"He says he doesn't understand baptism." It was May, 2008 and a team of workers from Stopsley Baptism Church (Luton, UK), Disciples Church (Durrës, Albania) and Nexus Centre Cambodia (Phnom Penh) were in Pursat, Cambodia, teaching and doing hearing clinics. Yin Bunna interpreted from Khmer as Hem Chan Thorn, a visiting new believer, pressed for answers. He had to know.

With Bunna's help, we sat on the floor after lunch and did an impromptu Bible study. The conclusion: "He wants to get baptized now," Bunna said. After talking with the pastor we agreed to make an occasion of it at the nearby river; I had the privilege of assisting.

He's going To Pailin... To Plant A Church

The next morning Chan Thorn headed to the bus station with his pregnant wife, Srey Kuyt, and their 2 year-old son. "He's going to Pailin - his home province - to plant a church" Bunna said, the way someone might tell me they were going out for a coffee.

A daunting task lay ahead, but this young couple knew what they were getting into. Chan Thorn had already suffered persecution in a region that, back then, still had echoes of the Pol Pot ("killing fields") regime. He was once locked in a poultry pen in the market and left in the sun all day without shade or water, because of his testimony about Jesus.

Fast-forward to February 2023: we've lost track of how many visits Nexus Centre, Stopsley Baptist and other churches in the Radstock Network have made, how many zoom calls we have had with Chan Thorn and other leaders. What we do know is that he and Srey Kuyt have planted and oversee 6 churches - four in the Pailin region and two in Battambang.

Life is hard. They earn a basic living farming fruit and cashews; their two-room home has 1 bed, 1 hammock and a few plastic chairs, no running water - rain is collected in large cisterns, and its single light is powered by a car battery. Besides their four children, they also have taken in four abandoned children.

If you want a living manual on sacrificial service and storing up treasures in heaven, just spend time with this family: taking in orphans, sponsoring kids to school, dealing with victims of sexual crimes, helping the local soccer club, hiring day workers for the farm, building a basic shelter for a woman abandoned by her husband. The list goes on, because they share Jesus' heart.

"He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." (Matthew 9:36)

Srey Kuyt is a Proverbs 31 woman: "She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks... She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy... She is clothed with strength and dignity... She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness." Even their evangelism echoes Proverbs 31:16 ("She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.") Srey Kuyt and Chan Thorn have bought fields in churchless areas and begun farming there as an entry strategy to new communities.

Making Disciples In Pailin

Last week, Audrey and I visited Pailin again. We met one of the churches for dinner (outside, in the dark) and then did a 'Q and A'. We also spent a lot of time talking about how to establish these six churches more firmly. We landed on making disciples - and then how to organise church and life to allow that to remain a priority. (Setting up a deacons' group to handle the benevolence is one key step - I passed on what I had learned from Disciples Church in Albania.) Every church has things to learn, and things to teach.

On the final day, I had the immense joy to assist Pastor Chan Thorn as he baptised 8 new believers, 15 years since I had helped baptise him. One young man strode purposefully through the river to us and declared without asking that he had made a decision to follow Jesus and that nobody was forcing him to do this. His boldness made me wonder if we were baptising the next Chan Thorn - how will God use this man in the next 15 years?

Want To Help Establish Churches In Cambodia?

Chan Thorn's motorbike is worn out - after 10km it overheats and slows down to walking pace. Some of the churches are 30 to 70 kilometres (20 to 45 miles) away. 

Just US$2500 (£2100) will buy him a brand new Honda Dream - the workhorse of Southeast Asia - and allow him to invest more often in local church leaders.

Can You Help? If So, Please Give Here.

Will You Pray For Churches In The Radstock Network?

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