Cruz Journal - Spring 2012 Missionary Newsetter from Ken Cruz

Reflections on Missions as Transformation

“In that day each of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and fig tree,” declares the Lord Almighty. Zechariah 3:10

I always thank God for putting me in the field of church-based community transformation. Many times I have witnessed how relationships transform people in the church and their neighbors into a community of shalom. One lesson I have learned about building transformational relationship is that we have to be receptive to the positive influence of those who do not share the same faith as us.

I believe that God called us—His church, to establish transforming relationships with our community with intentionality and humility. However, it is often the people in the church that form the greatest stumbling blocks for their neighbors. I often see churches exert a form of spiritual “superiority complex” that alienates them from their neighbors whom they consider “untrustworthy” due to perceived lack of spirituality or weak personal character. These attitudes only create more barriers between the church members and community.

Breaking this negative mindset is the key to church transformational mandate. Only when church members make themselves vulnerable to the influence of their neighbors can we build the foundation for developing mutually beneficial relationships. Recently, I noticed that this negative attitude of our churches towards the participation of their neighbors in church-sponsored community development projects has changed.

I have seen churches like Changha Methodist Church in Banteay Meanchey province and Peak Kdei Methodist Church in Battambang province that now openly and sincerely seek the participation of their neighbors. These neighbors are now the ones who are promoting unity and cooperation in their communities. Sadly, some churches who still avoid working with their neighbors tend to heighten the animosity and distrust between the church and their community. But churches that share responsibility and leadership with their neighbors are the ones who truly influence and attract the non-church people to join ranks with them in their community transformation work.

Ken with Chan Tin, village chief of Changha, one of the growing number of non-church people elected as leaders of church-initiated project groups

In my experience, it is when we—followers of Christ, allow ourselves to be led by our neighbors that our relationships become transformative!

Celebrations and Prayer Requests

• Praise the God for completing another year of service as GBGM missionary!
• Praise the Lord for another year of fruitful covenant relationships with individuals and churches.
• Praise the Lord for the increasing involvement of the local Methodist churches in relief and disaster work in Cambodia.
• Pray that God will lead my son Kim to the job where he will grow and glorify the Lord.
• Pray for wisdom and guidance for all the churches that work with CHAD as they expand the scope of their community development program implementation.
• Pray for my wife Jomil’s complete healing from her traumatic experience with bag snatchers while riding a bicycle on streets of Phnom Penh.
• Finally, I want to thank God for all your prayers for my family and our ministry with the poor in Cambodia.

Personal Note From the Field

Completing another year of service gives me reason to celebrate God’s goodness and faithfulness. None of the things I have accomplished would have been possible if not for God’s sustaining power and your faithful partnership.

Once again I am privileged to have witnessed so many transformations in the lives of the people we serve. They are the living testimony of how our partnership is impacting our world.

My family and I are extremely humbled by the trust you have given us. As we start another year of partnership I am excited to see how God will transform each one of us so that His name will be glorified in our midst. It is a privilege and honour for us to be your ambassadors to the Khmer people.

May God’s abiding presence go before us!
Your grateful partners in Christ,

Ken, Jomil, Kim and Kyle Cruz

Irene's Spring Updates

In 1912, my father was one of the first Zimbabweans to be ordained. Now, a century later, my family celebrates its 100th year of officially serving God in the Methodist Church! Returning home and attending Annual Conference this past winter inspired me to reflect on what I can still learn from my father’s position as both a tribal and spiritual leader in our community and, ultimately, how I can continue his legacy. The following stories capture some ways I have tried to answer that question this Spring. Thank you for your committed interest and support of my ministry.

Training in Kandal

This past January, we held training for members of a cow group and a rice bank group in Kandal province. Since many of the participants could not read and write, we told stories to explain the purpose of Christ’s church in the world rather than rely on our written manuals. People’s eyes lit up as they actively engaged with the material and with each other in small groups. Even though we have not yet completed the training, we know that the Holy Spirit is working in that community! We were so humbled to see those who could not read the Bible take hold of a different kind of opportunity to discover their true identity in Christ.

Irene with rice bank group in Kandal province

Commitment to a Difference      

Dr. Chery Meylick Casanova of the Rocky Mountain Conference came back to Cambodia in January to continue work she started two years ago. She worked at the provincial hospital and two health centers, training medical personnel in diagnosis and treatment of diabetes and hypertension. On her departure to the US, she shared with me her desire to make her work have a lasting impact in Cambodia. True to her commitment to make a difference, she has pledged to come back once a year at the request of the Provincial Director.

