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Arriving in 1923, Alliance missionaries were the first long-term Protestant workers to enter Cambodia, and Alliance efforts grew into the one of the nation’s largest evangelical communities, the Khmer Evangelical Church.

Alliance missionaries were evacuated from Cambodia in 1975 when the Khmer Rouge came to power. By the end of 1979, 80 percent of Cambodian believers had been martyred during the horrors of Pol Pot’s Killing Fields. From the small seed of some 2,000 remaining believers, the evangelical Church in Cambodia has since grown to more than 200,000 believers.

Nonetheless, Christians in Cambodia number less than 2 percent of the population. More than 75 percent of Cambodia’s 14,000 villages do not yet have any Christian presence. The needs for evangelism and church planting in this war-ravaged country remain great. Grinding poverty for the vast majority of people, which leads to health and social problems, continues to be a major challenge. To these ends, Alliance workers and their national partners are involved in training church leaders, youth ministry, discipleship ministries, planting new churches, medical work, and church-based community development to help meet the spiritual, nutritional, medical, literacy, educational, and AIDS-related needs of local communities.

Cambodia map

Field Office Information

C&MA Field Entry in 1923

Field Director:
David Manfred
Mailing Address:
c/o CAMA Services PO Box 118
Phnom Penh, CAMBODIA
Phone:
011-855-23-881-861
Email:
fdcambodia@gmail.com
Website:

National Church

Khmer Evangelical Church: 65 organized churches, 157 unorganized groups, 24 ordained ministers, and 4,348 baptized members

Team Initiatives

  • Plant churches among the Khmer, Vietnamese, Jarai, Bunong, Kachok, Kuy, Tumpuen, and other minority groups in Cambodia.
  • Strengthen our ministries to train church leaders in both the rural and urban context.
  • Significantly impact the spiritually and physically needy through medical ministry.
  • In cooperation with the national C&MA church, develop Cambodian church-planters who will impact Cambodia far and wide.
  • Translate the New Testament into both the Bunong and Kuy languages.

To Seek and to Save

2013-03-18 11:09:59

Evangelism and Church Planting in Cambodia

By Joe Kong, international worker in Cambodia

In Luke 19 when Jesus was criticized by the Pharisees for going to visit Zaccheus’ home, He quickly rebuked them, saying, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (verse 10). This is the first Core Value of The Christian and Missionary Alliance: “Lost people matter to God. He wants them found.” In order to obey Jesus’ Great Commission, the C&MA has sent my wife, Kay, and me to Cambodia, along with other international workers, to preach the gospel and to plant new churches. Oftentimes we go to difficult places in remote villages among the Khmer people in Cambodia, one of the strong Buddhist countries in Southeast Asia.

In August 2012, I traveled by boat and by tuk tuk (a three-wheel motorbike) with national workers to Charom village in Kompong Chhnang province, a remote region in Cambodia, to preach the gospel and to plant a church where the Khmer people have not heard the gospel before. After the full gospel presentation, several Khmer people prayed to receive Christ as their personal Savior and Lord. Praise God for a new church plant that has been started to expand His Kingdom in Cambodia through going, baptizing and teaching according to Matthew 28:19–20. These new believers have received follow-up from leaders of the mother C&MA church in Tumnup village through discipleship classes and were ready to be baptized in January, along with believers in four other new church plants in the same region.

Thank you for your generous giving to the Great Commission Fund to support us working in Cambodia to slowly push darkness out of this strong Buddhist country through the light of the gospel.

What You Can Do

Pray

The prayers of the Alliance family allow Alliance workers to live and serve all over the world. Pray with the rest of the Alliance family using our weekly Alliance Prayer requests.

Read

Read this and other articles in the March 2013 online edition of alife magazine.

Demographics

Population
Population--13,607,069 Infant mortality rate--71.5/1,000 Life expectancy--58.9
Capital City
Phnom Penh (1,169,800) pop.
Geography
The size of Missouri, Cambodia (69,900 sq. mi.) consists mainly of a large alluvial plain ringed by mountains, and on the east is the Mekong River.
Languages
Khmer (official), French, English
Ethnicity/Race
Khmer--90%; Vietnamese--5%; Chinese--1%; other--4%
Economy
Per capita income--$2,000 Inflation--3.1% Unemployment--2.5% Literacy rate--70% (2003 est.)
Government/Political Climate
Communist forces captured Phnom Penh in 1975; a 1978 Vietnamese invasion touched off almost 13 years of civil war. The 1991 Paris Peace Accords mandated democratic elections and a ceasefire. The remaining factions of the Khmer Rouge surrendered in 1999. Today Cambodia is a multiparty democracy under a constitutional monarchy.
Religion
Theravada Buddhist--95%; other--5%

Support the Mission

Alliance ministry in Cambodia is primarily funded through the Great Commission Fund. Help fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission and make a gift to the GCF today.

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Get Involved...

Pray.

The Alliance believes wholeheartedly in the power and necessity of prayer. We cannot “Live the Call Together” unless prayer is central to all we do—in our denomination, in our churches, and in our individual lives.

Give.

You can help build Christ’s Church around the world by donating online to the Great Commission Fund. This central funding vehicle allows our international workers to focus on ministry rather than raising financial support.

Serve.

Is God calling you to full-time service? Do you want to participate in a short-term missions trip and experience missions work firsthand? We’re here to help you connect your passion with God’s purpose.