Siem Reap Update

Well, we have been back from our trip to Australia for nearly 2 weeks now and it seems like just a distant memory!!

Thank you to all our wonderful friends and family that made our trip so wonderful and memorable. It was a really busy time with birthday parties, weddings, dinners, lunches and many laughs and interesting conversations.

I thought the weather might be a problem because before we came everyone was saying how cold it was. God was kind to us because the weather was mild and we did not feel the cold as much as much as we were expecting.

Our welcome home was one that would make any pastor's heart melt with love for their congregation. The children  and adults literally ran to us, hugging us with exclamations of "I missed you" and 'I love you" and "so glad you are back". Then it was excitement plus as they helped unpack all our music equipment that was so generously donated by a special person whom I am sure God will richly bless for her generosity.

We brought back a Casio Keyboard, Electric drum kit, base guitar and 2 more guitars. We talk about the movie "Field of Dreams" where it was quoted "build it and they will come". That is our motto now, because as soon as we brought the music equipment back God brought 3 musical young men to us that could play drums and guitar (we are still praying for someone to play the keyboard). Our first church service after that was with live music - just like a real church!!!

Pastor Lisa giving her testimony



Pastor Bora preaching to the church

Last Sunday we had a visiting Khmer Pastor from Phnom Penh preach at the church. He was in Siem Reap with his wife on their way back from Thailand. We invited them to stay with us and then he preached in the morning. We had 42 out for that meeting, the place was packed!! We have been here 8 months now and are thinking of having 2 services in the morning - one for adults and then one for children. A nice problem to have for a pastor though!

The rain has been non stop for the last week and the river is nearly flooded. A little more rain in the next few days and the river will overflow. It seems that a lot of things go on hold during this time as some streets are flooded too and people find it very difficult to get around.

Keep praying for us, connecting with us and supporting us. We know we cannot do this without God and without you. Our verse for this church is Psalm 127:1 - unless God builds the house, we build in vain. God is building this house!!

Love Siem Reap

Only 3 more sleeps and we are getting on the plane and coming home for a short break.

The last 7 months of our journey in Siem Reap Cambodia have been filled with wonder at the goodness and faithfulness of God. We have learnt that without him we labour in vain.

God has given us a great bunch of people that are excited about the future and are willing to put effort into playing their part in making it happen.

We have established a bit of a name for ourselves in the city. People are becoming more and more aware of who we are and what we are doing. As we network around the place we come across people who already know who we are (they've heard from a friend). What a great testimony that is to how God can even make the small amount you feel you are doing, spread to the many.

We are making great connections in the university with both students and staff. The students in one class have been over for a party and now our connection with them has strengthened. The staff are inviting themselves over to our house and are reminding us everyday that they are coming (as if we would forget)!!!! Even our connection with the western teaching staff is getting stronger and stronger.


Lunch after church

Sunday 12th August was a huge service for us. We invited a Cambodian to come and speak to the church. He spoke to the people about doing the right thing, living right for God and helping each other. 48 people came to church and afterwards we all shared a meal together. There were a lot of people encouraged by the message and fellowship that day. 

Our village visits are getting more and more frequent as we establish relationships with the villagers. Last month we were able to visit Puok and Dom Dek a few times, eating, praying and just plain ol' socialising with everyone. Love that part of the journey, just getting down and talking real.

Visiting the children in their homes

English Classes have grown and grown and now I have 30 students registered. New ones are always showing up and just this week one of my new students came to me after class and thanked me for teaching him and said the class was such a lot of fun. Another student wrote me a lovely note and drew some flowers for me. They really appreciate it and are very responsive during class. I love to just watch how much they have grown in knowledge and relaxing more in their speech.

Marks Leadership Classes are also a huge success with students regularly coming each week. Just to get them to stop and look at thier lives and see what path they are on. To watch them as they discover those "ahah" moments when the light goes on. Very rewarding and exciting to see how we can just encourage them to think like they have never thought before.



C3 Siem Reap

Both of these avenues have been a great outreach for the church. Our church has now lots of English and Leadership students who have a heart for God and a huge desire to learn.

Please continue to pray for us. We value all kinds of support and encouragement as we do this journey with you.

