Christmas is such a special time of year, a chance to spend time with family and friends, to laugh, and most importantly to celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. It really is a season of joy. Our Christmas began with the Christmas party for our students at the WBI, and as you can see in this picture, there was a great amount of laughter and fun. It was hard being away from home, but moments of Joy like this are blessings from the Lord to make the separation tolerable.

We had all of the students and the staff at the WBI over to our house after the last day of classes before Christmas break. We had a special service for the students, times of giving of gifts, and great games and fellowship. It was an amazing night spent with our new family here in Cambodia.


We served fried chicken, chicken adobo, and spaghetti with meat sauce, a particular favorite of the Cambodians. Here you are seeing some of our students and staff with Tim in the kitchen as they fill their plates for a second time after everyone had finished dinner.


Pastor Poleak, the pastor of the church which is located on the third floor of the Bible School campus, asked us to be involved in his Christmas celebration this year. We were in charge of the games after the meal, which fit right in with our talents as teachers. We played many different holiday games, but the one that they enjoyed most was the ever popular game of musical chairs. Here you are seeing a large contingent of the players still circling the chairs, awaiting the music to stop so that they could push, pull, fight and sit victoriously.


Another game that we played required the contestants to draw a Christmas tree. Sounds easy, right? The only requirement was that they do the drawing with the paper placed on their heads. It was great fun to see them all patiently, and some not so patiently, drawing their trees with their papers held tight to their skulls. Here you are seeing the winner of the contest, whose tree was actually better than some of the ones that I draw when the paper in front of me.


Here you are seeing Pastor Kim Sua, his wife Eim, and his beautiful daughter Hannah. Kim Sua is on staff at the Bible School as a teacher and a translator, and he and his family have grown very close to our hearts as we serve together at the Bible School.


On Christmas Eve, we were sent to encourage the believers in Kampong Cham. Tim was asked to preach the Christmas message, a scary thought indeed, and we went to visit and grow closer to our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. After preaching a message entitled, “Are we celebrating Christmas or Christ?” God provided an opportunity for us to put into effect the principles that we had espoused during the message. On our way home from Kampong Cham, our car broke down, stranding us in the middle of a very dark, and very lonely Christmas Eve. We were able to contact the pastor of the church, and he towed us back into town, but we were forced to stay in Kampong Cham for the night, a modern day Christmas story, though in this one, God provided an inn for the night.


One of the hardest parts of being stranded in Kampong Cham was that the car breaking down did not just affect us. We had two of our close friends with us who were also forced to spend Christmas Eve away from home. Channa and Chaney, the eldest daughters of our national superintendent, did not complain, but accepted the events with resolution, a mark of the fact that they were celebrating Christ in their hearts, not just the Christmas holiday.



When we finally arrived back in Phnom Penh, we rested for a few hours, and then we opened our gifts. It was a nice time to spend by ourselves, enjoying the gifts, a Christmas breakfast, and watching the holiday classic “Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer”. It was really hard being away from family on Christmas, but we have learned that God always provides for our needs, and by having this special time together, we were able to really enjoy His blessings on that Christmas Day.


Christmas night was spent with the mission team and several of the national leaders at the home of Greg and Resie. This is a picture of Greg as he opened his gift from us, cleaners and polishes for his car, something in which he takes great pride. It was so pleasant to spend Christmas night with our friends and fellow workers here in Cambodia.

This is a picture of Resie, Greg’s wife, who cooked all day to give us a very special party. She had prepared traditional Filipino foods such as her famous chicken adobo, spring rolls, noodles, and rice. It was a great meal, and due to Resie’s amazing ability to cook, all of the foods were absolutely delicious.


The final member of the Fernandez family is their daughter Aleeyah, who is a constant joy to us. We have loved watching her grow and develop over these past six months, and seeing her open her Christmas gifts brought great smiles to our faces.


Finally, because it was my birthday, Resie had baked a cake in celebration. If you can’t read the sign on the cake, it says “Happy Birthday Titu Tim” which is the Filipino word for uncle and a huge honor for me. It was a great birthday, spent with great friends, where we enjoyed great food, and were able to celebrate the greatest event in the history of the world (not my birthday of course, but the birth of our Savior).

Several days after Christmas, we were very fortunate to receive not one, not two, but three packages in the mail. These packages had just been sitting at the central post office, and we never knew that they had arrived. The packages were sent from our adopted parents in Indianapolis, our youngest supporting group who are in a 5th and 6th grade class at our home church in Marion, and from one of our favorite churches in Montana. Christmas just kept on going, and it was a great blessing.


