Reaching out to the other side of the world

by Andy Acton

No immediate access to water, no medicine or hospitals, no electricity, very few clothes and food and a lot of people who are poor, sick, hungry and in need of healing. This is life in the Kloung village of Cambodia in Southeast Asia, a life that is common in many developing nations around the world.

But it is here in this village that a Presbyterian church hopes to make a difference. It is in this village that both missionaries and the villagers are encountering “an overwhelming sense of God at work,” says the Rev. Dick Gates of Eastminster Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.

Eastminster Presbyterian Church Cambodia
Missionary Team

The church commissioned eight members of the church and surrounding community on a second mission trip to Cambodia from Oct. 23 to Nov. 8. The purpose of the trip was to build a couple of houses, update a medical clinic, dig wells and provide cattle and water buffalo. Gates said next year’s goal is to send an ophthalmologist along with the group because many villagers have cataracts.

“There is an overwhelming need,” said Gates, who went on the first trip to Cambodia in 2002. During the first trip, the group started a medical clinic, dug two wells and installed a water pump, provided glasses and medicine, serving more than 200 people. “Many of the villagers were saying to us, ‘Help us, help us,’” Gates said. “We get frustrated by being able to do so little, but we soon learn that what we do means so much to the people there.”

Gates said Eastminster hopes to eventually help the village build a church as the mission work progresses over the next few years. Last year, the church held a Christian worship service, the first ever seen in the village, which like the country is mostly a mix of Buddhists and other religions. Gates said the folks from all over the area came to the service and that there were so many people, that several climbed up into the trees to see.

“We’re able to reach a world that’s in the darkness but open to the Gospel,” he said. “We’re doing what we can to help spread the Gospel.”