In January of 2014, the Cambodia District of the Southeast Asia Field elected their first Nazarene Compassionate Ministries Board. The four member board is the first of its kind and the first ever elected board for Cambodia.

“We have some countries with extreme poverty on the Southeast Asia Field, and this board is a tremendous step in District Development as they work towards putting in place the infrastructure necessary to respond to the needs of their communities,” stated David Phillips, Southeast Asia Field Strategy Coordinator.

One of the needs currently being responded to is the need by students for bicycles in order to get to school.  A program is being developed whereby students have the opportunity to acquire bicycles at a significantly reduced price.  This will allow the students to attend schools that would otherwise be too far away for walking.

Another project is a “rice bank” for seed rice.  This will provide local farmers with a source of seed, increasing their growing capacity, so that they will not need to borrow money at high interest rates in order to keep their production going.  It will also provide a resource in years where natural disaster destroys the current rice crops.

Empowering the local churches towards establishment of  their own Nazarene Compassionate Ministries programs is just one of the major benefits to District Development.