It was during this difficult season that God sent us the most amazing help and encouragement which not only kept us going but imparted such wisdom, love and enthusiasm for this next season also. 

We were so honoured to have a team from Jackson Mississippi join us for a few days. We had 5 amazing women come and they each taught us so much and reminded us of why we were here and how we have no reason to be afraid! They are from one of the most dangerous, deprived, hostile places in America and deal with so much brokenness, gun-crime and violence. They are doing amazing things to bring love to a place and a people that has been abandoned and rejected by most (their ministry is called We Will Go). It was a privilege going to the slums, the bars and our centre with them. They burned with such a passion for the people of Cambodia is made me realise sometimes I am too narrow-visioned in my desire to love and bring help to people. The streets are full of people who need love ; the struggling parents, the street children , the sex- tourists , the ex-pats, fellow missionaries , fellow team members. It’s been so good to remind myself that God calls us to love everyone ; everyone is lost without him and everyone needs love and encouragement and family! Sometimes we can get so caught up in programs and what we need to do and to achieve that we can forget to love the people who God puts in front of us. We can get busy with other things that we don’t listen to His voice and actually be willing and brave enough to give people words of life and truth.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

I must be totally honest and tell you that when Steve told me God had asked us to live in a slum for a month and give away a lot of our valuables I initially felt overwhelmed, scared and a bit angry. We had just left so many loved-ones in Phnom Penh and were trying to settle into Sihanoukville ; a totally alien place to me. I honestly felt heart-broken leaving the home I loved in Phnom Penh and all the people I felt I was abandoning.  It was such a refining time of reminding myself that God has everything in his hands and his timings are perfect and I could truly trust Him. So on top of all these grieving emotions and feeling so unsettled I felt this was the final thing God was taking from my hands. I didn’t realise at that time but it was the best thing I could have ever hoped for.

Steve and I didn’t know which slum to live in so decided to drive to them all and pray and seek God on which one to live in. After visiting a few slums the realities of what we were doing started to hit me. We had been to nearly all the slums and the sun was setting and I was feeling discouraged but then we both felt to go to one last one;  a dangerous slum and where many illegal activities go on including trafficking. As we drove through this huge slum I felt so excited ; I knew this was going to be our new home !

So the next few days we prayed and decided to go see if we could find a place. Before we went in we were reminded of a number of dreams and prophecies about railway tracks. Steve also saw a picture of a plant pot as we were praying. So we started where the train tracks are and started walking until we saw a place with lots of plant pots (unusual in the slum). Steve sat down and got a drink and started chatting to the people there and me some Khmer friends were drawn to a young boy who was crying. It turned out this boy was in such pain, as he had fallen while climbing and a rusty sheet of metal had sliced a huge chunk of his leg out. He was taking antibiotics but was sobbing in pain and had a fever. I knew it was serious ; and if we didn’t do something it could be life-threatening. After chatting to his mum and explaining the seriousness of the situation we were soon on our way to the best hospital in town. The doctor explained if this had been left another few days he would have lost his leg! After a few hours of IV antibiotics and minor surgery we headed home ; but as the leg was so serious we had to take him back to the hospital every day for further antibiotics and dressings. Whilst at the hospital I formed a very close bond with his mum Srey* who was so sweet.  When we arrived back in the slum his grandparents greeted us and expressed their gratitude. We asked them if they knew of anywhere we could stay and they said they would find out for us.  On our way to the hospital God told had me that this boy would open up a doorway for us into this slum; so we were both excited!

The next day when we brought  Prou* back from the hospital, his grandad asked us to move in with them. He said he wouldn’t feel happy if we stayed anywhere else, as it isn’t safe and they could protect us. Both him and his wife insisted we move into their home; and he said we could live there for free as we had helped Prou* so much. He then said, with tears in his eyes,  that fate had brought us to their family and now we were part of it ! I just knew in that moment that this would be a very special relationship. So the next day we moved into the best room of their house; with a mattress and even electricity.  The only difficulty was that there was no bathroom/ toilet ! The whole community did share a raised rusty corregated iron structure which had a hole in the bottom and you could use if you were desperate – but at night time it was unsafe as you had to cross over the train tracks to use it. So Steve and I felt we would pay to build the family their own toilet and washroom ;  partly because I couldn’t imagine no toilet for a whole month ! Also I didn’t really like having a bucket shower outside the house whilst the whole village stared at me ha ha! 

