Past Ministry & Future Calling2/16/2015 In September of 2003 I went to Honolulu Hawaii to do a DTS. While there I discovered the radical truth of the Gospel and who God is. During our 2 month outreach one month in Cambodia and one month in the Philippines God began to show me the great need of the gospel throughout the World. After graduating I returned to Ywam Honolulu as a volunteer DTS staff. I felt like God was calling me back to Cambodia. In July of 2004 I went back to Cambodia for 6 months working with the local church we served while on my DTS outreach. I started an English program at the church. At the end of 6 months the class had grown to around 50 students and I had trained 3 of the best students to teach as well. All 3 of them are now in full time ministry. At the beginning of 2005 I came back from Cambodia. It had been one of the most difficult but fruitful times in my life. I spent a few months running maintenance on the Honolulu Ywam base and prepared to staff another DTS in April. I led a small team back to Cambodia in July where we spent time training the young leaders at the same church as well as pioneering team contacts in 2 new areas of Cambodia for future teams to be able to connect with. God began to show me the need to train up the youth of Cambodia to do the work in areas where the gospel wasn't yet established. To that end I signed up to be a student in the S.O.M.E (School of Missions and Evangelism) in September. During the S.O.M.E we learned more about missiology, missions strategies, and the 10/40 window where 86% of the 2.7 Billion people who are "unreached" (those who are apart of a people group where less then 2% of the population are Christian) live. I began to see that there is great need for the gospel everywhere but it seemed to me a great injustice that some had so much opportunity to learn about Jesus while others had no opportunity. God began to challenge me to be willing to carry the gospel to these "least reached people groups" So for my S.O.M.E outreach I went back to Cambodia at the beginning of 2006 I went to continue learning the language, search for ways to contextualize the gospel and to meet with missionaries and church leaders in hopes that God would show me a wise and effective way to begin spreading the gospel in Cambodia. Especially the areas where there was currently no one working. Romans 15:20 " It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known..." In conversations with rural pastors who were working in the areas of greatest need I began to sense a reluctance to release their young leaders to be trained. I found out that churches throughout the country had been sending their best and brightest to the capitol city Phnom Penh to the bible colleges. There hopes were that although they desperately needed these young leaders to help continue the work in the hardest and darkest areas; they believed that their young leaders would be trained, and sent back to them better equipped and impassioned to advance the gospel in their home churches. Sadly this wasn't the case. These areas of Cambodia are the hardest and darkest for a reason. Any normal sane Christian would want to run for their lives from communities like these. Rampant poverty, alcoholism, death, and disease are just a few of the things that permeate these areas. So the young leaders they sent out, potentially the hope of their communities almost never came back. They got comfy jobs working in the office buildings of Phnom Penh, they like the western church ignored the need in order to ease any sense of responsibility. Little did I know that in time I would fall prey to this same apathy myself. In 2007 I had brought a team to Cambodia with the expressed mission of establishing the school I felt God had given me the task to begin. Me and my team lived in the Province of Kampong Cham praying, serving the local churches, hosting outreach teams, leading many people to Christ but no school. It wasn't until my team was leaving and it seemed that it was all a failure that I received the call. Jeff and Heather Williams are missionaries with CMA. Click to learn more about Jeff and Heather. They're virtually unknown to anyone outside of Cambodia but to those in the know they're probably the most radical frontier missionaries in the country. They've been involved in ministering to Cambodians since the 80s. First with the refugees on the east coast while Jeff finished seminary and when Cambodia opened up in the 90's they were some of the first missionaries into the country. They had been mentoring me in the ins and outs of effective ministry for years. Much of the time I simply learned through watching them live their lives. I first met them while leading my first outreach in 2003 at that time they were overseeing a small church plant they had begun amongst the Cham Muslims in Cambodia. A COMPLETELY unreached people group of around 250,000 with maybe a handful of believers. They called to inform me that CMA Christian Missionary Alliance had been asked by the KEC (khmer evangelical church with roughly 200 congregations) to begin practically the exact school I had been praying for in the exact location I felt called to do it in! I was so excited but unaware of the war that lie ahead. I returned to Honolulu to staff an S.O.M.E one more time in September. At the beginning of 2008 I took a small team for that DTS outreach to India, where I had gone to teach at YWAM schools for 3 weeks the year before. 