Bill Preaching in Khmer

I have finally reached the point where I can preach in Khmer.  I’m not saying I am fluent but if I can prepare before hand I am able to speak pretty well.  We went to the Sre Trang Church of Mercy on Thursday and I preached a message on Galatians 2:16 titled, “saved by Faith.”  This is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome while working with the Khmers.  They believe a person is justified by their good works.

We had a good meeting and I was encouraged to see some growth in the church.  There were probably 60 people or more and they listened well and had reverent attitudes.  Thank you for praying for them. Pastor Ngan asked that we continue to pray God would give them wisdom to do the work of the Lord.

If you have time and want to hear a french dude speaking Khmer with a Texas twang go here:

http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=5131060233

 

The Lord reigns,

Bill

The Khmer 1689 Revision is Done!!!

In addition to teaching in the PATC Center, part of my work here in Cambodia is working to translate good Christian books into Khmer. The Khmer church is in great need of these books and currently have very little access to them. The process is difficult and costly. Each book takes about 6 months to translate and edit (two people – myself and my fellow worker Akpirin). The cost for the translation is about $1000 per book plus about $1600 to print 1000 copies. By God’s grace we have just revised and reprinted the 1689 Baptist Confession. Here is a link to see the book in PDF format:

http://www.thechurchofmercy.org/uploads/3/0/6/2/3062824/1689lbc_khmer.pdf

Several Christian classics are already in Khmer in abridged form including:

Abraham Booth - Reign of Grace
Jeremiah Burroughs - The Mystery of Divine Contentment
John Flavel - Mystery of Providence
John Calvin - Institutes of the Christian Religion(first three books)

We are currently about 50% finished with The Death of Death in the Death of Christ by John Owen. After this we want to start on Martin Luther's Bondage of the Will. We are currently raising funds for these two works. Please consider partnering with us to help complete these exciting projects. Pray the Lord will bless the work of our hands and use these books for his glory


Grace and peace,
Bill

http://www.thechurchofmercy.org/

A'run Soo-ah S'day (Good Morning in Khmer)

In September last year I started a Masters Degree in Theological Studies (Systematic Theology)at Reformed Baptist Seminary. (http://www.rbseminary.org/) The last few months I have been taking a course on Apologetics (via distance learning). It has been good for me. Being here in Cambodia has been a great blessing to me but sometimes I have felt dry spiritually. I was teaching, teaching, teaching but my learning was lagging behind. Thanks be to God for this learning opportunity! Please pray for me as I study. I hope to finish in about two years, God willing.

Also, a few months ago I submitted an article to the RB Seminary's blog. They posted the article but I forgot to post a link to the article on this blog. So if you have time, follow the link and spend a couple of minutes being reminded of God's great love for sinners! I would welcome any feedback you might have.


http://blog.rbseminary.org/2009/08/gods-great-unconditional-love/


Peace,
Bill

March Newsletter

 

 

Hello to all.  We are glad to report that things are going well here.  Please take a few minutes to read our March newsletter.  And may God bless you as you read.

http://www.thechurchofmercy.org/uploads/3/0/6/2/3062824/the_halesupdatemar2010.pdf

 

Bill

Hello From the Regions Beyond

Those of you who only get updates about our lives through this blog probably are wondering, "what happened? Did they make it back ok?"  Yes, we made it back safely to Cambodia.  It was a long trip but we made it safely.  Upon our arrival we met up with some dear friends from our home church; the Pate family.  Kris and Julie, Anna, David, Thomas, and Daniel.  They stayed with us for about three weeks.  They came in from Texas to help us by substitute teaching some of our classes. Julie also helped out in our home while Jennifer and I adjusted to the new addition to our family.  Kris and I worked on some computer lab stuff and he proved to be a skilled and tireless worker.  And their kids helped to make sure Katherine never had a dull moment! They were such a blessing!  Here is a link to their blog site which describes their trip.

http://joylogblog.blogspot.com

Life has returned to a more normal routine the past few weeks.  I have been working with Daniel, my Translation Teammate, to finish translating some reformed literature.  These are the books we have been working on:

1689 Confession (95% done) - 3rd edition - added proof texts, revised wording, added study questions (Public Domain)
Life by His Death - John Owen (35%) done - A book about what Christ accomplished on the cross (With Permission)
Christian Beliefs - Wayne Grudem (15% done) - Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know (With Permission)

Please pray for these important books to be translated accurately.  Pray God would supply the printing costs.


