MOUNG RUESSEI, CAMBODIA — On the grounds of a Buddhist temple, a crowd gathered within the shade of a mango tree.
Adolescent monks, adorned in brilliant orange robes, peeked out of their dormitories, leaning previous the doorways to pay attention nearer.
Mike Meierhofer, gesturing with one hand and holding a Bible within the different, welcomed the viewers.
Mike Meierhofer and Sokhom Hun preach to a crowd outdoors a Buddhist temple.
“We thank God very a lot for you being right here with us,” the Dallas preacher instructed the group, a mixture of Christians, Buddhists and Muslims. “Generally Buddhists assume, ‘Effectively, I shouldn’t come as a result of I’m not a Christian. They don’t need me there.’ We would like everyone to come back. Jesus loves all Buddhists and Muslims and needs all of them to come back to be with him, too.”
This was not the primary time the Walnut Hill Church of Christ minister had the chance to evangelise on temple grounds.
Meierhofer, president of Cambodia Christian Ministries, made his first medical mission journey to this Southeast Asian nation in 2009.
He returned in 2010 and spoke to a crowd subsequent to the entrance doorways of a Buddhist pagoda and temple.
“That is unbelievable,” Meierhofer recalled saying when he returned to Texas. “I had by no means seen a mission subject like this.”
In 2011, one of many nonprofit’s board members — Ron Thrift — spoke inside a Muslim mosque.
“They gave out Bibles,” Meierhofer mentioned. “One of many guys requested (Thrift) when he was accomplished, ‘How way back is that this?’ And he mentioned, ‘2,000 years.’ Ron was a bit of bit nervous, as a result of the man bought upset, however then he mentioned, ‘Why did it take you 2,000 years to inform us about this?’”
Employees with Cambodia Christian Ministries conduct eye exams utilizing a Bible translated into Khmer.
Following Jesus’ instance
Cambodia Christian Ministries fashions the medical missions it hosts after Jesus’ instance, Meierhofer mentioned, referencing Matthew 4:23:
“And he went all through all Galilee, instructing of their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the dominion and therapeutic each illness and each affliction among the many folks.”
About 93 % of Cambodia’s 17 million individuals are Buddhist, making it important that the Christian nonprofit work inside authorities programs to unfold the Gospel.
A crowd listens to Sokhom Hun, Mike Meierhofer and Mark Banks preach below a tree.
“We contact the native authorities and say, ‘If you happen to permit us to come back into your village to assist the sick, you must discover folks to take a seat and listen to the Gospel,’” mentioned Sokhom Hun, the nonprofit’s director of operations in Cambodia. “‘If you happen to can not discover some folks to come back to take a seat and listen to the Gospel, we’re not going to come back.’”
Hun as soon as dreamed of being a health care provider.
A survivor of the Cambodian genocide by the Khmer Rouge within the Seventies, Hun has suffered imprisonment and torture.
Others didn’t survive, together with 16 of his family.
Extensive-ranging estimates place the dying toll between 1.2 million and a pair of.8 million — or 13 % and 30 % of the Cambodian inhabitants at the moment.
However Hun’s expertise with ache left him with a ardour for therapeutic.
“After the struggle completed, I got here to Phnom Penh, and I went to medical faculty, however my schooling stage was too low,” Hun recalled. “However I nonetheless dreamed. Even when I’m not a doctor or nurse, I needed to be concerned with the medical subject.”
After immigrating to the U.S. in 1981, Hun and his household have been baptized in Texas.
“However I nonetheless dreamed. Even when I’m not a doctor or nurse, I needed to be concerned with the medical subject.”
Greater than twenty years later, he heard the time period medical mission for the primary time from a fellow believer.
In 2008, Hun attended World Samaritan Assets conferences hosted by Abilene Christian College to study extra.
The next yr, Meierhofer returned from what would turn out to be Cambodia Christian Ministries’ first medical mission journey.
He started urging Hun to return to his homeland as a missionary.
“I mentioned, ‘It’s important to come again right here,’” Meierhofer recalled. “He mentioned, ‘I can’t do it on my own. I’m a not preacher, so that you gotta assist me, brother.’ So we partnered up, and in late November of 2009, he moved over to Cambodia.”
By the next June, Hun had begun laying the inspiration for Cambodia Christian Ministries, which features a Bible faculty, yearly preaching seminars, a well-drilling ministry and a free clinic in addition to two yearly medical mission journeys.
Since then, Hun and Meierhofer have led greater than 30 medical campaigns to twenty of the nation’s 24 provinces, preaching to crowds as well being care professionals oversee affected person care.
“The medical mission could be very useful to the outreach ministry,” Hun mentioned. “As a result of Cambodian folks want medical doctors.”
