What about the Cambodians?

I'm not sure how long we've been doing the Birthday Gift for Jesus at Grace, but it's been at least 10 years, probably more. For the past nine years we've used the Gift to support three Cambodian national missionary families for a full year's support plus additional projects related to their church planting efforts in Battambang and surrounding areas in Cambodia. This year, we're using the Gift to support at least three church-sponsored schools designed to educate, clothe and feed 150 of the 200,000 some orphans in the Central African Republic (CAR). I want to dissect this in total, first, we'll start with the Cambodians, are we no longer supporting them?

Nope, starting with the 2007-08 budget, we moved our support of the Cambodians into the annual budget. We're sending monies to them on a monthly basis to allow their ministry to continue. We still support three families of Cambodian nationals - one or two of them have changed because they left the ministry for other pursuits etc., but we're still very active in joining God in what He's doing in the Battambang region.

Through Mike and Joan McCracken, our ties and investment in the Cambodian ministry remains very committed. If you have a desire to participate further in that extension of the Grace Church ministry, let me know, talk to the Mike and Joan or talk to Pastor Scott.

We see us using this approach, the Birthday Gift for Jesus to launch future endeavors to join God where He's working. After a few years, assuming the work is on going and we sense the congregation is connected and invested in the ministry, we'll fold the regular support into the general operating budget and use the Birthday Gift for Jesus to launch another new outreach.

Next I'll answer, so, why the CAR? Why orphans?