By Dale Balu
What an experience we had at the Cambodian Initiative Consultation
year 2001 conference. Steve Riley and Dale Balu attended the conference
and
were given time to discuss the St. Luke's UMC mission trip, "Cambodia,
Mission Possible". The conference was held at the Cambodian-American
United
Methodist Church in Long Beach, CA. This church had been recently
re-opened
(within the previous 3 months) and was literally sponsored by the Local
district of the United Methodist church. It was great to see so many
people
with the same goal, mission to the people of Cambodia. The theme for the
conference was "God's Grace as Flowing Water". The conference
was sponsored
by the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM). David and Shirley Wu
were
in attendance representing the GBGM. The host of the conference was Pastor
Mik Chhuk. Rev. and Dr. Ronald Tompkins was the inspiration for much of
this conference. He is the coordinator of the Cambodia Program.
The conference started at noon on Friday, April 20th with you
guessed it, lunch. Steve and I thought we were back in Cambodia.
Some of
the food was the same as we had in Seim Reap and it was just as yummy.
Well, maybe it was not quite as good as we had in Seim Reap, but it sure
brought back good memories. A time of fellowship during lunch was our
first
chance to meet some of the other Cambodian-Americans and other members of
churches in attendance from around the country.
The conference started with a prayer from Rev. Samuel Vorn, Chair of
the Cambodian National Caucus followed by a welcome from Rev. Mik Chhuk.
The Rev and Dr. Ronald Tompkins lead the group in song. It was
particularly
interesting to sign songs in English and Khmer at the same time. The first
time was difficult but we managed to get the swing of it after a few songs.
There was discussion of the Cambodian National Caucus Vision and Efforts by
the Rev Samuel Vorn and Rev. Somel Om. Then came our 45 minute
presentation. It was interesting for Steve and me to figure out exactly
how
we could spend only 45 minutes talking about our wonderful experience in
Cambodia. We had a great short version of the video (approximately 15
minutes) that Ken Fong prepared as well as the digital picture slide show
that Steve Plain prepared. Thanks to Dan Raap, we were able to display the
digital pictures via Steve's lap top computer on to a screen. It was
unfortunate that Dan could not attend as he had hoped so that the people
could see live proof of how large this man really is in person. They were
able to see several pictures which helped to define the contrast some of us
Americans had in Cambodia.
Dale Balu started out the St. Luke's session with a very brief
history of the church, discussing how St. Luke's UMC was actually the result
of a mission project itself in its beginning by a local sister church, St.
Andrews UMC. He went on to say a few short words about how our senior
pastor, Rev. and Dr. Dick Evans, started our worldwide focus on missions
when he hired Rev and now Dr. Tapiwa Mucherera as St. Luke's UMC missionary
in residence in the mid 90's. A very brief discussion of St. Luke's
mission
trip to Zimbabwe was presented to show how this mission trip inspired St.
Luke's to continue to reach out to other Christians in the world through our
missions trip to Cambodia. It was pointed out that this mission trip was
the vision of our associate Pastor Esther Cho. Rev. Cho went on a trip
with
the GBGM to Cambodia and visited the Community Center in Seim Reap and after
meeting Dalay Dy and Joseph Chan, she inspired St. Luke's UMC to make this
mission trip to Cambodia. Dale discussed how Esther's vision of mission to
the people of Cambodia soon became the vision of St. Luke's UMC and
specifically the Cambodia Missions Team. Dale discussed how the initial
plans were to raise $20,000 and that in the end we raised over $30,000.
This was truly a sign of God working through this mission. Dale discussed
the many ways that we raised money for this mission and how inspired the
entire congregation was about the mission. Steve Riley then came up and
discussed briefly the Community Center in Seim Reap and the work that our
team did on this mission trip. He discussed how our construction expert,
Brian Sorsby, lead the work team to accomplish our task with some of the
most primitive tools we had worked with in a long time. He discussed the
relationships we formed and the bond that each of the mission team members
created with the people of Seim Reap at Joseph Chan's Community Training
Center. He discussed how Joseph's dream touched the hearts of the missions
team and the St. Luke's UMC congregation. We then watched the video
showing
a brief history of the beginning of the mission vision and the project
during all phases of our time in Seim Reap. Steve concluded his
presentation with some of his personal stories of how this mission trip had
formed a strong bond to the people of Cambodia in his personal life and how
he planned to continue his support. He discussed how a member of St.
Luke's
UMC had discussed how a sewage treatment plant could be put in place on the
site. This vision may be the start of Mission Possible II. We
ended our
session with a question and answer period. Many insightful questions were
asked and answered. It was refreshing to see the enthusiasm of the
Cambodian-Americans and the Americans from other churches across the
country.
Following our presentation we all enjoyed a wonderful dinner,
prepared by the ladies of the host church. After dinner we went into the
fellowship hall area and were treated to traditional Cambodian live music
and dancing from all different age groups within the host church. We
adjourned for the evening about 9 PM.
The following morning the conference began with a coffee and social
hour. Bishop Mary Ann Swenson joined us this morning with her husband.
The
live about 30 miles away and traveled to the church via a bicycle made for
two. Something that she loves and is happy to be able to do in the CA area
she now serves. Bishop Swenson just recently was transferred to this area
and previous to this new assignment she was the bishop of the Rocky Mountain
Conference, where St. Luke's UMC is a member. We were able to meet
Brigitte
Keane, a US missionary assigned by the GBGM to work in the area of Cambodian
missions. Brigitte talked about how she was to raise her own funds for
this
effort and how she needed sponsorship from many churches. Subsequent
discussions with her by Steve and myself were conducted and she may travel
to our church sometime in the future to speak with us about her project and
to solicit our help with her funding. We welcomed her to come to St.
Luke's
UMC for a visit. Bishop Swenson preached to the conference and showed her
personal support for the Cambodian missions project. After several more
songs (again sung in English and Kamer simultaneously) we adjourned the
service. You guessed it, we had lunch next. A Korean church also
brought
food for the lunch so we were able to open our culinary horizons even
further. At the conclusion of lunch, we had discussions with several of
the
people from other churches about the details of our trip to Cambodia.
All in all this experience served to show both Steve and me just how
much more we could do for the people of Cambodia and just how appreciative
the Cambodian-Americans are for support like St. Luke's UMC has given. We
are looking forward to the conference next year.