12.08.2023

Entrapments with a high cost

The travel is long, but far more convenient and comfortable than the missionaries who paved the trail that we now follow. We have far less fear of unknown acceptance than those who arrived in these places a hundred years ago, even 50 years ago. Survival to be able to share is not so great a concern. Today, it is peoples coolness to considering eternal consequences of knowing the ONE true God. Trinkets and toys, power and prosperity; life today and what it offers have all placed a powerful filter over the eyes and hearts of people. It is not automatic to consider, “where will I go when I die?

How to prepare, how to know about going to heaven or hell seems to be a distant concern. It is our work to make that a present concern. It is not our job to convict or convince but it is our work to create awareness. So many have no answer and seem so unwilling to even confront the question.

The absence of the Gospel results in atrocities to mankind. Including child trafficking which to us is the spotlight showing us the communities where we should focus our work. The communities where only changed hearts can provide lasting changed culture.

Riches, power, control and fame are the entrapments that lure many away from truth. Like a mouse to cheese, many go for the cheese and the result is never what was expected.

Dear friends and supporters, please pray for our effectiveness even more than “safe travels”. As we work with the rising generation of leaders in Cambodia, it is our privilege. It is your gifts that enable us to be engaged. To be offering the most useful years of our lives to the work we are privileged to do. We hope in the end, we will draw many to the facts of the truth.

Too much is at stake, for too many people to not use every ounce of energy God gives us for His work.

“As for me and My house, we will serve the Lord.”

~ Joshua 24:15

We plan to be running full-out when heaven calls us home.

This is an invitation to you to partner with us if this cause seems right to you.

Merry Christmas and thank you for being part of our support team.

06.15.2023

Built to be a brothel. But God……..

Built to be a brothel. But God..,..

What if the owner of this building had fulfilled her plan of opening a large brothel with over 40 “guest” rooms rentable by the hour? This community is overflowing with vulnerable children whose parents work in nearby garment factories barely earning enough to sustain day to day living. When cash is short, selling kids is frequent. The supply of victims is abundant. The shortage of cash is constant.

What a joy to be serving God in this community! Actively involved in the prevention of human trafficking and the restoration of victims and their families, the Livingstons (a/k/a IncurableFanatics) started and now serve as mentors in a rapidly growing (400+ student) Christian school for at risk children and their families. Bible instruction, teacher training, life skill mentoring, parent education and leadership development are their emphasis. A community where the lights are bright on the outside but nearby the darkest of atrocities are acceptable practice.

In addition, the Livingstons are working closely with Cambodian artists helping them form profitable businesses based biblical principles. These become influencers and form the basis for new school/church plants.

They begin to take charge of sharing the Gospel and seeing it change their own community.

Through the work of @IncurableFanatics (FB) and local Khmer leadership, a small Christian Fellowship has been planted at the school where last month 8 prayed to receive Christ and were baptized! This is why we do what we do. This is why we seek continued and new partnerships with like minded and committed believers.

We cannot express sufficiently our gratitude for the support of IOM (International Outreach Ministries International Outreach Ministries) and our own Advisory Team. These seasoned church and missions leaders believe in what we do and provide assurance of accountability to our donors. This is an integral part of being active on the mission field. And to our donors. Your investment in lives is bearing fruit. We thank you.

Blessings to you from Pete & Debbie, IncurableFanatics.org

Your donations are tax deductible and fully accounted for through IOM. And of course greatly appreciated.

05.17.2023

Be The Change

See something wrong? Do something about it.

See something questionable? Ask some questions.

See suspicious activity? Record it and report it.

Everyday on social media I see complainers who think complaining accomplishes something. It rarely does. Action brings change. Action takes only a small amount of effort and it really can bring change.

See an abandoned kid? Check it out. See a struggling old timer? Help them complete their task.

Be The Change!

If you won’t, and you, and you, and you ………and me ..…

Our world is in free fall decay and there are way too many spectators.

Be The Change! Do It!

02.12.2023

For what are we designed? For what are we saved?

The primary purpose of man, of the life of man, is to glorify the One who created it and saved us for his purpose.

That thought is certainly not new to me, so I claim no authorship or bright insight to have expressed it. But…..

This thought has so captivated me that it has altered the course of my life, my work, my joy.

So, in believing this so deeply, I cannot carry it simply as an academic or intellectual truth. It compels me to think and dream and plan for how I can use my life each day to spread the greatest joy to the hearts of those who have not yet discovered this for themselves. It drives me to act every day.

Debbie and I share this passion and this in itself is a joy. To share a vision with your covenant partner in marriage adds both excitement and ease in decisions.

In April, we will return again, as the government permits, to our beloved friends (family) in Cambodia to walk with and beside them in the work they are assuming to change their communities. Make their communities where kids are safe because the value of human life is viewed thru the lens of Scripture.

