E-note 4/19: A Word from Joel Stewart

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

For this week's e-note I am glad to give way to Joel Stewart. You will remember that Joel serves Christ in Cambodia with our own Susan Kana. Joel visited TBC last summer with the whole Cambodian team. Here is Joel's letter from earlier this week:
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Dear Friends, Family and Partners in God’s Living Fields,

The hot wind, blowing over parched ricefields and burnt forests, feels more like a Sirocco in North Africa than a breeze in Southeast Asia. Dust devils ply through the brittle brush, rustling the dry grasses, sounding like a skeleton rattling it’s bones. This is the dry season in Cambodia. It seems to have started earlier than normal this year. In the middle of the day, all that one can do is try to keep from melting. All sorts of challenges arise in this climate. The heat seems to magnify normal problems and accentuate them. We have had a few visitors since the new year began who have refreshed us. Our PV team is working together well, although we have had to wait to get together “on-site”, being that the Gabriels family needs to fulfill recommendations by leadership before heading up to PV to reside. One of our biggest challenges now is to assist and equip the church as they begin to fulfill their role in the Great Commission, reaching their province for Christ. In a culture where the inclination is to let someone else do it, this is not always easy. But as we see lives transform, one by one, we are encouraged that it is God who is in charge of results and convicting hearts, not us. We want to be as strategic and biblical as possible, while displaying the Love of Christ in our team and in our interactions with those whom God has placed us in relationship with.

Last night I watched “Where the Wild Things Are” with a few of the guys at my house. It was interesting to see that Max, the boy in the story, ran away from home because he failed to find proper ways to relate with his family. When he arrived at the place where the wild things were, he saw his dreams of creating harmony and peace in his new family be dashed one-by-one, as the creatures fell back into their old, faulty ways of relating (or not relating) to each other. In the end, it was not his plan to have fun together which changed things, it was simply his love for them. The last scene of reconciliation between Max and his mother needed no words. We knew that they had both learned that love is the only pitch which will help our ships pass safely through the shoals of broken dreams and shattered hopes. The Cambodian people are no exception. They have had thousands of years of brokenness. We know now, that it is only Christ who can heal them and make a difference in their lives. Yet Jesus decides to use us, cracked pots that we are, to do His work.

I hope you enjoy this latest “News from the Living Fields” update, and I pray that it may spur you on to more effective prayer.

Yours in the Hope of the Redeemed,
Joel