Five years ago when I first came to Cambodia with YWAM, God plopped my team for a month into a small village surrounded by lush rice fields. We spent our days creating lesson plans and teaching English (not my gifting) to very enthusiastic kiddos. I remember sitting outside of our house early one morning talking honestly with Jesus as I watched kids in their school uniforms bicycle down the orange dirt road. “Jesus, show me your heart for these beautiful people. What are you up to here and how can I join you?” I heard Him speak to my heart: “Spend time with your neighbor.”

That neighbor was a grandma with four young grand kids whose mom had died recently and their dad lived far away. In our spare time, several of us would sit everyday with Grandma. She would teach us Khmer and we would teach her English as we colored with her grand kids. Love dissolved all language barriers, and through them God began showing me His heart for families.

My journey with them continued as the years went by. Grandma passed in 2012 shortly after receiving Jesus. Her grand children changed hands a couple of times before their father came back to live with them. All along, God planted deeper into my heart His desire to restore families and “turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers.” (Malachi 4:6)

Now, as the director of casework for XP Missions, this has become my prayer for the families of Cambodia. Too often, our team is faced with the hard decision to remove children from unsafe environments, many of these being their own families. However, we see God’s faithfulness to put them in new families (Psalm 68:6) as we believe He is more than able to heal the ones they were born into.

In some situations, we hear Jesus say, “Not yet. I’m not done with this one. Go talk to them again. Go help them dig into their hearts & share My hope.”  It’s a delicate place of relying completely on Holy Spirit. He knows what’s really going on inside. He knows who is ready to say yes to Him.

Just this last week, we were faced with two different cases. In praying for the first, we heard God clearly say, “I have a new home for that child. It’s time to move.” , and the guardian released the child to go with us. However, for the second, God said, “Not yet. Go talk to the parent again.” We had already talked twice before and asked this parent to go into drug rehab. The parent had said no both times. Yet, we went again. We asked again…and the answer?

“Yes!”

We invite you to pray for this parent and the children, for deep healing of every heart wound while in rehab, and daily encounters with the depths of God’s love for the family. As He promised to Abraham that through him “all the families on earth will be blessed,” we are seeing this fulfilled here in beautiful Cambodia. (Genesis 12:3) Yes Lord! More!

Written by: Anonymous