Happy 4th of July! It was quite unusual celebrating America’s Independence this year in the USA!

This is a very busy but exciting month for the ministry in Pursat. Will you please bring these five things to the Lord in prayer over this month of July?
1. Some have asked about Kone. He has not yet decided to follow Christ but continues to attend the teaching times on Thursdays and Sundays. He is counting the cost of following Christ. Please pray for this man to confess Christ before men.
2. Forrest and Matt Hancock (summer BJU intern) are taking a survey trip this week (July 5-10) to the areas near the Thai border that we have evangelized in the past. They hope to be able to water the Gospel seeds that we planted in previous years. They also plan to connect with some believers there to encourage them in the faith. Please pray for this trip.
3. On July 11, Forrest and Matt will begin a weekly teen Bible study in our village of Khbal Hong, similar to what we did last year. July, August, and September is the “summer vacation” time in Cambodia. Please pray for the Lord to bless this weekly outreach time with spiritual fruit.
4. From July 14-21, the McPhails will be hosting the Southeast Asia Team from BJU. They have a very full week scheduled with them. The believers in Preiy Nyee and Anlong Vul will be sharing testimonies and challenges with the men on the team and vice versa. Pray for Forrest as he does a lot of translating back and forth. Pray for the American believers and the Cambodian believers to have mutual encouragement and fellowship around the things of Christ.
5. Last of all, please pray for us here in America as we minister in SC in our sending church as well prepare for our furlough meetings in the South during the month of August.

May the Lord richly bless your “labor of love” in prayer for our team this month.

Praying for the net to fill in Pursat in our absence,

Chris, Heidi, Rachel, Isaac, and Susanna

Dear Family and Friends,

I just sent out a prayer letter last week but I wanted to mention one special prayer request to bring before the throne of grace this week.

It appears that God is starting to move in a special way down in Anlong Vul, the village where Ming Khom lives and where we have done extensive evangelism over the past two years. Another older lady has joined Ming Khom in the church. Also, a middle-age man, whom Forrest and I have both witnessed to over the past year, seems to be near conversion. I would like to ask you to pray earnestly for Kone this week. He told Forrest that he will decide whether or not to follow Christ this week. His Buddhist family has given him “permission” to believe and become a Christian if he wants. His conversion would be significant as he will be the first man to believe in AV!

I will keep you posted about this request. Thanks for your prayers for Kone.

Until the net is full,

Chris

(For a pdf version of our prayer letter, please scroll down to the bottom)

Dear Family and Friends,

Greetings from hot and humid Greenville, South Carolina! The last week has reminded us a lot of Cambodian weather. We praise the Lord for the wonderful 3½ months of furlough so far. We have seen 8 of our 25 supporting churches as well as many of our family and friends. Heidi and I were able to celebrate our eighth anniversary in May in Ohio’s Amish country. We also greatly enjoyed the annual GFA family conference at The WILDS Christian Camp in early June. Our little Rachel (five years old) even went down the superslide by herself! Praise the Lord for safety on the road in answer to your prayers. In this letter, I would like to focus your attention on a particular topic: short-term missions.

Short-term Missions: Past Marital Success

The weekend of June 6–7, we had the joy of witnessing the wedding vows of two young ladies who came to visit and help our team during our first term on the field. Heidi’s youngest sister, Missy, came to Cambodia for five weeks in late 2005 during the peak of Heidi’s unusual illness, and she was a huge blessing to us. A few months later, Jennifer Perkins came to help the McPhail family for four months when Jennifer McPhail was having health problems. Both of these ladies returned to the States and within a year or so were engaged; then they were married the same weekend to fine Christian men! Do you know of any other single people that might want to come to Cambodia? ☺

Short-term Missions: Present Ministry Opportunities

Speaking of single people who come to Cambodia, we actually have seven young men who will be spending time in Pursat, Cambodia, over the next couple of months. One young man, Matt Hancock, has already arrived for his two-month internship under my teammate. Forrest plans to keep him busy with language learning, reading good missions books, a few teaching opportunities, a survey trip to one of the provinces in western Cambodia, and a few nights sleeping and eating with a Cambodian family! Please pray that the Lord will use Matt while he is in Cambodia through early August. In the middle of July, six more men studying for the ministry at Bob Jones University/Seminary will spend a week living in our house in Pursat. A Bible professor at BJU, Dr. Kevin Oberlin, is leading this team to five different countries in Southeast Asia. If you are interested, they have a website: www.seateam.org. I have had the opportunity to meet this team twice since my re¬turn to the States, and Dr. Oberlin has assembled a great team of young, sober-minded men who have a desire to learn what God is doing in Cambodia and Southeast Asia. Please lift up this team in prayer as they travel and minister, especially the week of July 14–21, when they will be in Cambodia.

