SEVEN!
Off to Cambodia again in a few days. We will be setting a record this time for the most trainings ever in one visit: SEVEN! Starting in Phnom Penh, we will be giving our first training ever to the Shine school, on how to Teach Like a Christian! Then we will travel by bus up to Battambang where we will continue our longstanding relationship with Salaa Hope Battambang — we have been working with this school since 2012! Also in Battambang, we will have another first, distributing classroom sets of books to Kingdom School! Our training there will focus on how to use these books in the classroom (actually a new concept for them).
From Battambang we will head to Siem Reap and an hour boat ride to the School of Hope, located in the floating village of Kbal Taol, on lake Tonle Sap. This will be our second trip to the School of Hope, and our training there will focus on Christian Classroom Management (no sticks!). While still in Siem Reap we will continue presenting our Teach Like a Christian series to the Dream Center staff, before traveling south (again by bus) to Kampong Thom and the Promise School, then finally heading back to Phnom Penh for a combined training for all five schools of the Village Development Project. Our relationship with VDP is our second longest — we’ve been training their teachers for ten years now!
Though seven trainings in one trip can be daunting, we see God’s hand in this busy schedule. During our last trip, aside from meeting with some of our school partners as usual, we also connected with an organization called Cambodia 25 to put on an educational conference. Over 200 teachers attended, representing dozens of schools! This conference setting allowed us to extend our message well beyond what we are able to do when meeting with schools individually. It was fantastic!
Now we are actively working to add conference-style workshops to our ministry. To make this happen, we really need to bring someone on board who can help with all the local arrangements — an In-Country Coordinator. We are drafting the initial job description now. We envision our Coordinator helping with both the educational and the fine arts branches of Love for Cambodia. There’s too much to go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that we are doing our best to simply follow God.
So then, the obvious prayer request is for God to bring us the person He wants to join us! A local Cambodian. Of course, we will need to fund the position, and we are still thinking through all the details. Please join us in prayer! We always mention how it would be impossible for us to even go to Cambodia without the support of those God has led to partner with us, in whatever way, big or small. If that’s you, thank you!
Blessings,
Mike and Kirsten