Bible Society in Cambodia

A Soldier of Christ

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wife and children. His wife is illiterate. They also came to know the Lord. He acknowledges this as a great blessing from the Lord and is very thankful his wife is a diligent worker, able to do business and his children are obedient. Seeing all the blessings the Lord had bestowed on his family, Mr. Chea started to have a burden on his heart for others on the compound and he began to pray for the other military. He was grieved to see the harm gambling was doing among the military personnel and their families. Even wives and children would be hooked.

Nowadays, Mr. Chea is an elder in the Church on the compound. He is also a Bible Study leader. He wants others to be blessed just as he has been blessed. Now as he is a soldier of Christ, he is not afraid to show others he is a Christian and to tell them about the Lord. Through the Project "Scripture for the Armed Forces - Special Audience", the Bible Society was able to provide him with New Testaments and other Scripture portions, to help him and other Christians share his faith in Christ to other soldiers.

The Plague of Cambodian Villages

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Not one village throughout Cambodia has been spared from the endemic plague AIDS has now become.

Poor knowledge of how it spreads is at the root. The task is so overwhelming even though there are different NGO's and Missions providing help. There remains so much to be done and so many lives to be saved.

Who is my neighbor? This question was asked Jesus and in today's Cambodia, Jesus would certainly have chosen the HIV positive and AIDS sufferer in need of a good Samaritan. They are very much marginalized. Even the churches here have not overcome the fear of ministering to them.

The Bible Society can become the Good Samaritan in bringing hope through the Word of God and education to those in despair.

Long Sokhim is 32 with 3 children. She lives in Krong Svay village (Kandal province). Her husband would go to the capital, Phnom Penh, to work as a moto taxi. Being away from home, he would go to see prostitutes. He became sick in 2005. At first the doctors thought he had stomach problems but later as he wasn't improving, they tested him and discovered he had AIDS. He was put on drugs and his wife was tested. She tested positive for HIV. She was devastated and very angry with her husband for destroying their lives and family. Her youngest child was only 6 months old. Out of despair she wanted to give away her child to a family and she tried to find a family far from her village but nobody wanted to take the baby.

Her Mum told the whole village about them and they were ostrasized. Nobody wanted anything to do with them. Her children couldn't find anyone to play with them. She tried to sell fruit to earn a living but nobody bought from her. After a year, people gradually started to interact with them and invite them back to events. She was very shocked to see two other families in the village struck by AIDs and dying one after the other. They hadn't take medication.

Her husband was given drugs in 2006. Both Sokhim and her husband decided to fight together this disease, look after themselves and live for their children. She started medication in 2007. They have to make the 40kms trip to the capital by motorbike on dusty roads. They are given free drugs enough for three months treatment.

Visiting with her, the BSC staff felt the magnitude of the task ahead of them. This family is not Christian. They had brought tapes with them with Scriptures and songs but this family is too poor to own a Tape player. Sokhim is illiterate so you can't give her written material. They were able to encourage her, give her advice on how to look after herself, give her basic information on AIDS and tell her about the Lord.Sokhim's husband still works as a moto taxi in Phnom Penh and comes back home once a week. That's all he can do to earn a living for his family. They don't have land and are very poor.

Doeun Dith is another person BSC heard about and went to see. He is 29 years old and lives in Cham Prong village, Kompong Chhnang province. Doeun got AIDS from his wife who had gotten it from her ex husband. She had divorced him and got remarried to Doeun. She discovered later her ex husband had died of AIDS. When she became ill she was tested and was given drugs immediately. Doeun was also tested and he tested positive for HIV. He wasn't given drugs because he is not sick yet. His wife had strong side effects to the medication so she stopped them. She died soon after, in Oct 2008.

After her death, Doeun returned to his father's house in another village. He has no job, he is depressed and has started to drink heavily to forget his troubles.

Doeun is illiterate and doesn't have a tape player, so he can't listen to the Scripture and words of encouragements.

The forty seven year old First Lieutenant Chea Sovan lives on a military compound in Bantey Mean Chey province. He is married with four children. He used to be a non practicing lukewarm Christian who mixed Christianity with animistic and occult practices such as ancestor worship. He had never read the Bible and didn't own one. He had only seen a few booklets and tracts.

When the BSC staff visited his compound in 2007, he asked for a Bible, they gave him a New Testament. He started to read and that is how he really discovered the Lord and started a relationship with His Lord. He got rid of the occult objects he had at home and stopped all ancestor worship. He started to read the Bible aloud to his

The Plague of Cambodian Villages

A Soldier of Christ

The BSC needs to extend the AIDS project to reach HIV positive and AIDS sufferer in a more realistic way by not only providing Scriptures, advice… but also the means to listen to them and provide access to literacy so they can come out of darkness, remediate ignorance through knowledge about their condition and read the Word of God. In God they can find hope, a reason to live and above all salvation for their souls. More than ever Jesus words resonate today as he claimed the accomplishment of Isaiah's prophecy: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners d recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed.." Luke 4:18. This is the message HIV positive and AIDS sufferers need to hear in Cambodia.

A BSC staff visiting an AIDS patient

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SCRIPTURE IMPACT STORIES

Literacy classes help future generations in Cambodia

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Nestled amongst palm trees, buried deep in to Cambodia's Kandal Province is a small hamlet called Tuol Sala. As we approach the end of the dusty road, we are greeted by a hoard of laughing children. Here, a few families survive off subsistence farming. One of these plots of land is run by Sam Savan, 45 years old, and his wife Soy Chantay, 44. Along with their 15 year old daughter and 6 year old son, they have just enough to get by. They were both given the opportunity to attend school when they were children and learnt to read and write. Barely a handful of individuals were so fortunate.

When a Christian group started their ministry in villages around the area, Savan joined a Bible Study group and became a Christian, his wife and children quickly following in his footsteps. He now leads a House Group in his community and provides moral and spiritual support to the young and poor. Whenever possible, he also tries to provide financial and materiel aid. Many have been led to Christ through him.

Although he has a busy schedule, Savan and his wife took the decision to facilitate a literacy program in their village. "We were given the chance to receive a certain degree of education so we feel it is crucial to help the future generations. Even though some children here attend school, these are so over packed and paying for addition tutoring is out of the question, therefore students cannot learn properly. By grade 5, an average student should be able to recognize letters and read even basic books. But many cannot, even by grade 7. So we wanted to help in whatever way we could", he says.

It is Soy Chantay's first time to run the program and to step into the shoes of a facilitator. Along with some 60 other members, she attended a program held in Saang, Kandal Province, for the facilitator training in December 2010. She told us that she has had no problems with following the pace of the program, and that is very well written and easy to understand. As stated before, many of the children in the village do not have time to attend school, because of family chores and having to help out in the fields. The closest school is over 1 km's walk from Tuol Sala, and they cannot spare the time to walk there and back. So the family decided to run a literacy program in their courtyard's wooden hut.

One old grandmother was standing by the door with a lovely smile on her face.

She was more than eager to tell me her story. Every day she brings her grand-

daughter and waits for the class to finish to then take her back to her mother

in the fields.

"Learning to read and write is a basic human right", she told us. "I was not as

fortunate as the younger generation who are here today. But I am overjoyed

at coming to watch my granddaughter learn how to read, and watch her not

only repeat the CD voice over, but also learn how to write. I am so proud of her.

Maybe one day if she travels the World, she will send me a letter and then can

read it to me when she comes back", she laughs. "Programs like this should be

run all over the country to help bring education back to the people of Cambodia."