July marks the first year that the Lord brought us from Poipet to Bavet. In that span of time, we have 30 professions of faith. A few of them have continued in our discipleship program to become the nucleus of the new church. We also had the privilege of being visited and ministered by two mission teams from North America, the one from CEC in San Jose, headed by Mrs. Elsa Alaban and the other, BTBB from New Jersey and Canada headed by Pastor Uly Marino. Brethren, your presence and presents are very much appreciated.

Our Annual Life camp was held on Aug. 16–19 at Sihanoukville City with 215 delegates of whom 18 are from Bavet. Pastor Nelson de Jesus, the founding president of International God’s Service, was our speaker. He and his team members, 10 of them, were really a great blessing to all of us. Four unsaved people from our place came forward to accept Jesus as their Saviour and another four new believers followed the Lord in water baptism during that time. We also appreciated the presence of Pastor Mike Selorio, our guest game director from Doane Baptist House Church with several faculty and staff from Doane Baptist Seminary. All of you are blessings to us! Thank you guys for coming and ministering to us!

Aug. 21 signifies a historic date of this young church. With nine Cambodian baptized believers in the first roster of membership, they decided to call themselves Preah Yessu Baptist Church of Bavet. They also chose one deacon in training, a secretary, and a treasurer. I am leading them at present as their missionary pastor. I am currently training our first deacon to become the pastor of this newly organized body of believers a few years from now.

YMCA (Young Members of Cambodian Association) is a local NGO designed to help the neglected Young People of Cambodia. It was started by the owner of the donated property and a Cambodian national. With the Lord’s direction to us, we assumed the NGO and run it as a youth center for teaching English, Computer, Kindergarten and, above all, the Bible. The Lord blessed us with 90 students, including our Cambodian staffs who are studying with us in special courses both in English and Bible. The Lord gave us four children to take care of as their parents. These children were less fortunate and are orphans of Biblical Parenthood, so Malou and I took the challenge of giving them of what they have been deprived of, of course by the grace of our God.

Praise the Lord for providing the money for the renewal of our one year visa. Thank you, brothers in the Lord, for sparing your hard-earned dollars for the furtherance of our Lord’s work in Cambodia.

Prayer Updates

  • Peter, who is studying at Baptist Bible Seminary and Institute Philippines, renewal of visa every three months ($100)
  • Sponsorship for the Khmer schooling next month of our four adopted children ($10 monthly each)
  • Motorcycle for our outreach work in a village—$ 250 seed money was already given
  • Funds for kitchen project—Tiling of the dishwashing area
  • Table tennis set for our Youth Center, musical instruments (a portable electric organ and two guitars)
  • Application for church registration to the Ministry of Cults and Religion
  • Visa renewal of Jesa Mae Tubongbanua before its expiration next month Sept. 20 for US$160

For our Cambodian Brethren,

Art and Malou Bastes
PABWE missionaries from the Philippines working in Cambodia
Philippine Association of Baptists for World Evangelism
Davao City, Philippines