A Season of Visitors and Blessing

Sihanoukville sunset near the port

God has continued to be the lavish loving, faithful and caring King who we have been coming to know over these last few years. Looking back on the last few months which have flown by we have been incredibly blessed and also received some miraculous and exciting answers to prayers!

Straight after our time in the slums I had the privilege of going to Phuket to join a retreat for regional leaders hosted by Mattheus Van Der Steen and GMF Burma. It was a wonderful time where I got to meet some really inspirational spiritual giants and leaders from all over the region. I felt so blessed to be able to join in with them and learn about God’s vision for the whole SE Asia region, it stirred up such an excitement for what is to come over here.

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My wonderful parents visiting

We then had a time of having numerous different visitors to Iris Sihanoukville including my parents, our country directors, some wonderful teams and lots of individual visitors. Each of these visitors brought something really special and were a huge blessing to the whole team (including having mum bringing lots of chocolate for Mollie). One treat was being able to celebrate my birthday with my parents for the first time in years. It was such a gift to have them around and have them meet all the people over here who are so dear to us including our Cambodian family.

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Highlights from the Tribe Team's time in Cambodia

We were blessed to be able to host an incredible team from New Earth Tribe Church in Byron Bay, Australia and were all absolutely blown away by their kindness, generosity love for us and willingness to invest in us as a team. A lot of our team received some really powerful prayer ministry and encouragement during this time. We also got to do a bunch of outreaches together and see God move powerfully touching the lives of people we were meeting bringing, healing freedom and joy.

We have continued to regularly visit our Cambodian family in the slums often eating with them and spending time together building relationships with them and doing life with them.

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They continue to teach us more about life over here and constantly overwhelm us with their loving and welcoming hearts towards us. They also continue to have their own challenges including issues with land lords and family problems. Please pray for them as we together seek God’s wisdom in how to bring resolution and bless and encourage the growth of their faith.

"Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." Matt 9:38 NIV

A slum sunset

The HS20 team with the Phnom Penh team

Every year we get to host teams of Harvest School graduates from the Iris Global base in Mozambique. They always come out filled up and full of faith from completing a Mission School in the midst of an incredible revival in Mozambique. This team were no different and were an incredibly exciting, loving and fun blessing from heaven. 

We got to have lots of different times of ministry along-side them but one of my favourites was an evening we had last week. I felt when planning the schedule for the team’s time here that we should have an evening to be able to pour into and encourage other ministries in the Sihanoukville area so we had a night where we invited all of the local Missionaries and church leaders we know. It was an incredible time. During the ministry time Holy Spirit showed up in a powerful way. Lives were getting touched and God was speaking very clearly to His body through the prophetic.

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A photo from the evening

One couple were both seasoned Cambodian church leaders who came in discouraged and oppressed, the husband was also deaf in one ear. During the time of ministry Jesus healed his ear and then the team members proceeded to prophecy to him and encourage him in the Holy Spirit speaking into his newly healed ear. Afterwards they looked like completely different people and were again carrying joy and hope as they walked. That evening we heard that they had encountered that much opposition and that much trouble after years and years of difficult ministry that they were just about to give up and throw in the towel but after that evening they have renewed hope and focus and faith to carry on. Most of them said they had never been to anything like this before and that they wanted to do it again! God is such an awesome God and during that evening really showed me in a powerful way how much He loves His body!

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Beautiful Mollie carrying something beautiful

This brings me on to our last visitor who I want to talk about who is actually more of a permanent visitor. One of the incredible and lavish answers to prayer in this season that God has gifted us is a child. We are delighted to announce that Mollie is pregnant and we have a gorgeous little addition to the family who will be joining us around February 2015! We hopefully plan to go to the UK for a few months to be around family during this exciting time. We are both so delighted and excited and cannot wait to meet him/her already!

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About a month and a half ago we were in the slums and had already taken the decision not to tell anyone there about the baby until we were at least 12 weeks, so no one in the whole community knew about it. At that time one of the beautiful little girls came up to Mollie and hugged her and gave her a cute drawing. She said “this is for your baby”, Mollie then answered saying “what makes you think I have a baby?” The little girl then answered “because God told me”. Last week when we broke the news to our family in the slum they were all so excited and full of joy! All the men kept hugging me and laughing and seemed genuinely excited saying “well done!!” And our Khmer family are all over the moon. Mollie spoke to the little girl and encouraged her and said “see you were right, you can hear from God!”, she replied “of course” with the tone of her voice as if it was a no-brainer as if there was no possibility to not hear from him. It’s amazing to see even the little ones as they continue to grow in God and we ourselves learn from their beautiful childlike faith.

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A full circle sun-bow taken a few weeks ago

As I look back on the last few months there are so many areas I can write about where Jesus has been faithful, trustworthy and always there. As we continue to walk this journey His love overwhelms us and continues to give us the faith we need to keep trusting, keep relying on and keep following this joyful King. It’s not a burden it’s an honour and a privilege. He is so worth following.

Thank you for all of your encouragement and love as we continue to do so and thank you for your continued prayers.

Lots of Love,

Steve and Mollie (and bump) x x x

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Please pray for:

-The health of Mollie and our child. Heaven's protection and God's Holy Angels to surround them and keep them safe especially now the big news is announced to many.
-Wisdom and heavenly discernment for Steve as he is currently leading Iris Cambodia on his own while the other team leaders are away.
-Other team leaders who are currently out of the country getting filled up and ministered to.
-Breakthrough with International NGO application for IC.
-Blessing on the wonderful Iris Team members in Cambodia, a lot of them are carrying a lot of promises and are very close to breakthrough in receiving these!
-Wisdom as we continue to love our family in the slums.
-Heavens blueprints to be released on earth. HIS Kingdom would come HIS will would be done in our lives as it is in Heaven.

Love you all!