A river boat in Southeast Asia

Still Crazy

How you’re helping bring the Word of God into persecuted lands

Dear Family,

“You’re crazy!”

Lots of people told me so. They were probably right.

That was 25 years ago. I had just decided to join a team of Bible smugglers on an unforgettable trip into Cambodia during a very dangerous time. Pol Pot (the chief madman behind the notorious “killing fields” genocide that killed about 2,000,000 people) was still terrorizing the northern jungles of the country with bombings, ambushes and random assassinations. The horrifying scenes of mass graves outside the capitol city of Phnom Penh are still etched in my brain.

Despite the risks, however, I chose to take on this hazardous journey because something powerfully important was beginning to happen—the gospel had started spreading rapidly in Cambodia.

My mission was to take the first portions of God’s Word to the broken and hurting Cambodian people. My little team had a goal to bring the scriptures, recently translated into the Khmer language, to remote mountain villages as well as the major cities, one home at a time. A memory I will forever cherish was meeting with young student-converts in a bamboo house. Together we assembled “hot-off-the-press” gospel booklets, using hunting knives as primitive paper cutters.

My team hand-carried those precious little copies of God’s Word all the way up the length of Tonal Sap River, where the Khmer rouge guerrillas were still setting trip-wire explosives. One had just gone off, maiming several visitors, a week prior to our visit. The Lord protected us, and we had the great privilege of placing our priceless cargo into the hungry hands of those in desperate need of the hope found in Jesus.

Friends, through your amazing support, I have the privilege of seeing the continued fruit of that early move of God in Cambodia. Rescently, I was able to meet with brother Setan, a national missionary Heaven’s Family partners with. Setan survived the killing fields and now helps minister to the local Cambodia church (still under persecution). This bold missionary, along with those he disciples, has taken up the call to bring God’s Word to their hurting countrymen, ensuring the early mission I participated in grows to new levels.

No longer are scriptures being assembled on the floor of a small bamboo house church. Your gifts are providing full Bibles in the Khmer language, including worship songs, so our Cambodian brothers and sisters can sing out the truths found in Scripture.

My heart was so stirred by this short video Setan recently sent. Click the link below to watch for yourself as believer after believer thanks us for sending God’s Word: //youtu.be/3ctOKb0T5pM

God is so good to let me see the “killing fields” of this mystic land become the “harvest fields” of the 21st century. You are a part of this miracle.

Hallelujah to the Lamb who is worthy to receive the reward of His suffering.

Still crazy [for Jesus] after all these years,

David Promise
Director of Ministry Partnerships
Strategic Bibles Ministry