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The small percentage of praying Christians began to have an impact over the spiritual atmosphere over Cambodia
in the early 1970s. The curtain was getting ready to fall on the civil liberties of the Cambodians as the communists were
situated to take power in their war torn country. In answer to the call of praying believers, evangelists and missionaries
from other nations were arriving to preach the good news. One of their number was an unknown evangelist by the name of Todd
Burke. Burke realized that he had happened upon a spiritual powder keg when over 5,000 people attended his first crusade in
Phnom Penh. Long lines of people assembled early in the morning and thousands poured into the venue. Hundreds filled the altar
to be prayed for, to receive Christ, and to pray for others. Many in the audience were refugees from the war, carrying some
mark of the war on their bodies. Even many missing limbs and hearts ravaged by a war which had cost the lives of millions.
Suddenly, for a moments-time, the images of war to a back seat to the move of the Holy Spirit, as thousands throughout Phnom
Penh came to a spiritual oasis. The peace of the Lord filled the air as thousands heard the Gospel for the first time and
many of them responding to the call to surrender. This move of the Holy Spirit even caught the attention of television and
newspaper reporters who had come to cover the war. Images of people repenting, praying, and receiving Christ made papers and
television newscasts worldwide. The Spirit of God planted the Word deeply within the hearts of the Cambodian Christians. Then
the curtain fell, the Communists seized power in 1975 and set out to systematically eradicate praying Christians in Cambodia.
Fellowships were closed, missionaries ejected, and thousands of Christians martyred as enemies of the state. But it was too
late; the Praying House Church Movement was underway. The people of Cambodia, though oppressed, longed for an internal freedom
that the religious world view of Buddhism could not provide, nor could it provide the inspiration to resist communism. But
that was a feat that was no problem for the Holy Spirit and praying Christians throughout Cambodia. As citizens began to look
elsewhere for the answers to the deeper questions surrounding their political and social struggle, the church of Cambodia
began to grow. The answer to the spiritual hunger was in the works as for the next 15 years Christians quietly met in secret
to pray and fellowship. A Burgeoning House Church Movement would pave the way. The communists killed over 1 million Cambodians
between 1975 and 1979. Over the next 17 years Cambodia would find itself engulfed in political turmoil as power changed hands
frequently. All of which served to lessen the restrictions on Christians and by 1990 missionaries from neighboring countries
like China, and even as far away as Korea began to reach out to the Cambodians. The wide spread misery caused by the civil
war opened new doors for the Gospel. A small number of foreign missionaries trained Cambodian church planters who together
with radio evangelism started a small number of public congregations. Around 1995 further Christian groups arrived in the
nation, and by the end of that year there were some 60 congregations in the nation, in every province. Then the church of
Cambodia exploded in 1997 with over a 120 congregations covering the nation, with some 20,000 praying believers. This decisive
growth started in 1997 when the churches began to multiply themselves without the intervention from the national church planters
or foreign missionaries. It was unstoppable. Prayer began to fill the homes of the Christian Cambodians. The Spirit of God
began to move like lightning from heart to heart as the prayers of God's people changed the lives of hundreds of thousands.
Today there are over 1,000 publicly recognized congregations in this small nation of Cambodia, not counting the Mighty House
Church Movement. It is estimated that there are between 3 and 400,000 praying Cambodian Christians. By the year 2,000, Western
missionaries, as was the case in China, were stunned to see the rapid growth of the body of Christ. It's happening in
Cambodia and around the world as God writes this story for his pleasure.
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