Mission helped establish a church planting training program with the Cambodian Alliance church where more than 40 volunteer Cambodian church planters are fanning out throughout the country to start groups of Christians where there have never been any before...  Since this program started in 2010, there are more than 20 house churches that have been started in unreached areas.
• More than 250 Cambodians are enrolled in the "TEE" leadership training program for church leaders around the country.  In addition, 17 students are studying full-time in the Elim Rural Ministry Training School.  It is exciting to see Cambodians being trained up to lead the churches and to eventually work the missionaries out of a job!
  
• In November we received official permission from the Cambodian government for five churches in Ratanakiri province of Cambodia.  This is an area where the number of churches has grown from 0 to more than 30 in the past 12 years.  This has also been an area with a lot of persecution against Christians.  This permission is very significant because, of the 30 churches in the province, these five are the first to ever receive official local and provincial recognition. 
• Medical professionals on our team (2 doctors and 2 nurses) literally helped thousands of Cambodians in need of medical care...  combining medical expertise along with the compassion and care of Christ.  In addition, pretty much everyone on our mission team, oftentimes at personal sacrifice, has assisted people too poor to receive medical care to get the care they need.  This doesn't get reported much, but it is something that happens VERY often.
• CAMA Services is working with the mission to support an ambulance ministry in Banteay Meanchey province.  In 2011, our staff conducted more than 300 ambulance runs, trained Cambodians to successfully operate an Emergency Medical Services program throughout the province, and donated one ambulance to a remote area that has never had an ambulance before.
• NewHope schools helped more than 400 children, mostly from very poor, sometimes destitute, backgrounds, to learn reading, writing, arithmetic, and the Gospel.  Most of these children are now believers and have hope for a brighter future than the one into which they were born.
• We have two families on our team who are translating the Bible...  one into the Bunong language and the other into the Kuy langauge.  It is a thrill to see these people groups beginning to receive the Bible in their own language for the very first time.
• At the national church youth conference in April, more than 700 young people attended.  Some of them made first time commitments to Christ and many of them responded to a call for total surrender to Christ.
• Missionaries working with our team have had the privilege of leading hundreds of people to Christ this past year...  from a very high government official to a very poor person dying of AIDS...  and everything in between.

Please pray for the following:

4 Generations of Manfreds, August

• Many Cambodians have already made professions of faith at Christmas services around the country.  Pray for open hearts at the remaining services yet to be held (up until Jan. 1) and for appropriate follow-up for those who, through faith, have experienced the true meaning of Christmas.
• On a couple of personal notes, we are so thankful for the prayers and support we have sensed from so many as Dave's dad went to be with the Lord earlier this month.  We had a great chance to see him (along with our first grandson, Caleb) in August.  Thanks for your ongoing prayers for God's grace in our lives.
• That the Great Commission Fund (GCF) of the Alliance will prosper, allowing for greater Kingdom advance in Cambodia and around the world.  

As the Lord leads, please continue giving to the GCF.  Funds can be sent to: The Christian and Missionary Alliance PO Box 35000, Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500, clearly marked: "Manfred Support".  Donations can also be made online at www.cmalliance.org/give  Thanks!  

We’d also like to appeal to anyone who has never given to the GCF to consider starting.  It is through the GCF that many hundreds of Alliance workers, and their vital ministries around the world, are supported.  We are able to continue our ministry, and live in Cambodia, only through the GCF.  Thanks so much for considering this!

We appreciate you standing with us as we bring the Mission of that first Christmas to the peoples of Cambodia.

In Christ, Dave, Chris, and Jenna

Faith in the Flood

Worship in the Flood

Dear Prayer Supporters:

Thank you for your prayers for Cambodia.  We would ask you to continue to do so as Cambodia is experiencing the worst flooding in many years.  More than 200 have lost their lives and the rice harvest has been significantly impacted.  In areas where the needs are the greatest, our missionary team and CAMA services have been assisting with emergency food supplies through several local churches.

Cambodia is a low-lying country and much of the country is what we would call in the West, a flood-plain.  That is one of the reasons why many Cambodian homes are built on stilts.  However the floods this year have been much worse than normal.  The flood waters have gone higher than the stilts in many of the homes near the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers.  This particularly affects the Vietnamese minority who tend to live on these rivers.

One of the ministries of the C&MA Cambodia Mission is called "NewHope" ministries.  This is a ministry focused on the million plus ethnic Vietnamese people who live in Cambodia.  The number of Christians amongst the Vietnamese in Cambodia is much less than 1%.  NewHope currently has 8 small churches amongst the Vietnamese living here.  Two of these churches have been under water for four weeks. 

