Cambodian Herald
Bringing News of Cambodia
and Cambodian Communities out of Crisis
Issue 19
Timothy College and Business Institute
The Story So Far
Write the vision and make it plain (Habakkuk 2: 2)
During a visit to Cambodia in 1996, God prompted the then Cambodian Communities out of Crisis (CCC) Director
and Treasurer (Ross Rennie and Tony Nixon) to make a grant to pay for three young Cambodian men to take
courses in business studies at a college in Phnom Penh. This was the beginning of CCC’s involvement with edu-
cation, which has continued to the present day.
In 1999, God gave to CCC Council members Ross Rennie and
Myers Cooper a vision for a college that would provide young
Cambodian men and women with high-quality higher education
in a Christian environment. Some of the students would be
Christians and would be equipped to serve in their churches,
but the college would be open to students of any religion or
none, and CCC’s aim would be for them come under the influ-
ence of the gospel and the Christian ethos of the college dur-
ing their time there. The Lord spoke independently to Ross and
Myers and gave to each of them the same name for the col-
lege: Timothy College.
CCC Council members shared this vision with various Cambodian church leaders and they were supportive of the
idea. However, the priority of most of them was to establish Bible colleges and institutions that would train church
workers and leaders.
Over the ensuing years, CCC waited and held on to the vision. We observed the price of land in Cambodia in-
crease to astronomical levels. We became more and more aware of our inexperience in the field of education and
the management of such a large-scale project as this. But we hung on to two guiding principles:
1. If this project was truly initiated by God, He would be the one to pay for it and He would provide the right
people with the right skills to make it happen.
2. The project had to be owned and managed by the Cambodian church. We as foreigners, no matter how
strong our commitment to Cambodia, had no right to impose something on the Cambodian people. They would
have the responsibility to run the college long after we had gone. We needed a trustworthy Cambodian partner.
A Breakthrough
Though [the vision] tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay
(Habakkuk 2: 3)
In 1995, Mam Barnabas, Sar Paulerk and the late Chhor Siharath founded the Living Hope in Christ Church
(LHCC) in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. CCC established an enduring friendship with these men and
with the church. Several of the younger members of the church received sponsorship from CCC to attend univer-
sity. Myers Cooper was a member of the church during extended visits to Cambodia in the early 2000s.
In October 2016, three CCC Council members visited Cambodia
and renewed fellowship with LHCC, now under the leadership of
Khem Sanith and Soun Both (pictured, right). In the course of
our conversations with these two men we discovered a remark-
able fact.
In accordance with the word of the Lord to us in Habakkuk 2: 2,
3, we had written the vision, made it plain and waited for it. Now
we had discovered that the partner we had been seeking was
known to us all along. Sanith and Both told us about a threefold
vision with which CCC could be involved.
Continued on page 2…