Pastor Jeremy Stephens

Today was all about relationships: old and new, broken and restored, created and completed.

We started the day by visiting Hagar International. It is an NGO whose goal is to do whatever it takes, as long as it takes to restore broken people. They receive young women and boys who have been rescued by other organizations from slavery and human trafficking, and they provide housing, trauma recovery and job training. They work with the 1% of people who are too difficult to work with and they work to restore them to their families and communities (if it’s safe to do so), and their creator God. They also run a few businesses which exist to give training to the rescued. They have a soy milk company and a catering company (which caters to the five star hotels and embassies in the city). We then had lunch there. It was a moving experience, and the food was fantastic!

Then we traveled to the international justice mission. They are involved in rescuing women from prostitution and trafficking and prosecute the offenders. It was neat to talk to these young, successful lawyers who felt Gods call to do something extraordinary with their giftedness.

After this, we drove over to one of the churches here in the city, New Life Fellowship. It has several thousand members here in phnom penh and has planted 32 churches throughout the country of Cambodia. They also have a wing involved in rescuing children, reeducation of families in poverty, and free medical care. While the church was super charismatic, it was very cool to see the Gospel doing so much here in this country which is so desperate for hope.

One of the things they had mentioned as a need before our coming was a good acoustic electric guitar. The agency we are traveling with decided to commit a few hundred dollars toward the purchase of one for them, but I knew they wouldn’t be able to find a very good guitar for that price. After thinking about it for a while, I brought my good friend, my first guitar, to give to them. I got a new guitar a few years ago, and this one sits largely untouched. It was much harder to say goodbye to it than I expected, but i’m excited to know that it will continue to be used in kingdom work.

The best part of my day, however, centered around our guide Maria. I mentioned her yesterday as the ethnic muslim. She has been traveling everywhere with us this week, and has been sitting in on our meetings. Today, when we were at IJM, she was moved to tears when we were talking about the plight of the young girls in this country, and when we were at church tonight I couldn’t help but watch her and wonder. She asked many questions, and I saw her sneak toward the front of the audience tonight so she could get a picture on her cell phone. I don’t know what God is doing in her life, but i’m praying for her this week. Please join me! Because the relationship she is being introduced to is the most important one of all.