2 of the students stayed in India long term and I went back to Cambodia for the 5th time to continue working towards the formation of a school that wouldn't pull away young leaders from the most needed areas but would train them in there own context. At this point I also began to learn how to read and write the Khmer language. In June of 2008 We finally started the RMTC (Rural Ministry Training Center) the entire vision and need for a school like this is hard to understand but I assure you it's meeting one of the greatest needs in the most practical way I can think of. It's sustainable multipliable and is funded, and ran by the KEC. No foreigners needed. Khmer people taking the gospel to Khmer people. Khmer pastors training Khmer pastors. In a rural context with focuses on sustainable agriculture, sustainable technology, teaching EE evangelism explosion, Chronological Bible teaching, basic health care, community development, and a wonderful basic theological training program called T.E.E (theological education by extension) Sadly for me I didn't make it through the first year. 9 months into the school I decided to leave Cambodia and step out of ministry. The same comforts that pulled the young Cambodian leaders away from the hardest and the darkest pulled me away as well. I was tired and wanted the comforts of the western world. I left in February of 2009. I didn't know for sure at that time if I'd ever go back. But the RMTC was started and is still running today. In fact I just got word that they're starting another one and Jeff and Heather asked me to pray about possibly joining them. 2010-2015 To include more details of the past years would require a book I believe. Perhaps I'll go into more detail someday. For now this is the best summary I can do. I should however include a note here that during the past 5 years I've walked through some really tough consequences of some really foolish and selfish decisions. I don't think it was a coincidence the columbian put "new call for ex-missionary." I hid from God and my brothers and sisters in the church and walked in sin and brokenness. It wasn't until just last year that I even began to allow God to restore me. My leaders here in Kona are aware of what I'm coming out of and are believing with me that God is able to redeem anyone and anything if we allow Him to. I'm so grateful to be back in ministry and am just getting my feet wet again. I'm believing God for the next 20 years to be spent in obedience to fulfilling the calling He's placed on my life. I want to see the gospel spread throughout Cambodia that all the people there would at the very least have the opportunity to come to Christ. I'll be co-leading a team of 10 back to Cambodia in April. It's a 2 month DTS outreach and I'm believing that God will use it to inspire some of them to commit there lives to radical long term missions amongst the least reached people of the World. I know that the 48 students currently enrolled in this DTS will be forever changed for the better. I know that our team is going to make an eternal impact on Cambodia and as for me I know that God will continue to use me as long as I let him. Thank you for caring about spreading the gospel to the unreached. May we fulfill the task of bringing the gospel to every nation together. I cannot do it without your help. You partnering with me in finances and prayer make it possible. Thank You!
4 Comments
Anneli
2/16/2015 12:44:28 pm
I AM SO PROUD OF YOU. Tears rolling down my face. I have always wondered how things went for you. Ultimately it is clear that your vision is strong. I am going to forward this to our missions dept. www.coolchurch.org. Stay strong. Will be praying & look forward to more blogs. It truly is reaching is all.
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Uriah
2/17/2015 05:01:38 am
Thanks anneli! I so appreciate it.
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Crystal Mills
2/16/2015 12:46:21 pm
I feel like we've grown up together, and this sheds a whole new light to the parts that I've never known about you. Thank you for sharing your incredible story, and I can't wait to keep hearing about the way God works in your life.
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Sean Murphy
2/16/2015 03:19:32 pm
Dude so very proud of you!!! I have said it before and I will say it again..... "The best is yet to come!!!"
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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
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