We celebrated the baptism of Sister Lan (Blue), Sister Huang and Cherry tonight. These three actually found the church for themselves, here are their stories:
Blue:
She has lived in Cambodia for the last 12 years or longer. She and her ex-husband worked for the same company. His family was Christian in China and Blue was not Christian at the time but felt he was a good man. Since they worked for the same department of the company, after their marriage, Blue had to change job. Shortly afterward her, husband traveled a lot to Thailand and soon, had extra-marital affair with another woman. At the advise of the family, Blue quit her job and follow her husband to Europe in order to save her marriage. It was in Italy where she felt the comfort of knowing Jesus Christ. Even though her marriage was not saved, she found the gospel of Jesus Christ being peace and comfort to her. She got baptized. She returned to work in Cambodia and attended a few local Chinese Christian churches. The churches were very different and she felt they were very much "individual" church who taught from the bible but does not really do what the bible said. She felt pressured and used and she longed for the same quiet comforted feeling she had when she joined the church in Italy. She started asking around to see may be she should attend an English church. She happened to ask one of our member, Brother Liu, who quickly invited her to come and see. The very first Sunday she came, she was greeted by Elder Dan Sellers who spoke to her in Cantonese! She felt she is home again, she said at her baptism, that it was at that moment she decided this is where she is going to attend church from now on! Over the next couple months, we taught her and the other two sisters the gospel together. She researched the Church online on her own and despite there were "anti" articles about our church, she relied on the feeling she has when she attended church. She felt the comfort feeling of the Holy Ghost and most of all she found peace!
Huang (Karma):
Karma has been looking for a church to go to mostly because of Blue's example to her. She said she used to go to buddhist temple and worship. The thing she felt most uncomfortable is the money she had to offer to the monk to as she said "buy the blessings and protection" from Buddha. She had paid out a lot. Then Blue invited her to go to church with her. For the last two years, she never felt she is ready to be baptized. She felt she is unworthy and not prepared. One Sunday, after church, I told her that she will be invited to be baptized soon but she said, she is still not ready. I told her gently that baptism is only the first step; if we were to wait till we felt we are ready and worthy, we will never be able to be baptized. She thought about it and a week later, she told me she want to get baptized. The funny thing is that now she is ready but one thing after another, it would be another months before we extended the invitation for her to get baptized. Then she could not wait, she wanted to be baptized on March 8 - Women's day, so she will always remember the date!
Cherry Wu
Cherry first meeting with us was when Elder and Sister Muers came to Cambodia to visit at the beginning of the year. Instantly, we felt we had known her from before, we become fast friends. She was on the way to the States via Dubai when she found out her visa to the US was revoked because of some unknown dealing of her company. Her boss told her to come to Cambodia and reapply for another visa to go to the states. She has been here for 3 months and had already lost some money ($20,000) because of some poor Chinese investment. She is fearful for her life here because she had known and heard of kidnapping by Chinese gangs. She was glad to know us because she felt safe. She had many spiritual experience that she knows there is a God. She just need to know who that God is; Buddhism or Christianity? Thru studying with us, her heart begins to soften; she realize that she can rely on the true God who can guide and protect. After she was baptized, her boss moved her Dubai where she is currently staying. When she left, she teared up because she felt she is leaving her family ... ! She felt for the first time, she does not do everything on her own; the gospel has made her weak but yet strong because she now know who she can rely! We were so grateful the Bishop in Dubai were very welcoming to Cherry. We pray that Cherry will continue to learn and grow and we hope she will come back to Cambodia or we will see her again in the States!
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| Baptism program, there were so many members who came and support these three! |
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| From left to Right: Elder Arkell, Elder Frederiksen, Cherry, Karma, Blue, President Paul Martins and me |