Heaps of love on all of you xxx

Pastors Mark and Marian

C3 Siem Reap Update

Great News!!!! The lady we have been praying for with Hepatitis is reported to have started feeling better on Sunday night. We visited and prayed for her on Saturday while her family were preparing themselves for her death and then on Sunday evening she starts feeling better!! Praise God He IS working in her body,  please keep praying for a complete healing as we believe this is going to be a miracle from God. We praise God for her salvation but now we are believing for a miracle in her healing.

Selecting the seeds

We then visited another village where we had lunch together. This family are farmers and so we had the opportunity to show them vegetable seeds that were kindly donated from our Australian friend Ray. They were so excited to look through the seeds and to be told they could choose whatever seed they would like to plant in their village. They took a wonderful variety of seeds and asked us to return and see how they were growing - this will be a very exciting thing to see for us. We can see how a few seeds could feed a whole family or a whole village!!!

The father in this family is a faith healer and we talked to him about the bible and the things of God. We gave them a small story book and a bible and what a joy it was to see this family reading the books and reading the bible.

Kids Church Pioneers

Last Sunday we started our first Kids Church session. The numbers of our smaller people have been growing steadily and so we felt God call us to start something for them. 9 beautiful little  people sat around our dining room table listening to the story of creation taught through my interpreter Kim Eng. They learned about each day that God made the earth and then when quizzed later on could correctly answer every question (they are so hungry to learn)!! Then we coloured in a picture while talking about the beauty of creation. Keep praying for these as we believe they will be the future of C3 Siem Reap.

The English Class is still operating very successfully, with new students interested every week. We will continue until the end of term now (July 6th) as nobody wants to take a break. Next term we will have to look at maybe adding another class due to the interest of many eager students. Please pray that we can operate more classes, physically and financially as some of the students are coming to church and bringing their friends and family.

Thank you for all your support and prayers and keep tuned for more of our adventures in God in Siem Reap. xxxxxxx

C3 Siem Reap Update

Last week we had a wonderful visit from my sister Cathy and her husband Mark. It was great catching up with family and showing them around the city of Siem Reap. Family are a blessing and I just want to encourage you not to take what you have for granted. God has put us in a family and we must cherish them with our time, our love, our support and definitely our prayers.

Some plant, others harvest!

We visited a village in Puok district about 18 kms from Siem Reap. When we arrived they were planting rice out in the rice fields. Mark decided to help them as rice planting is hard work and after all, we are here to support the people, build relationships and show the love of Jesus. They were really appreciative, I think, and Mark promised to come and help for another 10 minutes in the future, gosh we went away feeling like we had really made a difference!!!!!!


The English class are growing in numbers. We are still getting inquiries and people wanting to join our class. This is a great way to meet the locals and a few of them are interested in coming to church on Sundays. I am also learning about English as I am teaching. We are realising we can speak English but we do not know why we say it the way we do!!


Our Sunday meeting starts at 8.30am and by 8.50am only 1 person had arrived, after a short meeting we decided to go and have coffee. The kettle went on and the food came out and 11 people came through the door. They were late as Sunday was election day in Cambodia.


So we had church and Mark taught about God's love and the family relationships. For a Cambodian, love is not shown openly and to be told that God loves them no matter what is a real revelation and encouragement to them. That morning we saw 4 people give their lives to Jesus!! 


Then on Tuesday our young members had a day off school so they came over for a visit. What a great time we had eating, playing soccer, doing puzzles and just hanging out. What a joy to know we are making an impact as they want to come and see us. Language is still a barrier but Gods love seems to break those barriers down. Pray for these young people who will be the leaders of tomorrow.


Keep supporting us with your words of encouragement, your prayers and your finances. We are moving forward, taking this land and bit by bit impacting lives with the love of God wherever we go. Love you xxxxxxxxxxxx

C3 Siem Reap update

What a great week this has been!! How exciting to be a part of what is happening in Cambodia.

Our new little addition

Last Sunday one of our mums gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. We had the privilege of being invited to their home to see the new arrival. What a miracle! tiny hands and feet and a welcome playmate for brother Alex. Mother looking radiant and Dad all puffed up with pride. This is what it is all about - doing life together.