I will never forget that first night ; something I had been dreading , but it was such a joy ! Surrounded by the most adorable children, all of who wanted to play games and to have lots of hugs and by our new family who were the sweetest and most sincere people. From day one we were told we had a new Cambodian mum and dad and so they really were just like parents ; everynight telling us we needed to have showers and go to bed ! Also it was great because we had 8 new brothers and sisters and countless nieces and nephews including sweet Prou*. 

It wasn’t easy to always eat everything put in front of us, but Gods grace was over everything and I could stomach much more than I normally could. We also managed to use the make-shift and frankly scary toilet until the new one was built; as I watched the rats and cockroaches crawling around under me. At night time we got soo hot and the sound of rats crawling around us and the smell of their urine was a bit unnerving, plus the shouting of the drunken men outside and the extremely loud tv’s next door. But we got used to it; it wasn’t that bad! God was protecting us and giving us the strength. 

From dawn till dusk we both had children hanging off us; craving love and attention. I could see that many of these children received no affection from their parents and even when they cried no one would comfort them. So it was a joy to be able to show these kids that they were so precious, important and loved. We often told them about who they were and slowly we started to see changes in them. It was also amazing to spend a lot of time just sitting and chatting to the mommas and all our family. Our mum and dad had heart-breaking stories about how they lost two children and many siblings during the nightmare Khmer-Rouge genocide. We got to sit and listen and pray for them and the more we found out about their lives the more love and respect I had for these precious, hard-working and generous people. Our parents would always say they have a small house and wallet but they have big hearts; which was absolutely true! 

It wasn’t long before we had the whole village wondering why we were there and who we were. We always told them the truth; that Jesus had told us to live there for one month and that we wanted to learn from them and to bless them. Soon Sunday came and God told Steve to invite one person to church and that Jesus would do the rest, in the end 16 people (mainly kids) came with us the first night. Our friend’s van was packed with people from our village; it was so exciting ! It was the best feeling in the world to have such enthusiasm in going to church! It was a fantastic evening and by the end many of the kids had told me they wanted to go every week. It was really interesting as when we got home our Cambodian dad told the whole family that they should go to church as it is “good for your brain”! Everyday the children asked me; can we go to church again today? It made me so excited to see their hunger for more of God . 

A few days later I became really sick and had a fever and chills and felt really dizzy. I knew this was more than just a cold as I literally couldn’t get out of bed. So I began to pray and worship God and he gave me a picture of the kids gathered around me praying. So I asked Steve to get the children to pray for me. They did pray for me; even though they didn’t understand . I wasn’t healed straight away but I had a renewed strength to get out of bed. Steve and I then drove around for about 20 minutes just worshiping at the top of our lungs and praying for the area. I came home totally better. The kids couldn’t believe it; as they had seen how ill I was before and had felt the fever on my skin. Since then they now know that Jesus wants to heal all sickness and disease. It really awesome to see how these children see things; it teaches me so much! 

Each day God opened up more opportunities for us to share our testimony and about Him. Our mum and dad listening to their new audio-bible every night and thanks to the church most of the adults who were going to church had their own bible. By the second week two packed van loads were going to church and by the end of the third week forty four people joined us to church. At the end of the service four adults , including our Khmer granddad and two of his children, gave their lives to Jesus. Six children also decided to follow Jesus a few days before that at a separate eve.

I was now realising what is truly valuable in this life .... it’s not what I thought before. I would spend forever in the slums if I could see hope and new life spring up in places of darkness , if I could watch Jesus turn lives around and bring his love to lives where so much hurt and poverty has dominated. By living with the poor I had learnt so much! I had witnessed true generosity, true self-less love as our parents would give us the best of their hard-earned food , their best room in the house. Despite communication barriers and also cultural differences our new family never criticised us or shouted at us but were always patient and kind and accepted us for who we were, even if we did seem very strange. I also saw the heart-breaking side of poverty and broken families and the deep darkness so many people live in. One night one of my sister’s husbands threw himself into the sewage lake near the house as he wanted to die. He was dragged out and all his children were crying and screaming and he eventually regained consciousness ; only to throw himself back in again. Every night we could hear the sounds of intoxicated men hitting or screaming at their wives and children. Countless times we heard parents speak curses over these kids; it wasn’t easy ! But amongst the garbage and the rats and the smell and the heat each of these people , each of the kids were like sparking diamonds ; loved by their heavenly father , each with an incredible destiny and purpose. They taught me so much about love and I am forever grateful for them.

