Christmas visit, 2011

Hi Folks:

Leakhena and I have been blessed with the opportunity to come home this Christmas and for her to meet my family and friends. We will be in vancouver for the service on the 1st of january and for a couple of days after. There is a possibilty we might have an opportunity to share about our new ministry on January 6th at Tenth avenue and I will inform you if this is a definite. I pray that you enjoy our November update and look forward to seeing many of you in person soon

God bless and Merry Christmas


Kevin and Leakhena

August 2011 - Our Lord at work

Hello again from Cambo

It has been a blessed month of answered prayer, healing,direction, building,relationship strengthening and an overwhelming presence of our Lord at work. (For photos from this month, click here to see an online album.)

Just a few bullet points before I share a story about this month.

...God has been providing us with whatever we need..He has blessed us with timely answers to our prayers for numerous needs

...Our relationship with the community is growing everyday and we were all brought to tears when I shared about Leakhena and mine's love for the community and I shared about everything I saw in this community and what they have...love for each other, community,bonding from going through the same hardships,the skills,the strengths and God on their side. At the end of the meeting one of the committee members came up to me and said Som Preah En Pro Te An Poh...May God bless You

..We built two more homes for the community this month...one from a short term team from Calvin Presbyterian an ESC partner with Tenth church who were so moved by the testimonies given by the community members that they supplied the funding before they left to build this home and are looking at raising further funding for more homes.

..We have a list for the community in order of greatest need and the woman who moved them was next on the list and God provided through the same team

..We have a commitment for 15 homes with a possible 20 which we will be building starting the 17th of sept for approx 3 weeks

..Tenth church will be supporting Leakhena and I to go for cross cultural and pre marriage counselling in Chiang Mai probably in Oct. such a huge blessing and a great grounding for our forthcoming marriage in January

...the process of starting our own NGO called Manna4Life is almost completed and ready to send to the government..just working on the final board members before sending for approval.

..Just finalizing the MOU with Dove and will be partnering with them as the advisor to their sustainable community development section .This is a great ministry that tenth supports and our ministries will be a great blessing to the Oudong community and the Kingdom of God

..Working on a 4 phase plan for the community and our ministry at the village .

..working on a proposal for this 4 phase plan

..have joined forces with my brother Tony Tom with World Helps Ministries as their Cambodian partner and will be doing projects together in education and building in the community


This is just a short recap of the month....as you can see a lot is happening here and God is really moving forward so pray that I hang on tight to Him.

Now for a story of healing prayer.


The pictures attached are our friend Rhum.

We had been on a medical missions trip with Tenth church and when we got back at the start of the month and visited the village we were informed that Rhum a friend from the community had suffered a stroke the night before. Rhum is a great guy and usually carries water for the village in a big blue drum to all the homes especially the dry season. This is how he supports his family and his son is now doing it in his place. I think he gets 2000riel for every drum which is approx 50 cents and wheels this heavy load around to the homes.

We immediately went to the hospital to see how he was praying for him along the way.

We couldn't find him at the hospital because he had been released already because he had no money. Not exactly a rare situation in Cambodia as most people cannot afford the medical care however inadequate it is.

We called around and it wasn't until the next day that we were able to get his number where he was staying and went to visit him. His whole left side was paralyzed ,his face frozen and his arm and leg numb and useless.He was staying at his daughters place which overseas the old Dey Krahorm eviction site where he used to live.It is a building next in line for eviction and one with a horrible reputation and is a den of prostitution , drugs and gangs.

When we were leaving we asked him if we could pray for him and reminded him that we were Christians and would like to pray to Jesus for Him. He is a Buddhist but both himself and his wife said they would be very grateful if we prayed to God for them. Leakhena and I both prayed out loud in Khmer and English asking for God's healing powers to reach our friend and for him to then be a light for the rest of the community and to share about who healed him.

We then went home and a few days later took Tara Dawn a medical student from Tenth who was on the medical team and visited him again he had improved slightly and his face was now no longer frozen but had to use his other hand to move his arm or leg. Tara gave him advice on not doing that or his movement would never come back. We then asked him again if we could pray for him and he welcomed our prayer again. Leakhena,Tara and I all prayed for him similar prayers as we prayed before telling God of our uselessness in this situation and that we needed Him and Him only to help our friend.

On friday night I said to Leakhena we should go see how Rhum is doing but we were unable to and said we would go after our normal saturday meeting at the village.

When we got to the village there was Rhum walking around the village with the help of a stick and we were prasing God at the amazing healing. He was walking with a stick because the only boots he had were big heavy army boot styke and it was hard for him to walk in those as his healing was continuing. Leakhena wanted to get him some sneakers so we went to the local market and after putting these on he was able to walk around the village without much problem.

Please pray that Rhum recognizes where his healing came from and is a light to the community of the powers of our loving God

God bless you

Kevin and Leakhena

May Newsletter

Labour march - Phnom Pehn, May 1, 2011

Hi Folks

Well another month has quickly passed but it was filled with with experiences and opportunities to in engaging with the people God has called me to serve.

The first of the month was International Labour Day and having heard one of the union leaders speak at our Christian Justice Group of the hardships of the garment workers and the conditions and miserable wages they endure it was my honour to stand alongside them as they marched in Phnom Penh. Click here to see photos.

I have been in many labour day marches as I was a union member in Canada as a member of the pipe and steamfitters union in Toronto but standing alongside these workers as I knew the risks they were taking in speaking up against the injustices in their workplace was definitely moving. Over 5000 workers turned out and they marched down the waterfront to the ministers building seeking an end to an ngo law coming into affect to stifle the voice of the people and for fair wages in the workplace.