In the midst of this hardship, it is encouraging to see the faith of the faithful.  A few Sundays ago, one of our missionary families from Australia went out to see how the "Prek Kdam" church was doing.  Even though the water had risen above the height of the stilts and the floor in the church was flooded, they found that the faithful had still come to worship.  They all came in boats and tied their boats together in front of the church where they worshiped, shared in communion, listened to God's Word, and prayed. Since the church flooded four weeks ago, they have been gathering together in their boats in front of the church every Sunday.  

Serving the Lord's Supper

Their testimony reminds me of Jesus words in Luke 6:47-48: "I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built."

These are people, who in the midst of the personal challenges all around them from the flood have chosen to built their "house" on the solid Rock of faith in Jesus. What a great reminder and testimony to the fact that whenever the "floods" of life come, there is a Rock to which we can cling.

We are thankful for the testimony of God's people. This church was started a few years ago through the faithful witness and testimony of C&MA missionaries who continue to invest in developing new leaders, strengthening this church, and doing the same in many more places like it. Thanks for your support in prayer for the people in Cambodia who are being impacted by the flooding but even more significantly, thanks for your prayers and support for our missionary team and Cambodian believers who are helping the peoples of Cambodia to understand that there is a true Rock upon which they can cling when the inevitable floods of life come. This is the eternal need that only Christ can address.

In addition to your prayers, your support through the Great Commission Fund helps to keep us here impacting the multifaceted needs of this land. Giving can be done through your local Alliance Church or online at www.cmalliance.org/give

Thank you for helping us to be here and serve here in these times of need.

In Christ, Dave and Chris Manfred

23 in 18

Dear Praying Friends

Please look through the following list:

1	Lweah Kaum (Kandaal)	Sarun	Mar-10
2	Lweah (K. Chnang)	Taon Ton and Preap Kain	Mar-11
3	Pum Plong	Njol	Apr-10
4	Koh	Theun	Apr-11
5	Teah	Theun	Apr-11
6	Pum Jo-Aan	Seeuw Haing	May-11
7	Pum Peak	Seeuw Chol	Jun-11
8	Pum Kohl	Chuel	Mar-10
9	Camka Kabah	Bin David/Kum Een	2011
10	Ang Tosoum/ Kum Tosool	Bin Navi	2010
11	Bat Num	Pauw and Sokun or Theun	Oct-10
12	Sambua	Tea, Houng and Tuck	May-11
13	Lweah (Varin)	Seiha	Sep-10
14	Chuk Sohh	Hein Moch	Jan-11
15	Anlong Veng	Phearum/Srei Noi Church	Mar-11
16	Srei Noi	Nhorn	May-11
17	Rung Wean	Camraen and Kam Pui	Mar-11
18	Bay Domraam	Tree	Mar-11
19	Kabaal Crobei	Chung	Mar-11
20	Pum Puyou	Mimi and Oreang	2010
21	Trean	Can Ton/Elim Bible School	2010
22	Srei Amboung	Cin Tan and Klum	2010
23	You Ondeang	Cin Tan and Tea	2010

What are all these strange names?  The first column is the name of a
Cambodian village/town that now has a group of believers meeting weekly
to study God's Word and worship.  18 months ago,  none of these
communities had a Christian presence.  To re-emphasize... since the
beginning of time, there has not been a Christian presence in these
places...  at all...  but praise God, over the past 18 months, there is
now.

The second column has the name of the Cambodian Church Planter(s) who
took the initiative to get each of these new groups started.  The last
column is the date when this new group was started (all within the past
18 months).

Three years ago the Khmer Evangelical Church (KEC--the name of the
Cambodian Alliance Church), asked the C&MA Cambodia Mission to help them
strengthen and expand their church planting ministry in Cambodia.  The
table above is the fruit of these labors.  With encouragement and
training from the C&MA Cambodia Mission, the KEC has started
house-churches who meet weekly for worship in each of these 23
communities...  this means that over the past 18 months, on average,
more than one unreached community per month has a new Christian presence
(house church).

In addition, there is ongoing work to start new house churches in many
more unreached communities.  One of our Alliance missionaries, Erik
van't Ende, is working with 47 KEC Church Planters who are being trained
and are actively taking steps to start new churches...  Just a few of these
church planters receive some reimbursement funds for their travel expenses but
none of them are paid by the Mission to carry out this work.  They are
donating their time, talent, and treasure for this work out of their love for Christ.