The English classes are pumping now.  I have 6 regulars and a few that come every now and then (which is something I will have to get used to here). My regulars are keen to learn, interactive and always asking questions - they aim to keep me on my toes. Sunday we saw 3 of them at church, which goes to show what a great outreach teaching English is.

Attentive ears and hearts

On Sunday we saw 20 people fill our front room, all here to be a part of the beginning of our soon to be massive church :)) Mark spoke about the love of God and how fear does not rule our actions because we know God has everything under control. A lot of people were touched and encouraged through this revelation as Cambodian culture is dominated by fear, rejection and loveless relationships.

Hepatitis gone in Jesus name

After church we went to Dom Dek (village about an hour from Siem Reap). We visited a couple who are the parents of one of our members. The mother has Hepatitis and was very sick. We laid our hands on her and prayed for her healing. Her skin and eyes are very yellow and she has no energy to do anything. We believe that God will heal her and we are looking forward to going back and seeing her skin and eyes a healthy colour and to see her moving around. Her son said that she is usually a very busy person so we want to see that happening again!!! Healed in Jesus name.


We also visited another family of one of our church members, as they lived close by in this village too. We were their first foreign visitors to that village. The father, who was very happy to see us, is the village faith healer and was performing a healing ritual on a patient when we arrived. This is very common in the outer villages as the doctor is very expensive and so people go to the faith healer instead. After we sat and talked a while he was interested in us coming out to his village and having some bible studies there and he would arrange for the people to come. Pray for favour in this village and that God can be the healer for them, for their lives and their bodies.


Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We value your contact and words of encouragement. God has his hand on everything we do and he blesses our path before we go down it - Psalm 32:8. When we put God first in everything we do, how can we not win!! That is not just a message for me but for you too - Matthew 6:33. Love ya heaps xxxxxxx

Miracles and Lake Baray

Well things are definitely on the move!! I started our first Free English Classes on Thursday and I have 10 students already.
We meet every week day morning from 7am for one hour. They are so keen that most mornings they arrive about 10 minutes early, ready for lessons!! Learning English here is a big need, as to get a good job you need to be able to speak English. It can be expensive to learn and so given the opportunity to learn for free is a big excitement for them. They are attentive and interactive and a real joy to teach. Praise God that they get such a vital tool to help them in their future like this. Pray that the students will come to church and find the real answer to their future.

Our first and most exciting miracle is the pregnancy of one of our members. She has been married for 4 years now and her and her husband have been trying to fall pregnant for quite some time. When we found this out we prayed immediately that she would fall pregnant and bear a beautiful, healthy child and all would go well with her pregnancy. When Pastor Claude visited in March he also prayed for this to happen. Last week she went to the Doctor who confirmed she is pregnant and due February next year. Praise God for his goodness in answering her prayers, please continue to pray for her pregnancy that all will go well for both of them and after the birth also. They are both jumping for joy and praising God for He is the one that knows our needs.

Another miracle was in a healing for an elderly mother of one of our members. Her mother had a blood disorder and was on a drip and bed ridden. The doctor was seeing her at her home but she was not improving. We went to visit her in her village and layed hands on her and prayed for a miraculous healing of her blood and an increase in her red blood cells. She said that she felt a real warmth flow through every part of her body and both Mark and I felt the same thing. Well now she is off the drip, walking around and getting better and stronger every day. Isn't God the best thing ever????

Water Filter and Fan for the family

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3 pairs of happy eyes

While we were out in the village we took with us a free standing fan and a water purification bucket. The water they were drinking was straight from a small stream and the only fan they had for the whole family was one small desk fan. How grateful they were for such small gifts. The old man had trouble with his eyes and was not able to read. He is a Christian and wanted to read his bible. I was given some reading glasses by my parents which I took to the village and we went through them and one of them was just the right lens. His wife and sister came over and asked if I had any more as they had the same problem, I did have some more and I had ones that they could use too. They were so grateful and the old man did not stop thanking me the whole time we were there.!! This sort of thing brings joy to our soul and we know we are here for a reason!!

Under the Umbrella at Lake Baray

On Sunday we took 13 children and 13 adults out to Lake Baray, which is only about 17 kilometres from Siem Reap.

