I go to the sink and clean, cold, drinkable water comes out. I go to the pantry and it is filled with bread and treats. However, for so many people in the tiny village Kandas Vihear in Cambodia, this would be the highest luxury. They do not have clean water readily available, nor bread. But they do have Jesus. And so we must continue these conversation with them about Jesus and provide them these basic needs.
Rev. Heng Cheng understands insecurity. He was born in Cambodia just before the dawn of the Khmer Rouge regime and genocide of the 1970s. His mother died when he was three months old, and his father sold him for two gold beads. Cheng knows firsthand how fragile life can be, how to live knowing any moment could be his last. It was during this horrific genocide that Cheng found himself one bullet away from execution.
During my internship last Fall, we were having a time of worship when a staff member came up to me and told me he believed God was leading me to work with and lead youth. I was a bit shocked. I was always more comfortable around people my age and therefore imagined myself working with older people. So a bit uncertain, I simply said, "Thank you, I will pray about that", but didn’t really believe him. Turns out God had a different calling for my life than I had imagined.
It all started when my team and I were house to house evangelizing in the Amazon Jungle Region in Peru, in a river village called San Jose. The people here were warm and friendly and hungry for the Word of God. As two of my teammates and I were walking and praying about which house to visit, a little girl not even two years-old popped her head out of a straw house. I thought to myself, “this is the house we are supposed to go to”, so we did.