When we see this long list of names, it is merely an obscure and
meaningless list.  In reality, each of these names represents a unique
place that now has an active house church where people are learning
God's Word each week and coming together to worship the Lord.  Each of
these communities represents hundreds of families who, until recently,
have never had a Christian presence near them.  Each of these names
represent people who are now "within earshot" of God's Word and are
able to see Christ's transforming power through the lives of their
friends and neighbors who have become Christians.

The Cambodia C&MA Mission is one of the leading voices within a
movement called "MK2021".  MK2021 means "Mission Kampuchea (Cambodia)
2021.  It is an inter-denominational effort to see a Christian presence
(typically house churches) established in every village in Cambodia by
the year 2021.  It is a God-sized vision since there are 14,000 villages
in Cambodia and less than 3,000 of them currently have a Christian presence.

There are a lot of things being done today that are popularly promoted
in missions...  medical help in the developing world...  helping women
and girls in danger of being trafficked in the s-x trade...  having short-term
teams come to assist with English or other felt needs...  providing
education to kids who have never had the opportunity to receive a decent
education...  helping widows and orphans.  The Cambodia C&MA mission is
also involved in each of these good and important initiatives.

However, in my opinion, the most significant area where we as a mission
can be involved is seeing people come to Christ and grow as His
disciples.  The rest, as good as it is, must be secondary to Christ's
Commission to make disciples of all nations.  I have been Field Director
over the Cambodia Alliance field for ten years.  I have seen it over and
over again that people change destructive behaviors and patterns after
they have had a radical encounter with the living Christ.  THAT is why
starting groups of believers in unreached communities is foundational to
any lasting change.   This ministry, to be long-lasting, can not be
done without a deep understanding of local language and culture.  It is
best done in close partnership with local Christians who have a proven
track record of integrity.  These are some of the reasons it is so
important to have long-term missionaries serving in Cambodia.

I want to thank you who come alongside us in prayer.  Thanks also for
giving to the Great Commission Fund.  This is what enables our team to
be here for the long-haul to bring the Gospel of Christ to the peoples
of Cambodia.  I am not ashamed to say that your investment in prayer and
sacrificial giving is making an eternal impact for Christ in this land...
Praise God for 23 house churches birthed in unreached communities
over the past 18 months!  We can not do this without you.  Bringing the
Gospel to the unreached of the earth truly requires a partnership between the
sent ones and the ones who send.  Your support for the Great Commission
Fund can be given either through your local Alliance church or online at
www.cmalliance.org/give.   At the website, you can designate your gifts
specifically to support the ministry in Cambodia if you would like.
Thank you for your ongoing partnership to come alongside us to bring
Christ's light to the peoples of Cambodia.

In regards to Praise and Prayer needs:

Praise God for a wonderful Field Forum conference in July with our
Cambodia Alliance missionary team...  We sensed that God's Spirit met us
and we also had encouraging and supportive connections between our
missionary team.  Our team has now grown to about 35.

Praise God that we will have the joy of meeting our first grandson,
Caleb Manfred, as we travel to the US for vacation in August.  We will
also help our daughter Janelle get settled into life as a freshman at
Crown College.  Finally, we will most likely be saying our earthly
farewells to Dave's dad who is in hospice care.  He is 93 years old and
knows and loves the Lord.

Please look through the list at the top of this email and pray for the
evangelism and discipleship that is happening in each of these
communities (the names in the first column)...  God knows each place and
each soul.  Your prayers can impact hundreds of families in each
location as the Gospel is beginning to take root in that community for
the first time ever.

Please look through the list at the top of this email and pray for the
names in the second column...  These are the names of the Cambodian
volunteer church planters who are bringing the Gospel to unreached
areas.  Pray for their strength, wisdom, and perseverance as they take
on this pioneering work of evangelism and discipleship...

Pray for open doors for the Gospel and for the other church planters who
are being trained to bring the Gospel to still more unreached
villages...  that the vision of MK2021 would be accomplished through us
and others.  Our desire is to see a sustainable church planting movement
that will truly transform Cambodia for Christ.  We appreciate you
praying with us towards these ends.

Thanks again for being our senders and partners in Christ's Call to the
unreached in Cambodia.

Dave and Chris

June Prayer Letter

Dear Praying Friends:

Cambodia has made it through the hot season and is now entering into the rainy season.  In North America, it seems like rain is often seen as a nuisance...  something to be avoided.  But in Cambodia, after 6 months of dry season with almost no rain at all, when the rains start, they are embraced.  Everyone sees it as a blessing.  It is not uncommon during heavy rains to see kids out playing in the rain.  There is almost a tangible sense of joy throughout the nation as the dry, hot, dusty, parched land returns to life. 

