Source: Tearfund, July 26, 2019<\/p>\n
Chouma lives with her husband and daughter in a small village on the side of a mountain, near the border between Cambodia and Vietnam.<\/p>\n
Chouma became a Christian when a few people from the local church prayed for healing from a sickness she\u2019d had for many years. She was healed instantly and has been attending the church ever since.<\/p>\n
However, living as a Christian in this community wasn\u2019t easy. She was verbally abused by her neighbors. On a few occasions, she even had stones thrown at her while she was worshiping.<\/p>\n
A few years ago, Tearfund\u2019s local partner started working with churches in the area. Through a series of Bible studies and workshops, they equipped Christians to be agents of positive change in their communities.<\/p>\n
The Bible studies sparked something in Chouma. She helped coordinate a number of initiatives in the village, such as a savings group and chicken rearing. [She also] set aside a corner of her house to raise crickets, which are a popular snack in Cambodia. With help from her pastor, Chouma had soon established a profitable cricket farm. Seeing her success, other members of the community started visiting Chouma to learn about the business. Now, 25 families in the village are raising crickets.<\/p>\n
But Chouma didn\u2019t stop there. The road to her village had been damaged for a long time\u2014a big problem in such a remote area. Chouma got her church members to pool their resources and buy some cement. The whole community is now united around the road repairs, which are being led by Chouma\u2019s husband.<\/p>\n
The village now see the Christians in an entirely different light, and Chouma is hoping that the church will continue to grow.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Tearfund, July 26, 2019 Chouma lives with her husband and daughter in a small village on the side of a mountain, near the border between Cambodia and Vietnam. Chouma became a Christian when a few people from the local church prayed for healing from a sickness she\u2019d had for many years. She was healed … Continue reading SOUTHEAST ASIA: The Power of Crickets<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8719,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8718\/revisions\/8719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}