Last month saw 8 young adults from regional churches across NSW and ACT travel to Cambodia in partnership with IMPACT and Baptist Mission Australia. The goal? To expose our young adults to mission in a hands-on way. Over two weeks, we visited with the BMA Cambodia team in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. We heard their stories, shared meals together, and participated in some of the work they’re doing. Alongside these visits, we spent time engaging with Cambodian culture and faith, trying to understand the local context and how that might impact the way mission is done there.
It was an incredible time of learning and connection, full of challenges, questions confronting experiences, and a whole lot of fun. Some highlights included a visit to a kids’ club run by the BMA team, sampling the delicious local food, and attending services at a church where we didn’t understand the words being spoken, but clearly understood the heart of what was happening.
One day in particular stands out as I think back on the trip. After a few hard days learning about the history of Cambodia, and meeting with people engaged in difficult and dangerous work, we had lunch with some BMA team members at a family-owned property. After hearing about their work and sharing a meal together, our host brought in his elderly parents and asked them to share their story. What followed was an incredible story of God at work in the most difficult of times. Hearing them share about how God had spoken to them in dreams, kept them safe in times of war, and brought them together against all odds was a catalytic moment for many of our group. It was a moment where all the threads of things we had seen and experienced on our travels were pulled together to reveal a bigger picture of hope, faith, and the importance of mission.
If you get the chance to speak to any of the young people who joined the trip, you might hear about the incredible architecture at Angkor Wat or the different foods we tried (frog, ants, tarantula…), but you’ll also hear about how each of them grew in their faith, experienced God in new ways, and received new revelations about His character and His plan for their lives.
My prayer for each of them is that the things we experienced together in Cambodia will continue to be a blessing, not just to them, but to their families and their church communities. That the experience of mission will enrich their faith and that their learnings will be passed on to their churches and Bible study groups so that many will be blessed.
If you would like to hear more about the trip, or about IMPACT, please reach out to the team at impactgap@nswactbaptists.org.au