Short-term Missions: Future Team Philosophy

Forrest and I have spent much time praying about the role of short-term missions in our particular context in Pursat, Cambodia. We are very excited about both the intern and the team God is bringing to Cambodia this summer. Some of our thinking on short-term missions is expressed on our mission board’s website: www.gfamissions.org (click on the missionaries tab, then Cambodia). As the Lord leads in the future, our hearts’ desire for short-term missions is threefold:

1. We are interested in encouraging young men who are seriously considering foreign missions to come visit Cambodia through summer internships and small teams (similar to the men’s coming this summer).
2. We would be interested in encouraging young ladies to come to Cambodia from time to time to help our wives in homeschooling responsibilities so that our wives would be more free for ministry outside the home.
3. We would be interested in encouraging small, church-led teams who would desire to come for short trips in order to learn about Cambodia so they could better pray and also be an encouragement to the missionaries.

I hope these thoughts on short-term missions are helpful. We continue to covet your prayers as we travel and minister in churches over the next seven months on furlough.

Until the net is full,
Chris for the Seawright family

Prayer Letter (pdf format)

It is hard to believe we have been in the States for over three months! We wanted to share some picture highlights of these first three months with our family and friends. Enjoy!

(you may need to click on the picture to see the entire picture)

Greetings from Weirton, West Virginia! This is our first Stateside prayer letter in over four years! It is hard to believe we have been in the States for two months already. Thanks to each one of you who prayed for our transition back. We have finally figured out how to be Americans again! We never realized how Cambodian we had becomed. Things that used to be normal to us had become abnormal. Heidi and I spent hours talking about all the differences between Cambodia and America. This is definitely a different world!

Cultural Adjustment

I thought I’d share a few of the cultural mistakes we made or things we said in our first weeks:
1. My first time driving in America was a very scary experience. In Cambodia, cars just merge slowly into on-coming traffic and those on the main road must yield. There is no right-of-way. Thankfully my wife gave a few helpful hollars to keep me from getting into accidents those first few days and I quickly re-learned how to drive here. Another facet of driving that is completely different is the use of the car horn. In Cambodia the horn is a friendly reminder that our car is near but in America it is used, in many cases, as an expression of anger. I must admit to honking the horn a number of times just to say that I was nearby. ☺
2. At home our first week back, I asked my mother-in-law where I could get hot water in the house. She graciously responded to me, “In any of the faucets.” Heidi later asked her, “Can it rain any day here?” In Cambodia, we have a rainy season and a dry season, in which it never rains.
3. Apparently our children were impacted by the fact they had to sit in a car seat here in America. When Isaac saw a nativity scene with Jesus in a manger, Isaac asked us, “Is that Jesus’ car seat?”

The list could go on but that’s enough to show how we experienced some real reverse culture shock. Heidi and I adjusted more quickly than the kids, since we had at least some memory of this place called America.

Traveling Adjustment

Over the past month of traveling, we have enjoyed seeing many of you who faithfully pray for the work of God in Pursat province. As I write this letter, we have been in five churches already. We plan to have a busy May and June visiting churches in Ohio, Michigan, and West Virginia. We praise the Lord for the wonderful vehicle He provided for us from a church in Memphis, TN. Please continue to pray for us in our travels.

During the month of April, we had two unique opportunities to see Cambodians living here in America. We visited a Cambodian family outside of Washington, DC who are related to some of our friends in Pursat. It was very strange to speak in Khmai here! Just last week, while at a missionary conference, I was able to visit a Cambodian community in Lowell, MA. I passed out 10-15 of our Ancient Path tracts after enjoying a delicious Khmai meal. Praise the Lord for these two times to minister to Cambodians here in America. Please pray for spiritual fruit from these two opportunities.

Baby Adjustment

This adjustment is more for our teammates, though our little Susanna has definitely made many changes since our last prayer letter. At six months, she is at the exciting phase of sitting up, eating Cheerios, and soon will be crawling! We want to praise the Lord for the safe delivery of our teammates fourth child, Sierra Hope, on March 30. They were in Bangkok for just over a month and have now returned to Cambodia. Please remember Jennifer and baby Sierra in prayer as they adjust to Cambodian life and the heat at this time of year.

While the McPhails were in Thailand, Tee (formally spelled Thi) did much of the teaching in the Preiy Nyee church. Forrest plans to help the believers there as well as Ming Khom to mature in areas of Stewardship in the coming weeks. Please pray for the believers to understand their responsibility to give their time (Lord’s day) and resources to their Lord. The McPhails are also planning to start a children’s Bible club in our village of Khbal Hong. Pray that many of Rachel and Isaac’s friends will come to believe in Jesus and that their parents will attend and repent as well.

Over the summer months, Forrest will also be hosting our first summer intern from Bob Jones University. Matt Hancock, an undergrad missions major, will be spending June and July in Pursat living in our house. Please pray for Forrest to effectively mentor Matt and know how to integrate him into the ministry. Also begin praying for the Lord to use this trip in Matt’s life. We are excited that he is coming to Cambodia.

There are many adjustments and people to bring before the throne of grace. Thanks for your prayers for open doors, Gospel words, and spiritual fruit!

Until the net is full,

Chris for the Seawright family