Our Cambodian Students Need Your Prayers
For the past few years, the Howell family has been helping train the future teachers for the SDA school we are trying to build in Cambodia.
These students have gone through many difficulties, but God has also helped them grow in many ways.
When the students encountered Sabbath issues in their Cambodian university, Natalie Howell started training them in English so they could attend an SDA school outside the country.
Last year, God led the students to Malaysia to take the four-month Soul-winning and Leadership Training (SALT) course and improve their language skills. There, the students had an amazing spiritual experience. One shared that before she took the SALT course, she couldn't understand how people could spend hours reading the Bible. After the training, she said, two or three hours wasn't even enough! She had fallen in love with God's Word.
During the last school year, we sent the students to an Adventist college in the Philippines but soon learned that they would not receive the training needed to create a spiritual boarding school environment in Cambodia.
Why is this important?
Educating these future teachers is valuable, but it's not just about the piece of paper at graduation. The main goal of our future school in Cambodia is to develop a spiritually rich environment that leads young people to Christ and teaches them Adventist lifestyle 24/7 as well as making disciples. If these teachers have a solid spiritual foundation, they will be our best resources for sharing the Gospel with the students and teaching them how to have deep, personal relationships with God. If they have the proper foundation, they can become spiritual leaders in this country with almost no Christians and impact God's kingdom regardless of the presence of foreign missionaries.
Some of the students with their SALT class in Malaysia
So what can we do?
We have earnestly prayed for God to provide a solution that would give the students a strong spiritual environment. One possible solution is to enroll the students in an online school while providing them with direct, in-person spiritual studies.
We feel it would be best for them to return to SALT in Malaysia but take online classes. We are currently working with a very well-regarded Adventist College in America that is willing to provide online programs to teach them what they need to know to teach in our future school. They will also learn Bible work, Adventist lifestyle, and church planting from the SALT team. This is the best solution we have found so far, but it’s not cheap.
The challenge is visas. When the students were last in Malaysia, they could only stay in the country for one month at a time. In order to return, they would need longer-term visas.
We learned about an English school for sale in Kuala Lumpur with up to 250 visa slots. If the school is purchased and the students enroll in the English school, the government will give them student visas. They can continue growing their English skills, take Bible-centered courses, and take online classes for their teaching degrees. The courses they are taking now will apply to their degree, so they will not have to start over again.
Here's where prayer is needed. The school is being sold for $500,000. As part of the down payment, the sellers are requesting $75,000 from us by the end of September and another $75,000 by the end of the year.
At the moment, this opportunity seems more than impossible. But nothing is too big for God. We must trust Him to guide and provide the answers.
The school has been profitable, so this money could be paid back and more in a few years. Another plus is that this school could be used as an outreach tool beyond just the students from Cambodia.
Here are a few ways you can pray:
1: Pray for the students: Sakar, SamPhy, Pheara, Kimhun, Pisey, Chandy, Angkeas, and Raksemy.
2: Pray for their families, especially those who are not Christians.
3: Pray for God to provide the funding for the English school according to His will.
4: Pray for the Howell family and the Cambodia Boarding Academy project.
5: Pray for our SDA schools.
If God is inspiring you to help support these future teachers' academic and spiritual education, please click the button below.