Hello my friends! It’s been a while and as usual so much has happened since my last update. By far the best part of the last few months has been having Naomi here with me in Cambodia for the last 3 weeks. Well actually we haven’t been in Cambodia the whole time but I’ll explain more about that in this update. We’ve been on quite the adventure since her arrival. Naomi in Cambodia We started our time out maybe a little presumptuously on my part by joining in on one of my best Cambodian friend’s family vacations. Not presumptions on the end of my friend as he was thrilled to have Naomi with us. Presumptuous rather towards Naomi for not thinking fully through how she might have felt touring around Cambodia with 12 people she’s never met at high speeds over bumpy roads, on boats in choppy seas, and driving up curving mountain roads for 4 days. If I had any doubt previously as to whether or not she would be able to hang with me in all the craziness of my life, I now know without a doubt she’s the girl I’ve always prayed for, dreamed about, and in my more audacious moments hoped that God would provide someday. She’s won the hearts of every person around me, been an endless source of encouragement, and has pushed me deeper than ever towards God. Our time with my friend’s family (all non-Christian, very influential, leaders of Business in my city) was phenomenal. In fact we are going to have dinner with them in a few hours. Those first few days here in Cambodia are full of memories I know we’ll cherish for years to come. Teacher Training After a wild few days traveling all over Cambodia we arrived safely back in Poipet at around 11pm just in time for Naomi to do teacher training the following morning for about 50 mostly Buddhist teachers at my friend Bong Thary’s private school. Translating for Naomi, hearing her heart for education, her love for students, and her knowledge and wisdom as a teacher was incredible. I don’t know if any of you have ever translated before but when translating for someone brilliant and inspiring it’s an amazing experience where you share a little in the glory of what’s being said and the impact it’s making. Probably a little bit like the donkey felt carrying Jesus all the praise being heaped on Naomi made translating for her a real privilege. Leadership Meetings & Conference The next week was spent connecting with over 120 leaders from all over our Ywam organization. The highlight of this time was having our sending base leaders Brett and Karen Curtis around to glean wisdom from and build relationship with. They came out to Poipet to visit our Base, encourage our team, and connect with leaders of Business, Governement, and Education in our city. It was a great way to prepare our hearts for the following week where our larger YWAM family gathered in Pattaya, Thailand to hear from different areas of the world where God is using YWAM in amazing ways. There were almost 4,000 of us gathered together and I was simply blown away at the extent to which God is using all of us funny Ywamers. Simply listening to God, obeying what he says, and not giving up is bearing fruit all over the world. After an awesome final day in Pattaya where Naomi and I were able to join in some of the regional leadership meetings we returned to Poipet with a Community development team from Kona. This week we’ve had a full house with over 34 people in our small base eating worshipping and praying together. (God is telling us to buy a bigger house ) The community development team taught biblical conservation principles and sustainable technology to over 150 students at a local school, built a bio-digester for our food waste, and helped a local ministry design their newly purchased farm in a strategic way. 2 Amazing media volunteers are helping us create promotional videos for our upcoming January Discipleship Training School, and Naomi and I have been busy teaching the book of Romans to the 14 students in our 3-month Bible Core Course. Again, translating for her this week I’m stunned by the amazing knowledge and sincere love of God, mixed with her wit and charm to communicate the gospel more accurately and clearly then I’ve ever heard before. Our community of missional leaders here are jokingly calling us Mom and Dad, and in some way, it feels right to be finally spiritually parenting alongside of someone else. Social Media MissionsOn the social media front God is continuing to blow my mind with how powerfully social media can be used to share the gospel and influence change in a country. I’ve been building a following now for almost 1.5 years and slowly God has given me the topics and words to communicate more and more about the things that are really on His heart. Speaking identity and encouragement into the Khmer, sharing the hope available in God, standing up against the drug trade and just last night I posted a viral video taking a stance against sex trafficking. One of my fears with Facebook was that I might be relegated to the sphere of the funny white guy who can speak Khmer well but doesn’t really have anything interesting to say. There are probably a dozen or so foreigners who have used the “I’m white and I speak your language” thing to gain a little public attention but rarely have any of them been able to turn their platform into something more than a novelty. However, Cambodians and God have been incredibly gracious to me. The video I posted a month ago where I shared my testimony and faith got over 63k views, my video standing against drug trafficking got 333k views, and the one I posted last night encouraging Khmer to take a stance against human trafficking is currently at 41k views and climbing. With Facebook users topping 2.5Billion half of which live in the Asia Pacific region I think it’s time for us to begin talking about how we pack out our Facebooks rather than our stadiums. It’s much cheaper, anyone can do it, and it’s reaching people where they’re at even in difficult to reach places. With that in mind I reached out to a few of you about helping to donate towards some better media equipment and I’m so grateful to all of you who’ve given so generously towards that. I was able to purchase an amazing basic camera setup off of Craigslist and am looking forward to trying it out. So far I've been using my 8 year old macbook and barely functioning iPhone 6 : ) If you believe in what I do and want to give towards my work you can click below to find out how. To my awesome team of friends and supporters I thank you for making this all possible. Much Love! I hope that no matter how you’re being led to influence and love those around you you’re experiencing similar grace and inspiration. We get to live the greatest adventure of all working with one another to build God’s kingdom and share his goodness to all we meet. Thank you so so much for being apart of my family and ministry. I pray God will continue to bless and prosper you wherever you find yourself. Until next month remember, listen to God, obey what he says, and don’t give up. You can’t go wrong.
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Leave a Reply.AuthorMy name's Uriah Lyford and I'm a volunteer with YWAM. My dream is to see the spiritual solution of a restored relationship with God through Jesus be made available to every person on earth. I do this through the mentoring and training of young people to build and become the Church Jesus died for. Archives
June 2018
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