Now we are in love with this family and the whole community. It was extremely painful to move out of their home. However I do know that God finishes what he starts and we both truly believe great things for this slum. One night I got a picture of God started a small flame which would grow into a roaring fire; I know He is bringing revival here and I am so thankful that we can be a part of it in some way. God in his goodness and kindness gave me a new family in a place I had felt so alien to. In addition to that He has given us an amazing team, who have been an amazing family also and have been there to help equip us to love this community; whether thats been helping with de-licing of the kids, or being able to have the odd shower at their house, our team has been such a support to us and we couldn’t have done any of this without them.  God made us dependent on them too; which has really helped us love and appreciate them so much.

We don’t know what happens from here but we do know that Jesus has a plan.... we really feel He wants us to live close to this slum and use our home in a way which can be a blessing to them. Whatever God’s plan looks like I have learnt that He is good and He is trustworthy! He doesn’t ask us to do things which are bad for us; but always which will help us grow and which will teach us so much. I also realise that as much as I love these people, God loves them so much more and is desperate to see them living in freedom and walking in their identity as his children; healed and restored!

Looking back I laugh and think that I was ever worried about what God has asked us to do ; He handpicked us the kindest family in the whole slum and set us up to inherit them as our dear Khmer family who bring us such joy everyday we visit, and we still continue to visit them every day.

My biggest lesson; sometimes it’s so so good to do things we are incapable of doing without Him! Everyday having to rely fully on Jesus to just survive the day is a great place to be; it reminds us that through Him all things are possible.

Thank you so so much for your continued prayers and loving support, we love you all deeply. Some other really exciting things have also started to develop during our time here in Sihanoukville. We will keep you posted! God is more glorious and incredible that we could ever imagine, to Him be all the glory.

Lots and lots of love,
Mollie and Steve x x x

(*Names of persons have been changed).

The close of 2013 was incredible. It was my busiest but also my favourite time in Cambodia so far. We had so much on, but Jesus showed himself strong and wonderful as He always does.

I (Steve) received a prophecy from a women of God who was visiting back in August which said “I see a time ahead coming, it is going to be like in Holland where the land is lower than the sea level and there are walls to stop the sea from coming in. There is a gap in the wall and you are going to step in and help stop the sea from coming in...” As I was reading this in the lead up to the crusade it struck me that it was talking about December and the gospel campaign in Siem Reap. The main visiting and organising team (TRIN) are a ministry based in HOLLAND! Things had changed on the ground in Siem Reap and a few organisers of the crusade and outreaches had pulled out, so they asked me and our team to step in and help out with organising things.

By God’s grace and with the help of our wonderful team we managed to make it happen. God’s favour was clearly on this as we managed to get exactly the people we needed to fill in the gaps. A lot of them travelled up from Phnom Penh with us (including the whole Khmer worship team and main translator) and they managed to get time off work at the last minute (and had enough favour with their bosses for it to not count against their holidays). Many other things like this eventually came together to enable the event to go ahead.

During the time the teams were here we had many outreaches in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap to villages, slums and even to a floating village!

The main crusade lasted three nights and each night the Holy Spirit seemed to be focusing on a different theme. The main speaker Mattheus Van Der Steen (from TRIN) was very sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leadings. The first night the theme was about repentance and salvation. It was a real privilege to see an anointed man of God get on the stage and preach a powerful Gospel message, he held absolutely nothing back in clearly and passionately telling people about Jesus; later he told us that he preached as though it was the last message he would ever preach! During the response time many people came up to the front to receive Jesus for the first time.

The theme the second night seemed to be more about healing and deliverance with dozens of people coming up to the front after the message to respond and receive healing. This was an intense time with some people in the crowd manifesting demons and receiving prayers for deliverance. Even though this was the smallest crowd of the three nights Jesus was still powerfully at work, bringing freedom to many people in a town that has many oppressed by the darkness.

In the end it was the last night that was my favourite. To be honest before the evening session began I had come to the end of myself. The weight of organising and leading the teams, going to outreaches in the days, communicating to crusade organisers and resolving issues and planning things had worn me out. I didn’t crash but I had ran out of fuel! The months before this point had been intense and with it all coming to an end I had spent everything I had. With the spiritual battle on top of this and having to constantly be on my toes I was exhausted. Even though my body was aching and sore, my energy had been spent and I was spiritually exhausted I knew I had nothing else to give. I had done all I could so I just began to join in with the worship! I worshipped and worshipped then I began to be supernaturally re-filled with energy. I fixed my thoughts on Jesus and my emotional attention on Him until my thoughts went from negative to positive and I forgot about my tiredness in my flesh. Completely relying on and being empowered by the Spirit I had my favourite night so far.

