Fall has come and it is once again time for our annual missionary convention. Our missionaries this year will be Jeff and Heather Williams who for the past fourteen years have been missionaries to Cambodia.
MEET YOUR MISSIONARIES
Fall has come and it is once again time for our annual missionary convention. Our missionaries this year will be Jeff and Heather Williams who for the past fourteen years have been missionaries to Cambodia.
Jeff and Heather grew up in the northeast, Jeff in Connecticut and Heather in New York. Following high school they both attended Nyack College which was where they met.
The Lord placed on their hearts a burden for the Cambodian people and following their graduation and marriage they went to Attleboro, MA where they started a Cambodian church and trained a young Cambodian to eventually pastor that church.
They have over the years served in a variety of ministries in Cambodia, but most recently have been working among the Cham tribal group. In this primarily Buddhist country the Chams are unique as they are an Islamic people group. The Chams migrated from Viet Nam to Cambodia during the middle ages and settled along the Mekong River where they were evangelized by Muslim traders and eventually left Buddhism for Islam.
Jeff and Heather moved into a Cham village and built a house up on stilts where they lived the year round including the annual flood season. About a year and a half ago I had the privilege of visiting them in Cambodia and spent a few nights at their place in the Cham village. Some of you may remember the pictures I showed when I returned of Jeff and Heather and their house on stilts. Early this summer they left the village to return for a year’s assignment here in the USA, leaving the church in the care of the small group of Christians who live there.
When they return to Cambodia next year they have been asked initially to set up a school for training both Khmer (Cambodian) pastors and missionaries for ministry in rural Cambodia. Once that school is underway, they will be assigned to begin a new work among another unreached (non Khmer) people group in Cambodia.
The Williams have three children: Liesl who is a freshman at Houghton College, Linnea who is in tenth grade, and Jared who is in 8th grade. Both Linnea and Jared will be here with their parents for at least part of our convention.
Our missionary convention will begin on Friday evening, November 2 at 6:00 PM with our annual missionary banquet. Saturday morning at 9:00 AM Heather will speak at the women’s breakfast and Saturday evening at 6:00 PM Jeff will speak at the annual men’s steak dinner. Sunday at 10:30 AM we will hold our missionary rally. Jeff will speak to the adults and Heather to the kids in the Bible Discovery Zone. The rally will be followed by an international potluck dinner in our Fellowship Hall. Sunday evening Jeff and Heather will speak to the youth group.
We are trusting that God will bless this time with the Williams in a very special way and we hope that as many of you as possible will attend these meetings.