God bless,
Bill

Going Home & The December 2009 Newsletter

We are planning to take the 4:30 PM train back to Bangkok tomorrow.  After arriving we will take a taxi to the Cambodia border which is a five hour drive.  If the family travels well, God willing, we will pickup our car and drive back home (another 5 hour drive).  Please pray we will arrive safely and enjoy returning to our work in Cambodia.

Also, Jennifer’s mom left to go back to Texas this morning.  We were so happy to have her help and her company for the three weeks that she was with us. She was a blessing.

 The Hales!  Katherine, Me, Jennifer, and Isaac.

Finally, Pastor Chheng sent out a newsletter to give an update on the ministry.  It has lots of information that will help inform your prayers for the work.  Here it is:

December 2009 Newsletter

 

Peace,

Bill

It’s in the DNA

We have been looking at Isaac and talking about who he looks like, me or Jennifer?  Then we opened up some pictures of Katherine when she was a newborn to see if there were any similarities.  Here is what we saw:

They look almost exactly the same!  Same chin, mouth, nose, eyes.  So we concluded that they must have the same mommy and daddy! 8-)

Things are going well here.  We are enjoying the cool weather here in Chiang Mai.  Last night it was 61 degrees at night which felt downright cold to us.  In Cambodia it feels cool if it gets to 75 at night. 

Isaac is still learning how to play during the day and sleep at night!  We hope he learns quickly so we can sleep at night too.

Take Care,

Bill

The Man Cub!

It is with great joy and thankfulness to God that I tell you, "Isaac has been safely born into the world." Jennifer went into labor this morning at 4:00 am. We went to the hospital and little Isaac was born at 8:30 AM on his due date. He weighs 7lbs 13oz and is 19" tall. He is healthy and doing well. Jennifer did great too and she is also doing well. We left the hospital the next afternoon and are now resting in our guest house. Thanks for all your prayers...the delivery went very smoothly.

The next step is to get his birth certificate translated into English, establish his USA citizenship, then apply for his passport.  We are hoping to get all this done by Dec 15th so that we can return to Cambodia ASAP.  Please pray that all the required steps would get completed, according to the will of God.  We are so thankful for your interest and prayers, both for our family and the ministry in Cambodia.  May God bless you and keep you!

 

Bill

We’re All Here!

We arrived safely on the 12th and Jennifer’s mom, Martha, arrived yesterday, safe and sound as well.  We are enjoying the reunion and the comfortable setting.  We have met with our doctor and seen the hospital and both are going to work out well.  Isaac is officially due to come on the 24th and it is an exciting time.  Thank you for your prayers!

I told the ladies that we need to have a man child around here to help out with the hormonal imbalance of our apartment.  8-)

Here are a couple pictures of the Juniper Tree:

The Lord Jesus Reigns,

Bill

Traveling Across Asia

Hello again!  We are making our way across Asia and have one more leg to go in our trip.  We successfully drove from Prek Ambel to Koh Kong on the edge of the Cambodia – Thailand border.  It was some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen in Cambodia.

We arrived in Koh Kong around 5:00 PM.  We stayed in the home of some missionaries who are currently on furlough in the USA.  Here are a few pictures of their home.

 

We had a restful night of sleep and in the morning we headed out to cross the border into Thailand.  The border paperwork was very easy and we had crossed the border which is right next to the Gulf of Thailand by 9:00 am.

Here are some pictures of the border crossing:

Next we headed on to Bangkok to drop of our friend Kara and her son Noah.  She is planning to have her baby in Bangkok two days after Jennifer.  Our taxi driver was great and we stopped two or three times over the course of the trip to get snacks and use the bathroom which made the women happy!  We arrived in Bangkok at 3:00 PM and had a few hours to rest before our train left for Chiang Mai. 

 

Here is Kara and Noah along with Jennifer and Katherine at her service apartment.

When we arrived at the train station to board the train which we thought was leaving at 7:00 PM we found out that it actually left at 6:00 PM and that we were too late to take it.  So we stayed the night in Bangkok and are planning to take today’s 6:00 PM train.  So we will be arriving a day later than we expected but that’s just fine.  We were a bit wiped out from travelling and the extra rest was good.  Our hotel is right next door to the train station and is very convenient.  Neither one of us has ever ridden on a train before and we both think the train station is a cool place.

Please pray for us to successfully complete the last leg of our trip and arrive safely in Chiang Mai.  The train ride is 14 hours.

 

God bless,

Bill