Mark Your Calendars:

July 31 FELLOWSHIP MEAL Sunday morning after services. Hosts and Hostesses: Joe & Teri Winnett, David & Sheri Zoller and Bob & Donna Feuerbacher.

August 19-25 Joe and Teri Winnett will attend a preacher’s workshop in Tennessee. Charles Greenawalt will preach the morning of August 21st and Ken Darnell will preach the evening lesson.

August 19th has been set for the annual breakfast given for all Llano County school employees as well as volunteers and emergency first responders. For those who would volunteer to help in this endeavor, a signup sheet is on the table at the back of the auditorium.

August 28th Doug and Diane Wheeler will be here and Doug will preach for us that morning. We will have combined adult classes and our monthly pot luck lunch.

A NEW PLAN FOR SCHOOL SUPPLIES PROGRAM

Packsaddle Elementary School has changed its school supply program this year. They are re-questing monetary donations instead of tangible goods—the school will buy the supplies needed. The church will make a donation at the appropriate time; however, if you would like to contribute additionally, please state “school supplies” on the bottom of your check. The school administration has been very complementary and appreciative of our work in this program.

Beautiful Footnotes

This is a continuation of the article published last week from Dennis Welch. Please continue to keep the gospel in Cambodia in your prayers. For the elders, Ken D.

“It is very hot — way hotter than it is in Singapore,” said Gladys Chen, 17, who somehow mustered the energy to jump and wave her arms as she sang “Today is the day You have made. I will rejoice and be glad in it” with the village kids in 99-degree heat. “Just seeing the joy in the kids’ faces, I guess, just keeps us going,” said Chen, who worships with the Moulmein Church of Christ in Singapore.

Kids were the inspiration for Angkor of Faith. More than a decade ago, when Siem Reap was the site of the Asian Mission Forum, missionaries wanted to find a way to serve the children they saw peddling souvenirs and begging for coins from tourists at Angkor Wat. Several of those children, now grown, assist in feeding the visitors and play games with the children.

This year, instead of bringing them to Siem Reap, the participants took buses to two of the children’s home villages. There, meters away from spirit houses — mailbox-size shrines where Cambodians offer fruits and cola to appease protective spirits — the young Christians hosted what they called a “mini-Vacation Bible School.”

With an ever-present smile, Theary Sy spoke to the children in their native Khmer language as the foreigners tried to help them improve their English with an animal guessing game. She roared, barked, “mooed” and cackled with delight as the children yelled “Lion!” “Dog!” and “Cow!” Sy, a Cambodian Christian grew up in a village outside the capital, Phnom Penh, and used to sew and sell vegetables to survive. “My house was smaller than this,” she said, pointing up at one of the humble wood dwellings on stilts. She became a Christian after meeting missionaries in Phnom Penh and “seeing the love that they have.” Now, she hopes the village children she serves — and their parents — will find what she’s found in Christ. “I pray this will lighten their hearts, soften their hearts and that, hopefully, they will see the love of God,” Sy said.

An increasing number of Cambodians take oversight roles in Angkor of Faith. In one village, students from the International Bible School of Siem Reap, a program supported by Churches of Christ, and a few of the children dressed up in costume and presented a skit in Khmer about the life of Joseph from the Old Testament. “They were paying attention,” said Piseth Rin, a graduate and teacher at the Bible school who asked questions after the performance.

In a country where people pay homage to multiple spirits, “what’s most difficult is to show them the true God,” he said. Showing their children the love of Christ is a good first step — something “I can learn from the brothers and sisters overseas.”

That spirit of unity, despite doctrinal differences, keeps Don Buo coming back to Angkor of Faith. It also keeps him young. “I’m not young anymore, “I’m 43,” said the Bible college instructor and song leader from the island of Cebu in the Philippines.”  Serving with the young people somehow makes me feel young.

“Within the Philippines there is division,” he added, “and I know that’s the same in other countries as well.”  But being in an environment like this … we all put down our differences and we serve as one. “That, to me, is amazing.”