 

Home Leave in Zimbabwe

When I attended my annual conference in Zimbabwe, I realized the similarity between the needs we have in Cambodia and the needs back home, which was not the case over a decade ago. Now, returning to work, I wrestle with how to carry on the vision of health care as an integral part of church ministry, distinct from the care given by NGOs; because there is a distinction: Our mission is so much more than a mere  job – it is about continuing the work that Jesus began.

 

CHAD Staff Retreat

In February, we had a three-day retreat for CHAD staff. It was a priceless gift to interact with each other across the cultural spectrum and to appreciate different world views and their influence on our relationships. We learnt, laughed, played games and got to know each other more clearly. .Even now, reflecting on that week, I can see how our team dynamics are changing.

 

Virginia Team Visit

When a Virginia team visited Cambodia in March, I was blessed to show them some of our projects. We shared our passions about the mission of the church in medical care, maternal health, and especially  prenatal care. We even were given the opportunity at the MEDICAM conference to raise awareness of a critically important issue in Cambodia: how to increase pregnant women’s access to hospitals for safer  childbirth. Since one of the team nurses is involved in medical missions in Zimbabwe, spending time with her also allowed me to learn more about what  is happening in health care back home, reaffirming my resolve to continue my work here and ultimately in Zimbabwe.

 

Visiting with the Virginia team also gave me an opportunity to say “thank you” to the United Methodist Women’s groups in Virginia that support me in our ministry in Cambodia. I am blessed to have spent time with the group while they visited.

 

Prayer and Healing Seminar

A prayer and healing seminar held in Phnom Penh this March invited me both to grow and to consider how prayer and healing could be incorporated into our healthcare ministry. The seminar inspired me to continue learning more. Through this seminar, I came to appreciate how the church in Cambodia can do more particularly through Good Samaritans training - health volunteers who work alongside pastors here, to care for the poor.

 

Transition at Prektoal Church

The change of leadership at Prektoal Church has posed a challenge with regards to the progress of the program. The main issue is whether or not non church members should be involved in project activities. This is a major challenge for us as one of our core values in CHAD is for the church to engage and include the community in projects. Pray for the leadership to live the gospel by embracing all regardless of their beliefs.

 

Looking Forward

From this second quarter of 2012, we are looking forward to strengthening our work in three areas. We need to centralize the co-ordination of the UMVIM medical teams that come to help us in order to ensure equitable access to their expertise and care by all our districts. We need to intensify our efforts to work with communities in disease prevention and health promotion on issues such as malaria, HIV prevention and water and sanitation. Our work in CHAD has grown in leaps and bounds and there is therefore an urgent need for us to recruit more staff for both administration and field work.

 

We are deeply thankful for the generous gift we have received during this quarter from Long’s Peak Methodist Church in Colorado.

 

 

Many Blessings,

Irene Mparutsa

May the Lord keep us true and faithful to the work that He has called us to.

Living in the Power of the Resurrection

Dear friends,

Do you remember the story of the centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant? It is a story of amazingly strong, yet simple, faith. Jesus hears that a centurion’s servant is sick, so he goes to visit him. But even before Jesus can reach the house, the centurion sends word to say, “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But say the word, and my servant will be healed.” Even Jesus is amazed! He tells the crowd, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” Then the men who had been sent return to the house and find the servant well (Luke 7:2-10).

In my twelve years of working in Cambodia, I have rarely witnessed such faith. This is Yep’s story.

A handsome 7-year-old Herod

The first time Yep brought her daughter Chhab to us was in 2004, when Yep asked her local church to pray for her daughter who had been married for several years yet still had not had a baby. We all prayed, and then we took her daughter to the hospital, where she was treated for an infection. Shortly, she became pregnant and had a son, Herod.

Two years ago Chhab got sick again with rheumatoid arthritis. She received treatment at a local hospital for two years, but medication side effects were slowly killing her. Her mother knew Phnom Penh Hospital could give her further treatment, but her church, family, and community thought Yep was crazy to try to take her to Phnom Penh; Chhab was so weak, she would surely die along the way. Yep stood firm. “If it is God’s will for her to live, she will live. Her life is in God’s hands.”

Chhab, Herod, and Yep

Chhab and her mother made the 7-hour trip to Phnom Penh, where she was treated and released after three weeks. As they were preparing to return home, I asked Yep, “Do people at home know you are coming back?” Yep answered, “I’m not telling them. I want them to see for themselves. They won’t believe it.”

Such simple faith, but Jesus called it “great.” Yep’s faith is also unique here in Cambodia. Instead of resorting to the many rituals that the majority of Cambodian families engage in to increase a woman’s fertility, she called upon her church to pray and praised God for healing Chhab through the local doctors’ diagnosis and treatment. Then, undeterred by her own community’s unbelief, she brought Chhab to doctors in Phnom Penh, understanding that if God wanted Chhab to live, God would work through the medical staff in Phnom Penh.