Mattheus preached a message on the Holy Spirit and many came up to the front to receive Jesus’ living water. At first we were waiting for God to move and for a while nothing seemed to happen. We seemed to be waiting for a long time but then the Holy Spirit started touching people and people started hitting the floor. It was great to see the Cambodian people I love so much receiving the incredible gift from the Father, the inheritance that Jesus had earned for them. We then as a ministry team started to minister and more and more people started hitting the floor as we prayed. I had never experienced this before when I had prayed for people. I prayed for the people who God led me to and they kept receiving a powerful touch from God. It ended up that the whole open section in front of the stage looked like a huge pile of bodies sprawled everywhere.

It was so wonderful to see so many people receive from God. It was so incredibly needed. Siem Reap is such a dry and barren place and Father God brought a spring of living water to refresh, bless and empower the believers and the new believers who had been coming the few nights before.

My joy was summed up when I got back to the Hotel a few hours later. I was chatting to some of the Holland TRIN team. I saw one of our hotel’s Khmer staff walk past me with a huge grin and a spring in his step. I could tell just by looking at him that there was something about him, he was carrying joy and had a completely different countenance compared to the other hotel staff I had seen. I didn’t recognise him but I asked him if he had been at the crusade at all. He replied with a big grin on his face that he had. I asked Him if he had been this evening and he replied that he had and that he too had “sleeped” (I think he meant he too had been slain in the Spirit). He seemed so happy! It was such a joy and a delight to see God move and touch so many Khmer people.

As I look back I am so thankful to God to be a part of something so special and work along-side such incredible and inspiring men and women of God.

Rest
I finished December the most exhausted I had been in Cambodia so far. We were both physically and emotionally drained so our break over January has been an incredible well timed blessing.

We have been so incredibly and lavishly blessed by God. We got to stay in Sydney with my brother and his girlfriend in time for New Years Eve and then we were blessed to join Mollie’s parents on their trip to New Zealand. They generously paid for flights, accommodation and transport we just got to go along for the ride. It was over this time with the fresh air and the beautiful scenery that we were refreshed and refuelled ready for the year ahead.

It is going to be a great year. As I was stood watching the fireworks welcoming the New Year at the stroke of midnight the Holy Spirit spoke to me and told me that this is going to be an incredible year. Such an excitement arose in my heart.

For the next few months ahead; we are moving to a new city in the south of Cambodia, we have new missionaries joining our team, our teams will potentially have two new Iris centres and are going to be ministering to new groups of people as we move into new territory. God is doing so much more in this beautiful nation, there is so much more to come! 

Thank you so much for your continued prayers, love and encouragement! They really do make a huge difference.

With love Steve and Mollie.

I (Mollie) feel so unbelievably privileged and blessed to be living in these very special days in this amazing nation. God is proving his goodness and faithfulness every day and bringing us abundant joy in places of despair and darkness.

Firstly, it’s been a joy to welcome our first Khmer staff members! Getting to know them more has been such a delight and a privilege. I knew God was going to give us the best but our staff are just incredible!  The more I get to know them the more they blow me away by their compassion, love, their faith in God , their sweet Spirits and their humble hearts. We are very excited as are planning to take them to Singapore early next year for a conference with Heidi, Bill Johnson and Randy Clarke to experience more of God in a corporate setting. This is exciting too as will be the first time on an airplane for some of our staff which will be fun! 

This month also brought with it the very exciting XP “Operation Justice” school. Staffing this school was an incredible experience and such a privilege. There is something so refreshing being around amazing Christians from around the world with passions for the poor, exploited and oppressed. It was amazing to meet and make lifelong friendships with such amazing, strong, gifted, generous and loving people. They each released something so beautiful and unique to the team and I learnt so much for these amazing guys and felt so blessed, inspired and refreshed by them.

We saw many salvations (around 50) in all kinds of places ; street corners, temples, hospitals, slums, KTV bars and nightclubs. We saw many healings and many times where God really used the students to speak truth and destiny into people’s lives.

