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Important Notice to USA friends: Our Fundrazr campaign is in Hong Kong Dollars. $1 USDollar equals $7.75 HKDollars. USA friends might want to use a conversion tool like this one to figure the exact amount to donate: http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/

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"Out of a Cambodian population of 15.4 million, approximately 4 million people live on less than $1.25 per day, and 37% of Cambodian children under the age of 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition."

Hello to all our amazing, beautiful friends out there!

Please join with us financially in blessing poor children and families in Cambodia this Christmas! We will be in Cambodia from December 21st, 2015 to January 1st, 2016. Our team is comprised of three friends: Grandma Jean Minty, and husband and wife Mike and Alice Kitajima. Our bond of friendship runs deep in the affection of Jesus Christ. We all met through volunteering at "Love Wanchai", a ministry here in Hong Kong that reaches out to the victimized women of the red light district. We love sharing Father God's amazing love with the broken and marginalized, and we love seeing the miraculous power and grace of Holy Spirit supernaturally touch and change lives in the public square.

In November we all went on an incredible mission trip to Indonesia where we saw many accept the gospel, witnessed many miraculous healings, and ministered to many broken hearts overwhelmed by the restoring love of God. During this time, it seemed that Holy Spirit continued to remind us not to forget the poor of Cambodia. As the Christmas season approached, we felt the Lord confirming this and we bought plane tickets and booked hotels. We felt like the Lord gave us a vision for the type of ministry we would be involved in, however we had no ministry contacts with whom to partner! Then the Lord led us to Reaching Kids International, Cambodia. As we got to know them, we realized that they were actually involved in all the different types of ministry the Lord had laid on our hearts and they welcomed us to partner with them during our trip. God is faithful! (Read more about RKI, Cambodia here: http://www.reachingkids.org/cambodia/ )

Some of the main items on our trip agenda:

visit 4 (possibly a 5th) separate rural villages (3 of them near the infamous "Killing Fields") distributing food, preaching the gospel, praying for the sick and loving and hugging precious Cambodian people.
one of these villages is the home base for families who rely for their sustenance on combing through the Phnom Penh garbage dump for food and whatever else can be scavenged.
visit another village near Kampot where the door for gospel ministry is just beginning to open and distribute 50kg sacks of rice and tarps to fix leaking roofs for 19 families. We will also help deliver blankets to a total of 51 families in that village.
visit the RKI orphanage for a church service, prepare and serve a Christmas meal for 100+ people and give gifts to the orphans.
participate in a Christmas outreach in the red light disctrict of Phnom Penh.
in Phnom Penh we will spend part of our stay at the hotel run by the Daughters of Cambodia NGO, where victims of sex trafficking are given a chance to earn a decent wage and rebuild their lives
visit some sights along the way like the Killing Fields, the Toul Slang Prison museum, and the Angor Wat temple ruins.
during our 11 day trip we will visit 3 cities, 4 rural villages, and an orphanage. We will reach over 200 families with the gospel, and deliver various combinations of rice, meals, tarps, blankets, clothing and Christmas gifts according to the needs of the recipients.
Of course, wherever we go, whether delivering rice in a village, buying from a local shop keeper, or engaging with a foreign tourist in an ancient temple; we will testify of the risen Jesus, lay hands on the sick, and speak words of life to beautiful people for whom Christ died so they could be free indeed.

Why a crowdsourcing campaign? We had already committed to this trip and booked our flights and hotels. However, as the details of the needs of the people became clear, we realized that a round of fundraising could greatly increase the impact we could have in such an impoverished country. We also recognized that God had been leading people to contribute financially to this trip even before we knew what we would be doing. There is soooo much blessing in giving to the least and the lost. So we decided to invite friends to invest with us in the lives of children in Cambodia in a more intentional way and reap great Kingdom blessings. Together we can have a broader incarnational impact on hurting families in Cambodia: ministering to bodies, minds and spirits, demonstrating the gospel in word and action.

Question: If we do not recieve the money we are asking for, will we proceed with the trip? Answer: We will the proceed with the trip no matter what. The additional funds will help us to minister to the families we will be visiting in a more strategically holistic way. We have already committed to giving rice for a month and tarps to repare leakey roofs to 19 families in the Kampot area vilage for the amount of $4700 HKD ($570 USD) but with additional funds we can also supply mosquito nets (a matter of disease control) to 115 families in the villages near the killing fields for the cost of $5340 HKD ($690 USD). We have already committed to purchasing a two month supply of rice to deliver to the orphange for $870 HKD ($112 USD) but we would love to have additional funds to purchase some meaningful Christmas gifts for the orphans as well, because our Father has more than just rice to bless his kids with. A little bit of money goes a long way in Cambodia: $21 HKD buys a 5 kg bag of rice ($2.70 USD), $230 HKD ($30 USD) buys a bicycle so a rural orphan doesn't have to walk 2 hours to school, $1,500 HKD ($193 USD) can clothe all the children in a village of over 100 families.

Some other costs:

Renting a 15 passenger van with driver to transport our team, the RKI staff, and deliver rice and gifts will cost $3,400 HKD ($440.00 USD) If you google a map of Cambodia and look up Kampot, Phnom Penh and Siem Reap you will see that during our stay there, we will cover almost the whole length of the country on our outreaches. This cost covers all gas as well and is sufficient for the duration of the trip.
A professional Christian translator for all the outreaches so we can share the gospel with greatest impact will cost $580 HKD ($75 USD)
Clothing for kids in the Killing Fields vilages (115 families): $1550 HKD ($200 USD).
3 of the rural villages near Phnom Penh we are visiting are in the vicinity of the Killing Fields. If we recieve enough funds we will also visit another village that lies in the opposite direction from Phnom Penh as it requires an additional day of van rental. In that village the entire community is situated within a rock quarry, where young and old make a living breaking large rocks into gravel with hand tools for the below poverty level wage of $1.25 USD a day. Cost of van rental and delivering 5kg bags of rice to 50 families there is $1,550 HKD ($200 USD).

To get a better picture of the kind of ministry Reaching Kids International, Cambodia is engaged in, you can watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3ozHb27sLw&index=1&list=PLrsr35F8aj_1duZKovbBttM18-tghLSvm

Question: If I contribute money is it going to cover your personal flight and hotel costs? Answer: We have decided that we will channel no contributions towards our flight or hotel costs unless we first meet all the local needs that have been presented to us by our contacts, which comes to $18,000 HKD of our goal ($2,300 USD). Only if we meet and exceed that amount will we then consider offsetting any portion of our personal flight and hotel expenses.

As Holy Spirit leads, please support us financially and in prayer as we endeavor to bring a More Merry Gospel Christmas to poor families in Cambodia!

Thanks so much for reading this, sharing this link and supporting. We love and bless you all!

Want to learn more about Cambodia? Check out these links:

https://omf.org/cambodia/cambodia-profile/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodia

Thankyou card with print of painting by Alice

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