"Pressing Forward" Bible Conference

New Hope Baptist Church in Phnom Penh hosted a Bible conference during the national holiday celebrating the king's birthday. Lots of churches joined together to praise the Lord, encourage one another, and learn from His Word. The theme was "Pressing Forward." The conference was held at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church whose spacious property could seat everyone in attendance. Churches from several provinces made the long trip to attend, the farthest being Siem Reap which is 6 hours away. 

There was a total of about 170 delegates. Praise the Lord for this wonderful time of Christian fellowship and revival! The sermons and teachings were convicting and encouraging, the congregational singing was powerful and soul-stirring, and the time of fellowship at mealtimes was wonderful. I believe God was glorified during those two days and many people were encouraged and strengthened through the teaching of God's Word. We don't have events like this often so it was definitely a treat!

Registration began at 1:00 p.m. on May 14th. Excitement filled the air as people received their conference booklets and name tags. The seats filled up quickly and excitement mounted as people honestly yearned for God to work in their hearts and lives!

Before the opening services on both days, we had a time of prayer asking God to work in our hearts. This is a group of several men from our church.

The first service began at 2:00 p.m. and we were challenged by a message from Missionary Rodney Ruppel. This whole conference wouldn't have been possible without his vision, sacrifice, and determination. Thank you, Bro. Ruppel, for starting this conference! Many hearts were stirred, challenged, and changed because you listened to God's voice to begin an annual conference.

During each service, we had the privilege of listening to several people's salvation testimonies. Praise the Lord for His mercy and grace! With each testimony of how God changed someone's life I was reminded how good and gracious the Lord is! There is NO ONE in this world that God can't get a hold of their life and completely change it by His grace!

This is a lady in our church who was reached about 12 years ago when our church was out on  Saturday passing out tracts. She came, got saved along with some other family members, then patiently waited for a spouse. She married a solid Christian young man (who also got saved in our church) in August 2016. They now have a cute 5 month old named Rachel!

The split sessions were amazing and well-taught! The ladies learned about the duties of women in the church from Mrs. Shrock.

Men went with Pastor Tho.

Pastors went with Bro. Ruppel.

Monday's dinner and Tuesday's lunch were served at the conference. As people left on Tuesday, we were given a box of fried rice to eat on the way home. There's a certain style of dining that's called "Chinese tables". Basically there are 10 spots at each table and your table has to be full before they bring the food! It's actually kind of sad. :( Sometimes you only have one empty spot left and people still looking for a seat are paired up with a friend and don't want to be separated. But everyone at your table is hungry!!!!! Then eventually someone comes and everything turns out ok. :) This was my group on Monday night. 

Pastor Mike Valdez preached on Monday night. 

Also in each service was some special music. My dad, older sister, and I sang a few songs. I particularly loved the choir from the Shrock's church from Siem Reap. They had wonderful choir arrangements and sang out good and strong! My heart was touched during their songs. I wish I could post videos of them, but they're too long to upload to my blog! :( Just take my word for it that they were fantastic! :)

Tuesday's service started at 9:00 a.m. after another time of prayer. Pastor Kounaro Keo shared a message during this service. He is the pastor of Mt. Calvary Baptist Church, the place where the conference was held. I'm thankful for his willingness to use his church's property to host such a big event. 

We had some more split sessions before lunch. Pastors and pastors' wives were taught by Pastor Sakaun. Everyone else was with my dad. He taught on how to be a successful soul winner. 

For Tuesday's lunch I ended up with my family and some church people along with three other people I've known my whole life. :) 

Here's what the traditional meal at nice events look like. It's typically always a bowl of rice and then several other entrees. I tried everything and most of it was pretty good! 

That day was our lucky day and we got a whole fish as an entree!! :) It was served with some pickled fruits and vegetables (in the bottom right corner).  I'm not exactly sure what all was in it, but I know there were mangoes and carrots. The fish, pickled stuff, and rice made a delicious combination!

I'm not really sure what to call the other two items. One was a soup with lots of unrecognisable things. The only things I know for sure was pineapple and chicken. 

The other item was just a bunch of vegetables, chicken, and shrimp. It wasn't a stir-fry so I'm not sure what it was. 

We even got dessert on Tuesday. What a treat!! This soupy looking stuff is classified as dessert. :) As you can probably imagine, it felt like eating earthworms. The long slimy green things are actually a form of Cambodian jelly type stuff. The big chunks of light green are winter melon and those few little orange pieces are jackfruit. I have to admit that having a bowl of this..stuff..set in front of me didn't make me feel that great. :) I timidly tried a bite and found that it didn't taste that bad despite the unappetising look. It was very sweet and the mushy green things didn't taste bad at all. Just the whole idea of soupy dessert with worm looking things and floating pieces of fruit didn't set well with me. I didn't eat it all, but I ate my fill. :)

After lunch we had the final split sessions. All men went with Missionary Eli Shrock. A good-sized group from his church traveled all the way from Siem Reap in a van. They obviously wanted to participate in this so bad that they were willing to travel that long distance and pay extra expenses such as gas money.  

All the ladies went with Pastor Wang's wife, Srey Oun. All the pastors' wives were taught by Mrs. Ruppel.

Nearly everything was hosted outside under a canopy thing that New Hope rented. These canopy things are most commonly used for weddings and funerals. The sound guy was most curious about our services and was asking questions. Pastor Wang even got to witness to him on Tuesday afternoon. Praise the Lord that we were a good testimony to this unsaved man!

The final service began at 2:30. After the singing, specials, testimonies, and announcements Pastor Sakaun got up to preach. He wasn't more than 10 minutes into his sermon when a huge thunder storm came! The place was chaos as mopeds were brought in, instruments were covered, and electrical wires for fans and such were quickly unplugged so none of us would die. I quickly discovered why there are those little curtains along the sides! They're to untie when rain comes! Mind blown! Rain started coming in the sides underneath the curtains so we all scrunched into the middle. Once things started to settle down, Pastor Sakaun kept preaching. He was practically yelling to be heard over the rain. It was fun! These pictures are before the rain came. 

Overall, the spirit at each service was one of excitement! The theme song for the conference was "We  are More Than Conquerors". There was piano, drum, two trumpets, and a trombone! It was cool!

Here are some pictures of before and during services.

This conference really touched hearts and changed lives. People left the conference praising the Lord for working in their hearts and excited to attend next year! This was truly an amazing conference and I can't wait for next year! Thanks for reading! Comment below if you'd like. Have a great day!