Israel is also a dry land.  In Ezekiel 34, God is speaking about the blessing that He wants to bring to the people in that land and the Lord also uses the imagery of rain: 

"And I will make them and the places all around my hill a blessing, and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing.  And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land. And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them." Ezekiel 34:26-27

Cambodia is a land which, like Israel in Ezekiel 34, has been enslaved.  Cambodia has been enslaved to war...  enslaved to poverty...  enslaved to hopelessness...  enslaved to suffering...  enslaved to a belief system based on the very real fear of evil spirits...  enslaved to a belief system whose greatest hope is to be snuffed out into eternal non-existence.

As the Gospel of Jesus Christ continues to impact this country, we are beginning to see the rain of God's blessing transform this parched land.  As Field Director overseeing the broader C&MA work in Cambodia, it is my privilege to watch these "showers of blessings" fall.  Let me highlight just a few:

• Through the funeral of a Christian man two weeks ago in Ratanakiri province, the non-Christians attending were so impressed with the ways that the deceased was honored that they wanted to learn more about becoming Christians.  So far 17 of them have made professions of faith and there are others in another village who are asking to become Christians.
• Starting a new ministry with a Christian dorm and agriculture training center in Mondulkiri province came together in record time.  There is only one high school in the entire province and this dorm will allow the Christian students (who come from rural areas) to receive a high school education...  For some of them, they will be the first people in their village to receive a high school education.  In addition, they will also learn new agricultural techniques and be discipled to grow as followers of Christ while they live at the dorm.  Praise God that most of the funding needed for construction for this project has been miraculously provided in less than two months.
  
• Last month, we welcomed five experienced International Workers to serve long-term with our C&MA Cambodia team.  All of them love the Lord, are serving in deeply remote rural areas, and are fluent in the Khmer language.  Two of them have doctorate degrees.  We are blessed with the quality of people God is bringing to our team. 
• Last week four churches that our missionaries have been working with for many years (3 near Poipet and 1 in Pursat) became "organized churches".  This means that they are recognized by the Khmer Evangelical Church (KEC -- the name of the C&MA churches in Cambodia) as mature churches with their own Cambodian leadership.  This is really what we as missionaries have come to do...  work ourselves out of a job and have Cambodians lead the churches to impact their community and the areas surrounding their community.
  
• Over the past two and a half years, one of our International Workers has begun working with the KEC to provide training for people who want to start churches in new places.  In that two and a half year time, 49 KEC Church Planters have been and are being trained to start new churches.   They have started planting churches in 43 villages and towns around Cambodia.   25 of those 43 locations have already started weekly meetings.  Almost none of these 43 villages and towns have ever had any Christian group or presence previously.

We praise God for His showers of blessing on this land.  This land has been spiritually dry for so long but now, we are beginning to see "the trees of the field yielding their fruit and the earth yielding its increase".

Thank you for your partnership with us and the C&MA as we "work the ground" in this  harvest field.  We could not do so without your prayers and generous support.  

We want to encourage your ongoing support for the Great Commission Fund. It is the GCF that provides the foundation for our mission work around the world. As you give to the GCF, you are helping to bring showers of blessings to Cambodia and furthering the work of the Kingdom of God. Without the baseline infrastructure provided by the GCF, our work, as well as the work of our other Alliance colleagues, could not remain viable. I know everyone is tight in this economy...  the GCF is also tight right now.  If you can, thanks for helping.  Donations can be given through your local Alliance church designated with "Missions" or through www.cmalliance.org/give/

Some items we would appreciate your prayers over:

• Pray for the 17 new believers in Ratanakiri province and the new village where people want to become Christians
• Pray for the construction and development of the Christian dorm and Agriculture Center in Mondulkiri Province
• Pray for the 49 KEC Church Planters and 43 new places where churches are being started

On a personal note, we have also experienced an amazing season of blessing in our family:

• We became grandparents for the first time when Caleb James Manfred was born to Joshua and Kelsey on May 14.  In our unbiased opinion, he is the best looking baby in the world!
  
• Joshua just graduated from Bethel University.  He gave the student address at the Bethel commencement ceremonies (we saw it via YouTube and were awfully proud of him). 
• Janelle graduates from High School here in Cambodia on June 1.  She will also give the student address at those commencement ceremonies. 
  
• All of us (Dave, Chris, Janelle, and Jenna) will travel to MN in August to bring Janelle back to the US to attend Crown College and to get to know our new grandson and our other loved ones there.

In the midst of all that can and could go wrong...  and sometimes does...  what a privilege to know and love the God who can still bring showers of blessing to parched lands.