The response to last months newsletter was awesome….it is titled “Shelter in the rain” on my blog at kevinincambodia.blogspot.com….what started out as a request for 70 tarps for the eviction community at Oudong village turned out to be 110 tarps that were installed before the heavy rain the weekend after.

God provided many people for this outreach approx 60 people as you can see by the pictures attached and it was a moving day for all involved. Many of the youth were Cambodian about 90% of them with the rest being a multi-cultural crew from Logos a local Christian school. The majority of the people involved were unaware of the plight of their fellow countrymen and the atrocities that had been perpetrated to them. The education of the workers turned into sympathy then empathy and then to love for the the community as they worked together with the community side by side to alleviate a small amount of the suffering in this community.

We were also able to share about God’s upside down Kingdom and that they were first in the eyes of God and that he loved there community and this was just a small way to show that love by the relationships being built by these students with the community.

I would be remiss if I didn’t thank all of you who supported this endeavour in prayer and by financial commitment. Rest assured you have helped many families this rainy season and I pray that that will help them in less illness also this season.

Leakena and I are praying about moving out to this community after we are married jan 28th 2012 so if you could keep this in your prayers it would be appreciated.

Some of you who supported this outreach were wondering what more we could do or if tin roofs were an option. Some of the structures could not support tin roofs and would need more structural work before that is possible and some of the huts would have to be totally ripped down and rebuilt. I am in a process this month of doing a proper survey of the community and rating the needs and priorities of this community. There is a major amount of work involved in housing needed and I am working with other NGO’s in determining who is doing what out there and when and trying to co-ordinate our efforts.I am in a group of approx 13 other groups administering help to this community in different aspects such as health,education,gender training,sewage, water etc.

At the end of July with the help of my friend Dennis a builder from Australia we will be building 6 homes for the most needy with the labour being supplied by the community. These homes are approximately $400 dollars per home. Dennis will be supplying the funds for the first 6 homes and will then go home and raise funds for more homes. I will keep you updated on opportunities to help in future updates.

I am now in Thailand again for another operation and appreciate all your prayers and well wishes. I had my surgery yesterday and am feeling fine. I should be back home in Cambodia next Thursday or Friday.

It has been a busy month and I look forward to our continued journey together in sharing Christ with the poor here in Cambodia.
God bless

Kevin Knight
P.s. Looking forward to meeting up with Tenth Avenue team when they are her e in July

About Kevin - Kevin's Testimony

from Epic Magazine a publication from Tenth Avenue Alliance Church, 2011


You don't need to spend much time with Kevin before you discover that his heart has been softened by the impact of God's grace upon his life. In fact, many of his homeless and addicted neighbors in the Downtown Eastside affectionately refer to him as "the weeping preacher".

The first time Kevin attended Tenth Oct 7th 2007, he sat timidly like most newcomers in the back row of the pews . That Sunday a missionary Craig Greenfield with Servants To Asia's Urban Poor (SERVANTS) was the guest speaker. He shared about the need for more missionaries amongst Cambodia's urban poor living in slums. Tears streamed from Kevin's eyes as he sensed Jesus say, "I'm calling you to this."

Soon after this, Kevin became actively involved in both the mission life here at Tenth and with SERVANTS. He gained missiological and theological training through courses offered at Tenth and through an eight-month internship with SERVANTS.

In July of 2010, Kevin will be moving to Cambodia as a missionary with SERVANTS living amongst the urban poor. Already, Kevin has become a wonderful link between Tenth and our ministry partners in Cambodia. We look forward to seeing how this partnership continues to deepen over the coming years. Kevin recently returned from his second trip to Cambodia in which he co-led the latest Tenth missions trip and spent more time with the SERVANTS Cambodia team. During his first trip he spent three months living with a Cambodian host family in a Phnom Penh shantytown and ministering alongside the SERVANTS Cambodia team.

Even though Kevin has ultimately felt God calling him to Cambodia, he's learned to see everywhere as a mission field. So for the past year Kevin has been serving as a full-time missionary with the SERVANTS Vancouver team, living and ministering in the Downtown Eastside (DTES). Due to the poverty of loneliness that is rampant throughout the DTES, their main form of ministry has been offering hospitality to those neighbors that are not normally the recipients of welcome. The community tries to see through God's eyes and scripture that is held dear amongst them is Ezekiel 37 Dry Bones " So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet-a vast army. "

Every evening neighbors join Kevin and the SERVANTS Vancouver team at the dinner table. They gather together as family. Many miracles have occurred at the table as they watch the armour of the street melt in the presence of God's love. Another crucial ministry of hospitality is what Kevin calls Prehab. Prehab involves offering a bed and the 24/7 support of a Christian community to those attempting to remain clean and sober while they wait to be granted entry into rehabilitation programs. By God's grace numerous neighbors going through Prehab have come to accept Christ and live out God's purpose and plan for their lives.

As Tenth church let us encourage Kevin as he prepares with cultural and language study and continues his ministry in the DTES until his departure to Cambodia in July 2010.



Prayer Points:

For God to continue nurturing amongst our church family at Tenth a zeal for missions locally, with our ministry partners in Cambodia, and around the world.
Hudson Taylor once said, "God's work, done in God's way, never lacks God's supply." Pray for the Lord to provide for all of Kevin's financial and prayer support needs as he seeks to carry out God's work for him here in Vancouver and in Cambodia.