In our packages, we received the “necessary missionary provisions” such as Kool-Aid drink mixes, beef jerky, chokecherry syrup, and various cosmetics for Tiffany. It was a great blessing to receive these things and to read the letters and cards that accompanied the packages. Here you are seeing the great number of cards that we received from the group of kids from our home church. These homemade cards were read carefully, one by one, and they were a great blessing to us, as was every item and card that we received from our friends and supporters in the United States.


On the 30th of December, we traveled back to Kampong Cham to be involved in several other Christmas celebrations. First, we went to Tpong Khmum, which is a flourishing church outside of the main city of Kampong Cham. Messages were given by Pastor Greg and by Pastor Meng Hong, and then we celebrated with food and games. Here you are seeing several boys who were playing marbles outside of the church after the service.


I have never witnessed so much food prepared for a church Christmas celebration, but it was all wonderful. We all filled our plates, some of us more than once, and young and old feasted together. This young girl had just received her food when I took this picture.

Here you are seeing Tiffany and one of our students Theavy after they went through the line. If you look at their plates, most of the dishes included vegetables and meat served with rice, but a particular favorite was the fried bread that was eaten with the soup.


Four hungry men,
all lined up in a row.
Where did all the food go?
Nobody knows.


During the evening, we played games as the sun sank into the horizon. The lighting was perfect as we took this picture of three girls watching the games from atop their perch on the Jungle Gym.


After another night in the hotel where we had stayed the previous weekend, we traveled out to another church outside of Kampong Cham. Koh Kor church is growing well due to Pastor Perin’s reaching out to the community and the blessings of the Lord given through their new English school. Tim preached his sermon on “What God Gave and What He Wants for Christmas”, even reading two Bible Verses and telling a story in Khmer. Leak, who is shown here translating for Tim, has been a great friend a great language helper.

There was a very large crowd of children, teens and adults there for the Christmas party, somewhere between 150 to 200 people. It was great to see all of these people coming to the celebration of Christ’s birth.


The final event on the schedule at the Christmas celebration was a drama performance of the birth done by the children under the direction of Pastor Perin’s wife. Here you are seeing King Herod speaking to the wise men that have come looking for the new king. The actions were perfect; especially the evil laugh performed by the boy playing Herod, and it was great to see the children’s understanding shown through their performance.

After the New Year, which we celebrated with our friends at our house, we had yet another Christmas party, this one for the national pastors. We met together for a dinner, a special service with an amazing message by Pastor Greg about keeping your fire alive in the ministry, and then we played games. It was a great night of fellowship and fun with these men of the faith, and it was wonderful to see them having fun and showing their joy in the fellowship of believers.

The intern-pastors came forward to sing a special song that they had prepared. Hearing these young men and women sing of their faith and their joy is always such a blessing to our hearts, as is seeing their faces as they praise their Father in Heaven.


We led the games for the Christmas party, and we again played the Christmas tree drawing game. Here you are seeing Pastors Arun and Manet try to draw their Christmas trees on their heads. It is always so funny to see these pastors having fun, acting silly, and enjoying their time together.


Two days following the Christmas party for the pastors, we attended a wedding in Kampong Chnang. After leaving at 4:30 in the morning and driving on some very bumpy roads, we arrived in time for the morning meal and for the service. This young couple Pen and Tawi, who are both pastors in the church, were united in marriage in a traditional Cambodian service. It was our first Khmer wedding, and it was fun to see the differences and similarities in the services.


Much to his surprise, Tim was called forward to give a special blessing to the couple. It was a nervous moment of trying to find the right thing to say to this couple, but God provided the words and it was a high honor to give them God’s blessing for their marriage.


One of the most heartwarming parts of the ceremony came at the end of the service. The couple knelt down in front of their parents and received their blessing and advice. It was touching to see the two fathers wiping away their tears as they spoke to their children, giving them advice for marriage and releasing them to be united as a married couple. After the blessing, they were all showered with palm seeds, which was a fitting and fun ending to the ceremony.


One of the entertaining things about Khmer weddings is the clothes. It is customary for a bride to change anywhere between 5-8 times during the party after the wedding ceremony, and it is also normal for everyone to wear their best. Here you are seeing all of the “Missionary Ladies” getting together for a picture. (from left to right Amber Hirschy, Tiffany, Resie, Aleeyah, and Lindy Morgan)