We had a great day of fun and fellowship with soccer balls, footballs and badminton racquet's for sand play and tyre tubes for water sport. It was a great time to get to know each other in a different setting and everyone loved it. We booked a little restaurant out there and sat under the umbrellas on deck chairs, swung on the love seat or just lay on the mats. The children ate fried rice and the adults shared a Khmer BBQ. Then the rain came and came and came and came!!!! The place flooded in about 20 minutes. It did not stop them from swimming or playing games though, they just kept right on enjoying themselves (a lesson we can all learn)!!

Please keep us in your prayers and if you want to be involved in what we are doing either by bringing out teams to support our projects, provision of resources or finances then we would love to hear from you.

You can contact us through Facebook, email or phone.

Facebook -Mark Barham                           Marian Barham
Email - markb@c3r.org.au                          marianb@c3r.org.au  
phone - +855 97 900 1182                       +855 97 900 1183 

C3 Siem Reap Stronger and Stronger

We have been residents of the Kingdom of Cambodia for nearly four months now and really feel that God knows what he was doing when he put us here.


We are in the hot season in Cambodia. The temperatures have been in the very high 30's and the nights in the high 20's with very high humidity. This weather is really good for my skin (no I am not vain, just appreciating all the benefits)!!


The beginnings of our church are taking shape every week. We have around 20 people on our records but not all of them attend every week. On an average we would see 10 - 12 regulars, but as we know, we will not despise the small beginnings.  It is not about the numbers, but about the hearts - and isn't that true! Our small congregation are hungry for God, hungry to learn more about the bible and living as a Christian and they love to fellowship with each other. We have some snacks and drinks after the meeting and everyone loves to stay behind and chat and get to know each other a little bit better. Funny when you are English speaking in a room of Khmer speakers - even though I can now pick up on some of the words, I still really have no idea what they are talking about but it is great to watch them communicate so freely with each other.


I have started advertising for free English classes that I can run in my home. So far I have got 5 interested  students who will meet daily from 7am - 8am in the morning. It is a great way of getting to know people and I am really looking forward to seeing them improve in the English Speaking - think we could throw a bit of Life Coaching in there somewhere too!! Pray that God will increase this group, so we can see 20 students in this class.


We are still teaching English at the university. We would like to start bible studies in the evenings and have some fellowship  over dinner, but currently we are teaching in the evenings. We are going to ask them to consider changing our scheduled work times so we both work similar hours in the afternoon. For us the best time is 2pm - 5pm Monday to Friday - please pray for us that those with the authority will grant our request.


Mark is teaching the teachers at a local primary school on Monday mornings. This is going really well and he has had some wonderful feedback from teachers and management. The school gets all the teachers from the two schools they have in Siem Reap together so that Mark can speak to them about improving their outlook on life, their relationship with their students, their future plans and relationships. We do this on a voluntary basis and are seeing some great results from the changes in the teachers and in building our own network.


We have started a Saturday night outreach at our house, open to anyone who wants to come. We had our first one last Saturday which saw 26 people come. It was a great time over food and fellowship, which saw kids watching movies, parents talking together, mini golf, table tennis and playing drums. The neighbours came, people we invited that we met in coffee shops and some church members. It was a great night of just getting to know each other and one person said it was the best Saturday night they had had for a long time. We will hold these every fortnight so pray that we get the opportunity to share the gospel because we want to have these as fun times with no pressure but still create a presence and atmosphere that will allow God to move.


Last Sunday morning saw a great move of God in our meeting. We had communion together and talked about how we are all part of the body of Christ, we are a family that shares, laughs, cries and eats together. We talked about prayer and how to  pray. After the meeting Mark called everyone up who wanted prayer - evereyone came forward!! They were hungry for more of God, their hearts were open and receptive. We layed hands on each of them and prayed for the awesome power of God to fill their worlds. Later they tried to explain a hot feeling they had in their body and how they felt the weight of their worries just lifting off. God really showed up and showed off, they were still beaming when they went home!!


Pray for continued good health (because it has been great, we are both really well). Pray for income generation which allows us freedom to do what God wants and also to reach out to the community. Pray that God will use us to extend his kingdom in this kingdom. We love you and miss you all but know that with the sacrifices comes great blessing. xxxx