One of my favourite stories from the school was when a group of us went down to Watt Phnom late one evening ( a temple which is renowned for being a very dark red-light area). Someone in our group felt to take a bottle of water with them even though they weren’t thirsty. God then gave someone the word “running waters” before the outreach. Initially I was wracking my brains for any water-features or streams etc but there is literally nothing in that area. We walked about the red-light area and then started talking to one of the ladies who told us her tragic story; she had previously worked at collecting recyclables by sorting through peoples rubbish but someone stole her cart. Because of this and the pressing need to feed her children, she had no other choice but to work here and sell herself. She then started to cry as she spoke of an incident a few weeks ago where she was gang-raped by a group of men who took advantage of her kind and trusting-heart. She was telling us how she felt incredibly down and contemplated suicide. As she was crying along with some of our team, God reminded someone on the team of the word “running waters”. We knew we found the person God wanted us to meet that night!  She then explained she was hungry as hadn’t eaten in 3 days. So after getting her some food and chatting to her more we told her about Jesus and his great love for her and plan for her life. The transformation in her was incredible as she prayed with us to accept Jesus and then one lady on our team really felt to baptise her there and then. At first it seemed a bit awkward to baptise her with a bottle of the water in the middle of a red-light district on a very dark and gloomy night; but soon it became an incredibly beautiful and divine moment  where this women encountered the love of her father.  All I can describe is at that moment the presence of God was so strong and we were all getting overwhelmed by it ; I could barely stand.  As my team mate was covering her in the water the lady’s eyes were full of tears. Her friend who was watching all this then asked if we could pray for her to receive Jesus too. They both were completely different women by the time we left. We have referred her to the amazing YWAM team who work there every week.  That night was such a divine appointment, and it was great to watch God touch these women with a love which heals all pains, hurts and brings hope to the hopeless.

This was just one of many amazing testimonies of that week. For me another huge highlight was when the team set up a free Spa in a slum known for being a place where many sex-workers live. It was such a joy to pamper and love these precious ladies.  Before we went to the slum God showed one of the team that he was going to open up ears in the slum. At the end of the pampering God showed us a mute lady who was also deaf and so we prayed for her and after continuous prayer we did see some improvement as she was able to make different sounds and her hearing also improved ; however the full healing didn’t manifest. Initially I felt a little discouraged as we were really expectant for complete healing , but then God really spoke to me about trusting him and that he always finishes what he starts. I am believing that this lady will receive total healing and will be one of the first in her village to spread the gospel. 

I mentioned in my last blog about starting English lessons and really having no idea what I was doing. A manager from one of the lady bars invited us to start teaching English there and after prayer I felt it was a strategy from God . So I prayed and asked God to help me as I am not gifted at teaching or even knew where to start. He then answered my prayer in the most amazing way and sent me someone who is very special as is extremely gifted and passionate about teaching English and has lots of experience! So the past few months it’s been amazing going to the bar and teaching English to these girls. It’s been so much fun and we have had many laughs together ; eating skittles , singing rainbow songs , praying together and learning more about each-other. These girls who are very poor always offer their food to us after class and always present us with drinks and really honour us. The other day one of the girls came to the clinic I work at nearby and she was with us nearly 2 hours as we prayed for her and shared the gospel. It was really encouraging to see her open up and trust us and see a glimpse of what God is doing already in this bar. I know he has great plans for these girls!  God has really revealed his faithfulness to me through this. 

Another example of this is when working at the clinic for Daughters of Cambodia. Often I feel so frustrated with myself as can’t really communicate how I would like to and often feel medically out of my depth too. One girl came in after having a miscarriage and was crying; I went to give her a big hug and just let her cry; all the while feeling so inadequate in how to comfort this girl. But then the following week she came back and told me how much that meant to her and how no one had ever hugged her before. I was so sad to hear that this precious women had never experienced a hug; it made me so angry. But it also made me realise that God can use us to share his love with people even when we feel completely useless and don’t have the words.

This month is my last full month of working in the organisations I am partnering with in Phnom Penh. Eventually after some time away in January we intend to move South to Sihanoukville to follow God's call at the beginning of March. I have loved working with Hard Places Community and Daughters of Cambodia and I will be very sad to leave this amazing city and the many people I love here. God is so good in helping me hand over things well, and I have been able to train up a doctor at HPC to continue the clinics there which has been awesome. I am excited what this next year brings and the transition to come.

We are currently preparing for both a Harvest School team coming and also a TRIN Global team coming in December and very excited about the gospel crusade that we will be helping TRIN with in Siem Reap. It’s going to be such fun! Please continue to pray for us in this busy time ahead. We would also appreciate your prayer in this time of transition; that we would finish things in PP well. Many thanks for all your prayers and support ; we couldn’t be here without you all. Much love from us both.