I think Yep makes such a vivid impression on me because Yep understands that God does miraculously heal people through prayer, but sometimes, he miraculously heals through doctors and medicine, too.

Yep’s faith for her daughter is just like the centurion’s faith for his servant. They simply believed that God would heal them, and God did. Yep’s faith is simple, but because it is so simple and pure, it shines with the power of the resurrection. As Paul puts it in Ephesians, God wants us to know his “incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead” (Ephesians 1:19-20). I have been so blessed to witness such simple faith as Yep’s this Easter season. The power of her faith isindeed the power of the resurrection, and her simple faith is a living witness to Jesus Christ for us all.

Thank you for all your prayers and support. May Yep encourage us all to open our hearts to receive this power of the resurrection in our lives.

In His Love,
Irene

Friends and family rally around heart patient returned home

Seang Yean was greeted at her small home in Okroch, Kampong Thom, Tuesday by a crowd of family and church members hoping to witness firsthand the amazing recovery they helped make possible by financing her trip to Phnom Penh for heart surgery.

Yean, a 47-year-old mother of two, was first introduced to CHAD in February, when she was suffering from a serious but still unidentified disease. Several doctor's consultations later, it was revealed that she needed immediate surgery to repair a defective heart valve.

The members of Okroch Methodist Church would hear nothing of Yean's initial hopelessness — how could she pay for such an expensive surgery? — and they immediately started raising money. In a week, this poverty-stricken congregation had scraped together $25.

It wasn't nearly enough to finance a surgery, but church members consulted CHAD, which was able to find free treatment through Phnom Penh's Jeremiah Hope Clinic, and the church's contribution was enough to get Yean and her blood donors to and from the hospital.

Tuesday's reunion with the church family that refused to give up on her was a sweet one, said Yean, whose condition has vastly improved since her March 5 surgery. She is slowly regaining her breath and energy and says she thanks God for giving her the support and courage she needed to make it through.

Read more of Yean's story here. Donate to CHAD's Health Program here.

Heart patient on the mend after surgery

Seang Yean, the heart patient we told you about last month, is in the hospital recovering from what doctors are calling a successful operation on a defective valve in her heart.

CHAD staff member Sok Sophal said Yean was in good spirits — but quite sore — during a visit at Jeremiah Hope Clinic in Phnom Penh last week.

The surgery took place March 5 after several weeks of delay, and Yean has been recuperating at the hospital ever since. The first few days after the operation were a bit rocky, with Yean staying in the emergency portion of the clinic under close observation by hospital staff, but her status was upgraded late last week and doctors expect she will be discharged early next week.

Yean was introduced to CHAD by members of her church in Okroch Village, Kampong Thom, last month after she had been suffering from an unknown but debilitating medical condition for almost a year. It was then, after she was referred to a specialist in Phnom Penh, that Yean discovered it was a heart condition that had been keeping her in bed and out of the rice fields. Moreover, she learned she needed surgery right away.

Although CHAD does not pay for operations, staff were able to connect Yean with organizations that could, and the procedure was performed free of charge.

Read all of Yean's story here.

Donate to CHAD's health program here.

Check out Jeremiah Hope Clinic on Facebook.

Annual Report summary

prepared by Leng Thyon behalf of the CHAD team: Ms. Irene MPARUTSA, Mr. Ken CRUZ, Mr. LENG Thy, Ms. SOK Sophal, Ms. Katherine PARKER, Ms. HIM Daneth and Ms. HOUT Vannak

During a one-year period of 2011, CHAD has performed some significant activities for church and community’s vital need fulfillments. These activities mainly focus on leadership capacity building training, project group formation and monitoring follow up, networking, UMVIM medical clinic coordination, and organizational development.

In the capacity building training area, CHAD provided teaching on Biblical based transformational development to the third year theology students of CMBS, Cambodian Methodist Bible School. The course took 5 months with 2 hours a week, and completely finished in February. At the grassroots level, to mobilize the church and community for development works, CHAD has used a serial training manual called 'Mobilizing the Church' to train 214 people, including pastors and lay people, from 41 various churches in the districts of Kompong Thom, Siem Reap, Svay Rieng, Kompong Cham, Kompong Speu, and Phnom Penh. After taking 5-6 months each, the training is now completely finished, exceptionally Phnom Penh, and 3 clusters in K. Speu district. For technical aspect, CHAD also trained 108 people from 7 churches and villages in Kompong Chhnang and Kompong Speu district, on how to make organic fertilizer, to collect and make IMD, to be aware of chemical, and to raise chicken. Similarly, a two-day training on how to write a simple project proposal was also held for 17 people as LSCC, Local Social Concern Committee, from 3 churches in Siem Reap district. Concerning to the health sector, CHAD also held a drinking water workshop for 25 people from a church and community in K. Speu district.

