One Nation in One Generation

MBI exists to help YWAM locations thrive and achieve the best possible kingdom results in their work. In January, MBI’s Leadership13 (L13) members Ron Brewster and Dawn Masucci traveled to Cambodia to continue training and encouraging the YWAM Battambang University of the Nations leadership and staff. Ron’s wife, Jeanette, accompanied them to provide debriefing services. MBI is helping YWAM Battambang realize its vision for “serving the community, educating youth, and developing leaders” in Cambodia.

Cambodia is recovering from the genocidal war waged against its people by the Pol Pot regime in the mid-‘70s, which devastated their elderly and educated population, leaving the vulnerable young to fend for themselves. According to WHO and the UN, Cambodians still face widespread poverty and illiteracy, lack of proper sanitation and access to clean drinking water, HIV/AIDS, malnutrition, and sex trafficking. But the missionaries at YWAM Battambang believe they can “transform the nation in one generation.” They accomplish this through elementary education, teaching English, reaching out to families facing HIV/AIDS, fitness programs, business-as-missions projects, youth development, and more.

As the MBI team made the four-hour journey to Battambang, they listened to worship songs and discovered that their driver, a man named Dang, was a believer. Dang told the team that in the ‘90s, a former YWAM outreach center took him in when he was thirteen years old. He became a follower of Jesus, which is remarkable since only 2% of Cambodians are Christians (YWAM Battambang has since started a church to share the gospel; it now has 350 believers, with indigenous staff and preaching). He learned English there, which allowed him to find a job driving and earn a living. Today, Dang is married and has two children, nine and eleven.”

Ron says: “Does it really matter what MBI does to help YWAM locations and missionaries? It matters to people like Dang, our driver! It’s a good reminder that there are Dangs all over the world, and what we do weaves us into beautiful God stories!”