In Christ, Dave and Chris

March Prayer Letter

Dear Praying Friends:

One of the great privileges in serving as Field Director is working with an amazing team of more than 30 Alliance International Workers serving in seven locations throughout Cambodia.  One of those amazing couples are Bounoeuy and Chanthan Kes who minister with the Jarai people in remote Ratanakiri province in the NE corner of Cambodia.

Ratanakiri is a place where the number of Alliance churches have grown from 0 to 28 churches over the past 14 years... truly amazing growth for the Gospel!  In August 2008,Alliance Life ran an article about the Kesses and their work in Ratanakiri.  The article was the story of a Christian family (Yane and her husband, Hert) who dared to break with the centuries old Jarai tradition that after a woman gives birth, she and the baby are put on a bamboo bed over smoky coals for the first 3-6 weeks after the baby is born and the woman is not allowed to eat any meat or vegetables during that entire time.  These practices mean that women often do not produce enough breast milk to feed their babies, both mom and baby develop horrible coughs, and of course all of this leads to incredibly high infant mortality rates.  The Alliance Life article was the story of Yane who was the first Jarai mom who dared to break with this tradition.  She and her husband listened to the Kesses counsel that new moms needed to eat healthy food and breath fresh air.  They dared to follow this "new way" under the threat of their family and many people in their village who predicted that great harm would befall them for daring to break with the ancient traditions.  The article ended with the story of how this Christian couple had a baby boy, whom they named Timothy.  Yane was full of praise because she was able to produce all the milk that the little boy needed and he was healthy and strong.

How we wish the story ended there.  Tragically, about the time that the Alliance Life article was published, Timothy who by this time was a toddler, tipped over a pot of boiling water on himself.  The family tried to get him to the nearest children's hospital but that was a 12 hour drive away.  By the time the family got him there, it was too late and Timothy died the next day.  I remember praying and crying with Bounoeuy when we heard this sad news (we were together at our annual mission conference).  We were of course sad for this family however we had even greater remorse because the people who believed in these evil practices and the evil spirits who inspired them would clearly cry out "We told you so!" thereby setting back both the work of the Gospel and healthy practices for newborns.

Yane and Hannah

After returning from Home Assignment in July 2010, I spoke with Bounoeuy and Chanthan about how things were going in the Jarai villages since Timothy's death.  They answered to my surprise that since he died, other Christian women had decided to follow the example of Yane.  In spite of Timothy's death, Christian moms dared to break with the traditional way of not eating meat and vegetables and lying for weeks with their newborns on the bamboo beds over the smoky coals.  They bravely decided, despite the threats of their families and non-Christian neighbors, to eat nutritious food after their babies were born and to breath clean air. Included in this group was Yane who became pregnant again and has now delivered a healthy baby girl, Hanna.

The Kesses told me that since Timothy died two and a half years ago, more than 20 Jarai mothers have followed this new path.  What is also significant is that several of the most recent young moms to try these new practices are non-Christians who are also beginning to see the benefits of this "new way".  As more and more Jarai people see these benefits for moms and babies, it could eventually transform the practices of this entire people group.  Since the Christians were the ones to spearhead these new practices, it also demonstrates the love of Christ in very practical ways that will continue to open doors for the Gospel.

Scripture reminds us that the Evil One has come to "kill, steal, and destroy".  This Enemy has had his hand over these people and their practices for centuries and will not give up easily.  Please pray for God's mighty Hand of protection over these little ones and the brave families who dare to break with these traditions.  Pray also that the light of the Gospel will continue to grow and transform the Jarai people both now and for eternity.

We praise God that He is using His Church to bring Salt and Light into these villages in ways that directly benefit the Jarai people.  We praise God for the courageous witness of Christian families who are willing to break with centuries of demonic-inspired traditions.  We praise God for faithful servants like the Kesses and their willingness to live in challenging and remote areas to be transformation agents who are positively changing a culture and joining with Jesus to build His Church.  We praise God for our sending churches whose sacrificial giving and praying allow us to serve long-term in hard places, learning the language and culture in ways that open doors for God's power and Spirit to confront evil and bring Good News.

Thank you for your investment so that we can serve here for the long-haul. The primary investment vehicle to support our work is the Great Commission Fund. Contributions can be made through your local Alliance church, online at http://www.cmalliance.org/give/ or by sending a check to the C&MA, PO Box 35000, Colorado Springs, CO 80935-3500. If you would like, you may designate your gift “for the support of Manfreds" (or Kesses for that matter) on the memo line. This personalizes your gift and helps us carry out our ministries.

Thank you again for your partnership with us.  Your hands and voice in Cambodia,

Dave and Chris