In addition to the training approaches, through attending SCC (Social Concern Committee) monthly meeting and joint visits of CHAD team and SCC to project groups, CHAD has coached SCC members for more competence in project management. Furthermore, at MMC management level, CHAD has periodically attended pastor district meeting, and cabinet meeting for report and plan sharing as well as CHAD orientation.

Aside from training activities, CHAD together with SCC have also made a lot of effort into its every three month visits for project monitoring and new groups formation. As a result, during a year of 2011, CHAD has visited to 98 ongoing project groups of 58 churches in 11 MMC districts throughout the country, and established 42 new project groups, mostly Rice Bank group supported by UMCOR.

For networking and collaboration gain, CHAD made visits to several like-minded institutions like Chap Dai organization, Ministry of Health, Provincial Health Department of Kratie, Banteay Mean Chey, Svay Rieng, Takeo, and Kompong Thom as well as to micro-finance institutions of Kredit and Vision Fund.

In response to the community necessary need of medical issue, CHAD coordinated and hosted 4 UMVIM medical teams during this period. According to the need and request from their own sister church, these team of over 10 members on average conducted its clinic in various churches of different districts. The Louisiana team conducted its medical clinic in the district of Svay Rieng, as did the Australian team in Banteay Mean Chey, whereas did the Malaysia and Singapore team in Takeo. Resulting from these teams’ dedicated effort, 4797 of poor sick people from various rural villages got free treatment. Moreover, in partnering with churches, CHAD has also assisted pastors and Good Samaritan in patients referral of totally 318 to hospitals locally, provincially, and Phnom Penh according to actual need.

Concerning to the organizational development, through its monthly meeting CHAD always reflects its pace of project implementation against to the desired plan, looking for areas need to be improved for more effectiveness and transparency. In this sense, CHAD has also shared its progress report to all stakeholders, especially its donor. For instance, during a separate visit of Methodist Church Finland (UMC) in May and CONNEXIO (UMC in Switzerland & France) in August, CHAD laid out openly its actual program situation by letting them see directly the various project groups for evaluation and feed back from them.

Woman gets life-saving heart surgery with help of determined church family and CHAD

Sean Yean, 47, front, poses at UMC's Global Ministries office in Phnom Penh Wednesday with a team of supporters from her church who are doubling as blood donors for her heart surgery, scheduled for today. They are, from left, Chhean Samoun; her daughter, Leat Sinat; and Heam Sokkhet.
AMANDA KING PHOTO

Seang Yean's story could have been one of despair. She could have taken the diagnosis quietly and gone home to die, like many in her poverty-stricken village in Kampong Thom Province would have.

But Yean had a church family behind her. And they weren't about to let that happen.

When the 47-year-old mother of two was diagnosed with a defective heart valve this month, the doctor gave her two options: Have surgery immediately or die in a matter of weeks.

The diagnosis was devastating. How could Yean, a poor rice farmer who had been out of work sick for the last year, afford such an expensive procedure?

Her church didn't know the answer to that question either. But they started raising money anyway. It wasn't much. After all, most of Yean's fellow church members live harvest-to-harvest, just like her. In a week, they had managed to scrape together $25.

It would be enough to get Yean to and from the hospital along with her three blood donors while paying for meals and lodging during their stay. It was still nowhere near enough to pay for open heart surgery.

Fortunately for Yean, her church had more than just money to contribute. After extensive Mobilizing the Church training sessions in their district, the members of Okroch Methodist Church knew this wasn't the end of the road for Yean, that someone somewhere — a non-profit hospital, a private donor — would be able to help.

That's why they contacted CHAD. Staff member Sok Sophal was able to walk Yean through the process, from her provincial hospital visit to her visit to Phnom Penh to see a specialist. And even though CHAD itself doesn't pay for surgeries, the program was able to connect Yean with someone who did.

Today, Yean is undergoing surgery with a team of volunteer heart doctors at Jeremiah Hope Clinic. The initial outlook is good, doctors say. She could be back home in two weeks, all because her church refused to give up on her.

Want to know more about Yean?
Watch the blog over the next few weeks for updates on her progress.

What is Mobilizing the Church Training?
CHAD's training sessions cover more than just health advocacy. These workshops are all about building up outreach-oriented congregations like the one at Okroch. This means training in evangelism, leadership and empowerment as well.

Donate to CHAD's Health Program here. Donate to Mobilizing the Church Training here.