Christi in Cambodia: Part II

Here are some recent ministry pictures of Christi’s summer mission outreach to Cambodia. Ministry includes teaching English for outreach, bringing JOY to poverty-stricken slums, teaching worship conferences and music classes for worship teams, and doing children’s ministry.

(Click here for earlier posts about this CAMBODIA MISSION.)

Here are a few pictures to share the news:

Thanks to everyone who gave toward Christi’s mission trip (an outreach of ORU’s summer music missions). Please keep her, and the team, and the people they are reaching in Cambodia in your prayers!!!

Christi in Cambodia – Part I

Jon & Ann Dunagan’s oldest daughter, Christi Dunagan (a recent college graduate, age 19), is now serving as an Assistant Team Leader (ATL) for a 6-week ORU summer music mission to CAMBODIA, working with long-term missionaries and Cambodian believers.

Here are a few preliminary ministry highlights along with some photos from the beginning of the trip. Christi said that she didn’t get many ministry pictures yet, but those will be coming!

The mission team will be focusing on the following:

• As an outreach to draw non-Christians to the church, Christi and several team members will help by teaching English (using the Bible as a text) to about 40 Cambodian students, mostly older teens and young adults, both guys and girls. About 80% of the believers at this church (and 100% of the Cambodian staff) received the Lord and became a part of the church through this free English school, which also provides free classes in office skills and typing.
• Helping people and doing mission work in a slum area.
• Doing children’s ministry at the church and in various locations.
• Learning more about the horrible problem of Cambodian child trafficking. Christi has met several who work full-time at the church’s home for rescued girls; however, this home is at an undisclosed location and her team will not be working with these girls.
• Teaching children’s Bible classes to the kids of the full-time missionary families.
• Teaching music theory classes, piano lessons, and classes about worship to the worship teams at the church.
• Using music ministry for outreach.
• Being a light, helping in whatever way possible, and sharing the life and love of JESUS!!!

A Welcoming Staircase in Hong Kong

HONG KONG photos:

The ORU Cambodia Mission Team

CAMBODIA photos:

Here is a quote from one of Christi’s journal entries:

“The last place we went to was Wat Phnom, a Buddhist temple . . . since it was a holy holiday, lots of parents were coming to take pictures of their little boys who were monks.

Apparently it is good for a family to have their eldest boy be a monk for at least two years because they believe that will being “salvation” to the parents, so boys can be short term monks, but if women decide to dedicate their life to God it’s for life.

Monks also can’t touch a women, wear shoes, have cell phones, or look straight up – although the two monks I met and talked to did all three. Oh well. I guess they were taking a day off from monkdom.”

This photo (above), showing Cambodian children praying to false idols, makes us so sad; but we are thankful that the mission team will be able to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with kids (in the slums and at the church) during their summer outreach.

Please pray for Christi and the mission team, for the Lord to shine through them to people in need — with the truth of the Gospel and the love of Jesus Christ.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6).

Daring daughters & dirty feet

I’ve always had this “thing” for baby feet. I pull off darling shoes, and little newborn socks, and just want to kiss each of those tiny toes! I always ponder where a baby’s precious feet will go, and about God’s destiny and purpose for each new life. But speaking as a mother, what happens when our kids grow up, and God perhaps would call our sons, or our DAUGHTERS, to dangerous places?

Our oldest daughter, Christi, recently climbed a mountain barefoot. She didn’t want to wear out her TOMS, which incidentally are shoes produced by a company that helps kids in impoverished countries . . . . who don’t have shoes. These dirty feet actually give a pretty clear glimpse of our daughter. Christi’s always dreamed of daring things for God. She’s grown up on a steady diet of missionary biographies — Amy Carmichael, Gladys Aylward, Florence Nightingale, Lottie Moon, and Elisabeth Elliot; but she’s done more than merely read about godly self-sacrificing women. Christi’s been living-out her own mission adventure story, as she’s also continually dreaming about the future.

The Bible says, “And how shall they preach, except they be sent?

as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace,

and bring glad tidings of good things!” – Romans 10:15

I want to be a mom who encourages each of our children to completely fulfill God’s destiny — not by our own efforts, but by God’s GRACE!!! Jon and I know that each of our sons, and our DAUGHTERS, have been entrusted by God into our family to be raised FOR HIM and His mission-minded and eternal purposes. We want each of our kids, including each son and each DAUGHTER, to fully obey God’s call and purpose for his or her life. Sometimes, as a caring and loving mom (who remembers kissing our babies’ feet and tucking away their precious hand-knitted booties for the next generation), that can be challenging and stretching.

