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From left: Tina and Paul Holderman, with their children Jacob, Rachel, and Benjamin.
Photo: Jeremy Hess |
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Surprised by God's call
SALUNGA, Pa. – Paul and Tina Holderman of Chambersburg, Pa., never planned to pack up their three young children – Rachel, Benjamin, and Jacob – and serve on the other side of the world in a foreign culture. But sometimes God has a way of shaking up our plans.
Approximately five years ago, some of the Holdermans' church leaders asked them to consider going to Cambodia. Paul’s response was, “You’ve got to kidding me. I will never go to Cambodia!”
Speaking at an Eastern Mennonite Missions chapel at the conclusion of a three-year term in Cambodia, Paul continued, “It took about a year of God working through us and teaching us – but we did go to Cambodia.”
They worked at the Church of Peace in Christ (now named the Phnom Penh Mennonite Church), which EMM workers Darrel and Susan Caldwell had planted, and which Darrel led as pastor, preaching most Sundays. Darrel and Susan's plans to go on a one-year furlough stretched Paul even further. “We had been shoulder-tapped for economic development work there, and that was what I agreed to go do. If I had known I would have also been leading a young church through leadership development and more, I never would have gone!” He chuckles, “So I guess God knew how to get us there.”
When the Holdermans arrived in Cambodia, they sensed that the church was very interested in learning to lead themselves. That was fine with Paul, who says, “I could not take over Darrel’s role. I had never been to seminary. I could not lead this church. So what I did was force the Khmer leaders to lead their church! I did not feel qualified; in 1 Corinthians 1 it talks about God using the foolish to confound the wise, and the weak to confound the strong. I was very weak and very foolish, yet God used us to strengthen this young church.
“We took the opportunity to empower two young men to lead the church, commissioning them as elders. They began to carry the load of the church, with me giving advice. Both of them had gone through three years of Bible training, and one was willing to become a pastor-in-training. Then we also pulled together all of the leaders of different ministries to create a ministry team that started to function as the leadership body within the church.
“My basic role was encouragement, to say ‘you can do it, you know your culture better than I do.’ I dropped back into roles of teaching Mennonite history, Mennonite theology – which mostly I had to learn because I wasn’t that versed in it myself. We also began a project of getting the Mennonite Confession of Faith translated into their language.”
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Paul (left) visits with a Cambodian believer who is partnering in an agricultural project.
Photo: Jeremy Hess |
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Glenn Kauffman, representative to Asia for Eastern Mennonite Missions, provided behind-the-scenes encouragement and help. Paul says, “Glenn kept encouraging me to bring my loaves and fishes [to God], and that’s all I could do.”
During the process of developing their leadership, the Cambodians began to express interest in a stronger connection with the worldwide Mennonite Church. Paul says, “They did not want to be a tiny little church all by themselves in the big wide world.” In that process, they changed the church's name to Phnom Penh Mennonite Church.
Paul continues, “They also wanted to register with the government, so we worked at developing a constitution. They wanted me to just write it, but I said, ‘No!’ I thought they could write it. It took nearly two years, but they wrote a constitution, with a lot of guidance from me. In the end, they thanked me for not doing it for them, forcing them to work through the process themselves.
“After the constitution was written, they had their first election of elders. That was a significant step for them, toward becoming a church that could function on their own.”
Darrel and Susan Caldwell have now returned, and are relating to the church in a different way now that the church is exercising its own leadership. This frees the Caldwells to continue in their giftings, to plant a new church in a different location. The Caldwells are connecting with the families and villages of students living in the EMM dorms in Phnom Penh. These students come from all over Cambodia, many from small country villages that have never heard the gospel.
Paul sums up, “I guess we want to thank you for sending us to Cambodia! That sounds strange coming out of my mouth. It was not an easy task for me. I spent a lot of time in prayer, many times praying for wisdom! While our three years on the mission field of Cambodia were the hardest, most stretching years of our lives, we would not trade them for anything. It was a privilege to be a part of God's work among the Cambodian people. We learned so much!"
Paul and Tina presented Eastern Mennonite Missions with a hand-painted Cambodian banner with the words, “As the waters cover the sea,” from EMM’s theme verse Habakkuk 2:14 – “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”
The Holdermans attend Marion Mennonite Church (Chambersburg, Pa.), a part of Franklin Mennonite Conference.
- Kenton Glick
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