The Broeckert's home and the church

That Sunday morning (2/1/2015), we all attended church and participated in various ministries. Chad preached while Hubert translated into Khmer, we sang special music, I played a song on the piano, the women taught the children's Sunday school lesson, and several of us gave our testimonies of salvation. I in particular enjoying hearing Phuong's testimony, as she grew up Buddhist and was saved a few years ago while in medical school. Being saved from a Buddhist background and living for the Lord in spite of the fact that her family is still Buddhist is something I think the Khmer could related to in their culture.

Special music by one of the missionary's daughters, Abby

Sarah giving her testimony

Chad preaching and Hubert translating

The ladies teaching children

Children with their crafts

Kids are cute no matter where they're from, huh?

After the service, we all headed to the ocean to baptize seven new believers. We all loaded up into a fishing boat and headed a ways out, and then those who were to be baptized gave their testimonies of salvation and then were baptized by Hubert. 

As you'll notice, those being baptized had life jackets on, as the ocean was deeper than most of them were tall. This led to a joke or two from me regarding the difficulties of baptism by immersion when wearing a life jacket...

It was so neat to see new Christians obey the scriptural command to be baptized after salvation in order to show others that they're a follower of Christ. There were unsaved family members present, and this was a testimony to them. It is exciting whenever someone accepts Christ and is baptized, but it was especially exciting that seven Khmer did so! It often takes a Khmer quite a while to come to Christ, as they have plenty of family/sociocultural barriers to deciding to do this. A few in the church are close to accepting Christ, but are afraid of how their family will react. In spite of this, we are praying that they do accept Christ.

One of the things we did as a team that while in Koh Kong was visit a Buddhist temple, and this was quite an experience. Seeing the joy in the new Khmer believers with their new hope in Christ contrasted with the hopelessness of the lost and their attempts to find meaning in life was heartbreaking.

These experiences furthered my joy for those coming to Christ and my burden for those who didn't know their Savior as we headed into the new week with more clinics and more opportunities to talk to others.