But oh, what a JOY!!!!

Our daughter, Christi

Here are a few pictures of our daughter on a mission outreach in East Africa. Christi was instrumental in helping to establish Osanidde Village and Guma Na Yesu Children’s Center, Harvest Ministry’s two orphanages in Uganda, currently caring for over 600 children orphaned primarily because of AIDS. During her last year at home, Christi worked tirelessly in our ministry office, coordinating child sponsors and sharing needs. She’s traveled the globe to share the Gospel and to help others; but her passion for people who need Jesus is just as fervent here in the United States! She loves to mentor young women, to pray for those who are hurting, to speak out for world missions, and to have fun with community outreach projects (just last weekend, on Oct. 31st, she worked alongside an “army” of college students in an exciting city-wide canned-food drive!).

As mothers in God’s kingdom, we need to not only raise our own daughters to love the Lord, but realize that there are multitudes of God’s precious daughters throughout the world, who desperately need all the motherly-and-sisterly-love we can give, along with our sacrificial support and prayer.

Rescuing one of God’s girls . . . in Uganda, East Africa

When Christi was 15-years old, she wrote a powerful orphan essay (you can read it here) about the needs of one precious abused girl, named Jennifer, and this essay was only the beginning of God stirring His compassion in our daughter’s heart.

Here’s a picture of this rescued orphan girl, Jennifer, today (four years after Christi wrote the article). This precious young woman is still living with our dear friends, Naboth & Alice, and she continues to be a vital testimony about God’s hand on these beautiful orphan children. The most recent report is so beautiful. Naboth wrote:

Jennifer is now in primary four. She sleeps and “feeds” at Pastor Naboth & Alice’s home, and she is very bright and hard working. She “leads praising” in Sunday school. Her hope and happiness is restored, as God has healed her wounds.

Fulfilling a dream . . . for God’s girls in Cambodia

As for Christi, she’s now in her final year at ORU. This semester, she’s writing her senior paper, focusing on the horrible issues surrounding child prostitution and international human trafficking and the necessary process of healing after sexual abuse. She’s also preparing to be an ATL (Assistant Team Leader) for an upcoming two-month ORU summer mission to Cambodia, in Asia.

It’s amazing how God puts all the details together. Some people say that homeschool families isolate their children and keep them sheltered from the world. For us, we have protected our kids and teens from allowing compromising friends and lifestyles of sinful distractions, as we’ve covered them in the power and blood of Jesus Christ, so they can IMPACT a dark world with the bright light of our wonderful Lord.

Interceding for God’s girls . . .  in Iran

As a side-note, I (Ann) have had a tremendous burden this week for persecuted women, especially in Iran, who are being abused and tortured for their unfailing love for Jesus Christ. Just today, I received a specific prayer request from Voice of the Martyrs to uphold two beautiful Christian girls in Iran, Maryam and Marzieh, who are suffering persecution right NOW for their faith.

Please pray for our daughter Christi, for Mayam and Marzieh, and for God to give all of us more of His passion for ALL of His daughters throughout the world.

I love Proverbs 31. Sometimes we neglect to read all the verses about God’s virtuous women. As moms, we don’t need to be afraid about what is to come, for our household is “clothed in scarlet” (protected by the blood of Jesus). We need to reach out our “hand to the needy” and train our daughters to be women who “fear the Lord.” Here are my favorite verses from Proverbs 31:

“Open your mouth for the speechless,

for the cause of all who are appointed to die.

Open your mouth and judge righteously,

and plead for the cause of the poor and the needy.”

Proverbs 31:8-9

May we raise daring daughters, perhaps with dirty feet, who will fully obey and follow God’s plan and purposes, in complete obedience and submission to Him, with fervent love.

God is so good.

May His goodness flow through us, and through our sons and our DAUGHTERS.

11/18/2009 – PRAISE REPORT: Just received news today via twitter (on @persecutionblog and The Voice of the Martyrs) that the two women in Iran, Maryam & Marziah, both mentioned in this article, were just SET FREE after 259 days in prison!!!)

QUOTE from persecutionblog.com: “VOM’s friend, Elam Ministries, which serves the growing church in Iran, has announced that Maryam Rustampoor and Marzieh Amirizadeh have been released from Evin Prison in Tehran. Family members picked them up at the prison this afternoon, Iran time. The two women immediately expressed thanks to Christians around the world who had prayed for them during their 259 days in prison.

“Words are not enough to express our gratitude to the Lord and to his people who have prayed and worked for our release,” they said.