A affected person smiles throughout an eye fixed examination in Prey Svay, Cambodia.
Dr. Stewart Powers prepares to extract an contaminated tooth from a affected person’s mouth on a current Cambodia Christian Ministries medical marketing campaign.
An aged girl waits patiently as Dr. Thaddeus Tolleson takes an ultrasound of her thyroid.
Dr. Thaddeus Tolleson ultrasounds a person’s stomach.
Visal Siv, a employees member at Cambodia Christian Ministries, kinds medicine.
Dental employees with Cambodia Christian Ministries numbs a affected person’s mouth earlier than a dental extraction.
Ibuprofen, a pink tablet, is blended in with different medicine in a bin.
A solution to prayer
A staff of seven People and one Brazilian — together with a first-year medical pupil, a heart specialist and a dentist — joined Hun and Meierhofer on Cambodia Christian Ministries’ most up-to-date journey.
They partnered with 15 well being care professionals within the Cambodian army to supply medical providers to 5 rural villages in 4 provinces.
Navy Huon, the Christian consultant for the Preah Netr Preah district, thanked God for the group’s arrival in her rural farming neighborhood.
“I prayed to God and requested for one thing like this for 5 years,” Huon, who speaks Khmer, mentioned by way of a translator. “At the moment God answered my prayer.”
“The general public that come right here, they might not go to the dentist or hospital as a result of it’s very costly,” she added. “As a result of right here on this space, if you want to take out a tooth, they cost you $10 or $20.”
Dr. Thaddeus Tolleson, a heart specialist from the U.S., had additionally waited years.
A health care provider with Cambodia Christian Ministries fills out a affected person’s consumption type in Prey Svay, Cambodia.
Sreynang, Sokhom and Phaline Hun’s daughter, kinds medicine.
Sufferers wait to be seen in a makeshift dental ready room.
A affected person speaks with a Cambodia Christian Ministries physician about her well being issues.
Dr. Thaddeus Tolleson palpates a person’s stomach.
A affected person explains his signs to a Cambodia Christian Ministries physician.
He heard of Cambodia Christian Ministries’ journeys from his brother, Mike Tolleson, who volunteered on the smaller 2024 fall journey. The bigger medical marketing campaign, which occurs firstly of the yr, prices the nonprofit $55,000 for transportation, lodging, drugs, meals and provides.
“I’d needed to do one thing like this for a very long time, however identical to lots of people, I talked about it and by no means did it,” mentioned Tolleson, a member of the Glenwood Church of Christ in Tyler, Texas. “However one thing about this simply match with the abilities that God gave me to hopefully assist.
“When Jesus went anyplace, he addressed folks’s bodily wants after which met their non secular wants,” the physician added. “I feel that’s the very best mannequin for folks. It’s exhausting to speak to a hungry man about his non secular wants. God involves the hungry within the type of meals.”
“When Jesus went anyplace, he addressed folks’s bodily wants after which met their non secular wants. I feel that’s the very best mannequin for folks. It’s exhausting to speak to a hungry man about his non secular wants. God involves the hungry within the type of meals.”
Assembly wants in ‘The Eyes of God’
Collectively, Tolleson and the opposite well being care professionals noticed 6,832 sufferers through the nine-day marketing campaign — a scale of want that shocked the heart specialist regardless of his 32 years of expertise.
“These are folks that have actually by no means seen a health care provider, have just about no entry to well being care,” Tolleson mentioned. “You would carry a bunch like this over right here each month and never meet the entire wants.”
However the wants weren’t restricted to bodily illnesses in “The Eyes of God” — the literal translation of Preah Netr Preah — nor some other village the staff visited.
A person emerges from the water smiling after being baptized by Mike Meierhofer in Preah Netr Preah, Cambodia.
Because the medical doctors and dentists oversaw affected person care and assessed bodily illnesses, Meierhofer, Hun and their ministry accomplice Mark Banks gathered the group to share a distinct sort of therapeutic — eternal life.
On the finish of their time in every village, the three males provided to baptize anybody who believed.
“We now have a God who created us, who could be very loving and merciful,” Meierhofer instructed the group as Hun translated. “God saves us by his grace after we put our religion in his son, Jesus.”
One after one other, folks got here ahead to be baptized. Some climbed into the water earlier than the earlier particular person may step out.
By the tip of the journey, the Christians had baptized 44 folks.
A boy shows a cross — manufactured from a damaged rubber band, a pencil and a nail file — throughout a Bible class hosted by Cambodia Christian Ministries.
AUDREY JACKSON is the Managing Editor of The Christian Chronicle. Contact [email protected].
