- Published on
The Well Prayer and Worship Room located in the middle of the Red light area
We have now been back in Phnom Penh for 15 months! It has been a wild and beautiful journey of adjusting to life here as a family. Cambodia is a beautiful nation with the most kind and hospitable people and truly over this last year we have fallen back in love with the people here.
Abigail helping us pray for a sweet old grandma
Our language abilities are slowly coming back and the kids are learning a new way of life. It has been such an honor to co-lead our team here ; which is now consisting of 26 people ; including 12 missionaries ! The people we get to work with are some of the most kind and inspiring people I have ever met.
The number of missionaries on our team has doubled in six months! From 6 to 12
Iris Phnom Penh has historically been an anti-trafficking organization. We have a team of full time Cambodian social workers whose aim is to keep children and families safe and helping them in very practical ways. We want to prevent but also intervene in any trafficking cases that come to light in our communities. We serve in several at-risk and impoverished communities where we run kids clubs and do regular outreaches, building relationship with those in need.
One of the communities we serve in. Photo from @irisphnompenh instagram
Our child sponsorship program enables us to support families in need and make sure each child can attend school. Love looks like something and so for every baby milk, family food package we give out it opens the door for people to know they are loved and that God sees them and cares for them.
A discipleship group in a different community we serve in,
We wholeheartedly believe community transformation won’t happen without people knowing Jesus, and knowing who they are in Him. This only comes from regular exposure to the truth and constant relationship with His body (the Church). So recently we have being putting an even greater emphasis on discipleship. We have a discipleship groups in all our communities which are growing and people are encountering Gods love and power !
The discipleship group that we host weekly in our home is also going well. This picture is from when we recently gave them solar audio bibles.
Our family is doing well, the kids have so many friends here and are finding things that they love to do. Both kids have been playing football/soccer and enjoying it (despite it being very hot). Abigail is learning Khmer faster than I (Mollie) am at the moment and its very sweet to see her greet people in the traditional Khmer way! There have been some regular challenges with Steve’s health with some food intolerances here but the kids are always quick to pray and we are seeing God move powerfully through their prayers!
The kids are enjoying life out here
The Well that never runs dry ....
It has been such a joy to see Gods promises spoken to our team over a decade ago coming to fruition in “The Well” the prayer room in the red-light area.
The view from The Well prayer room
We have had many powerful times of prayer and worship both as a team and wider with other Christians from different organizations ; declaring Gods redeeming powerful love over the centre of the red-light district.
The Red light area near our prayer room
We now have a full time team based in the red-light area and weekly outreaches into the bars. Last week we started our first discipleship group for these women and it was so beautiful. Our dream is one day to see a church established here but for now we praise God for this group!
The near-by riverside outreach
We are also seeing increased fruit from our kid's club in this same area and some of our kids have asked to receive Jesus which is impacting their whole families. It's beautiful to see how whole families are now listening together to the audio bibles that we have given them.
Our team were recently blessed to have a visit from Sharon and Hannah who both encouraged us greatly!
We are continually astounded at Jesus' constant faithfulness and goodness over here, even in spite of ourselves and our own imperfections, He is more than capable! He alone deserves the glory!
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth." 1 Corinthians 3:7
We also give God praise and thanks for yourselves and your co-labouring in loving and serving His beautiful people here. Every prayer, every encouragement and every financial seed sown in makes a huge difference. We dearly appreciate you all and thank God for you!
Please pray with us for: Our Team : We have grown significantly and appreciate prayers for unity and good communication. Please pray covering over us as we continue to work in some of the darkest parts of the city. In 2 weeks we are all heading to Malaysia for an Iris Family gathering with bases from all around the world. For many of our team its the first time out the country so please pray for us!
Our Family: That our marriage and our kids and our health would thrive here ! Especially praying for healing for Steve's current dietary intolerances which cause regular health problems.
Ministry provision: We are growing so fast and the needs are so huge please join us in praying favour for us as an organisation for funding and resources that we need as we grow. In the troubles of 2020 we lost all of our child sponsors and so we are praying for more child sponsorships to help support the continued work in the communities that we serve. (We are looking for people to be advocates for this so if you have a heart to share about the Stop for the One child sponsorship programme in your church do this please get in touch! We have some simple resources we can share with you)
Lives transformed: As we are expanding our discipleship groups and looking more at church planting please pray that all those who would attend would continue to encounter God and grow in faith ! That we would be able to steward these precious people well and keep pointing them to Jesus. The author and perfector.
(We have a more regularly updating prayer group on signal messenger. If you are interested in joining it please click here.)
Our Family: That our marriage and our kids and our health would thrive here ! Especially praying for healing for Steve's current dietary intolerances which cause regular health problems.
Ministry provision: We are growing so fast and the needs are so huge please join us in praying favour for us as an organisation for funding and resources that we need as we grow. In the troubles of 2020 we lost all of our child sponsors and so we are praying for more child sponsorships to help support the continued work in the communities that we serve. (We are looking for people to be advocates for this so if you have a heart to share about the Stop for the One child sponsorship programme in your church do this please get in touch! We have some simple resources we can share with you)
Lives transformed: As we are expanding our discipleship groups and looking more at church planting please pray that all those who would attend would continue to encounter God and grow in faith ! That we would be able to steward these precious people well and keep pointing them to Jesus. The author and perfector.
(We have a more regularly updating prayer group on signal messenger. If you are interested in joining it please click here.)
Much love in Jesus from us all here!