Cambodia has not embraced the Gospel for a long time but just a few weeks ago celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first Christian movement in the country. Awareness at present is very high as there was a country wide celebration and major event in the capitol, Phnom Penh. The opportunity to press into this culture is at present, uncharacteristically open. We want to sieze it more deeply with expanding our work to increase educational opportunities through opening strong academic Christian schools.

We have a working model. We want to seize the expansion opportunities now open to us.

If battling human trafficking is more than a fight against an atrocious social injustice, if it is a sign of broken people, broken families, and broken societies where the Gospel is absent; join us in this fight.

We are not slowing down. We are not giving in. This is our God given purpose and passion – helping families live for the Lord. Where communities become safe for children. Thru micro businesses and education we help local leaders and believers change their own world.

If you can, donate to this work on a monthly or one-time basis. DONATE here.

or by check to:

IOM (International Outreach Ministries) memo P Livingston

PO Box 2140

McComb, MS 39649

IOM contact info for help: 601-684-0558 (ask for Karen for donor support)

We are not slowing down.

01.31.2023

The Growing Impact

Education does not make one better. More knowledgeable yes, but not better as a person. But it does seem to bring confidence and certainly it brings respect when achievements are made.

This week, we celebrate the college graduation of two of our original teachers. Seng Thida, BA Education, and Ah Thoun, BA Education. Both are part of our original team at New Vision School where they still serve today. Both come from tragic backgrounds but have overcome the world with a passion for Christ. We are so proud of both of them.

They are quite likely our next school leaders as we ask God to allow us to expand this model. More children, more communities, more Gospel seeds and more plants growing up like Thida and Thoun (pray for Sarey and Sokny next). Community changers with the confidence and now respect from hard earned degrees. And oh my, the respect their parents get now in their home villages because of the accomplishments of their daughters.

And we get to watch, encourage and help chart a growing course.

Thank you for your support. It gives Debbie and I confidence, stamina and courage to know you are with us.

Thank you for your continued support at:

IncurableFanatics Donate online

or by check to:

IOM (International Outreach Ministries) memo P Livingston

PO Box 2140

McComb, MS 39649

IOM contact info for help: 601-684-0558 (ask for Karen for donor support)

11.29.2022

Intensity is enormous

In all my years of coming to Cambodia and living in Cambodia, I have never seen this many small packs of older foreign men roaming the streets. Never have I seen a refreshing of the child trafficking business like I am seeing now.

The depth of financial, food, education, and spiritual poverty is staggering and results in children being offered for sale for the vile atrocities often at the hands of these foreign men.

Rarely have I made a direct appeal for support to continue this work in changing communities, we are helping leaders change themselves, and change their own communities.

This is Giving Tuesday. Internationally a big day of support to nonprofits. I am asking that if you are considering a gift to a nonprofit on giving Tuesday, that you consider incurablefanatics.org/donate here, donations are tax deductible and work to help the local community change from within the conditions that result in child trafficking.

And it’s working! In the communities f our work, there is great change. Please, if you are giving on Giving Tuesday consider.

Thank you,

Pete & Debbie

incurablefanatics.org/donate.incurablefanatics.org/donate.

10.25.2022

Again! We take the Good News

All around the world, the face and practice of missions is changing. In the Middle East many missionaries have had to go underground to continue their work. In places like Afghanistan, some have moved their mission work to nearby countries. In China, the movement continues underground and at great risk and usually by nationals. But the work of the gospel continues to advance, He continues to save, it continues to change lives.

For Debbie and I, the face of our mission work has changed. Our ability to reside permanently in Cambodia is presently not possible, but the work we do continues every day. And we return in just a few days.

Every day in Cambodia. We are at work. Consistently. Persistently. And differently.

What seemed to us to be a good idea, being mentors and not the official leaders in each of our work environments in Cambodia, has turned out to be the sovereign direction of God. As we developed young leaders, they learned to lead while we were at their side to encourage to promote and to prepare. Covid changed that way of success in our work and kept us stateside. Now, while we no longer reside in Cambodia, we continue every day in the work there electronically and in person as frequently as possible.

The advance of technology permits us to do zoom meetings, and training with our growing leaders, who have accepted the responsibility of in person leadership in ways we could not have foreseen. We will continue to return to Cambodia on intermittent and as frequent as possible trips to move into this stage of expansion with our now mentored leaders who know well how to manage what has been started. Now they need to be mentored in expanding.

On November 8 we will return to Cambodia for whatever time is permitted and develop the strategies and plans and identify and begin work with the next group of leaders to expand the work.

It is a very special time of opportunity there right now. Many of the people who professed Christianity professed a prosperity faith that didn’t work out very well during Covid. But they have heard the name of the One. Now the work is to point them to the Truth of being a follower of the One.

If you can partner with us in this work, we would be very grateful. First, pray that we would be effective for whatever time we have to be there. Second, if, after giving your tithes to your local church, you have something left over to give please consider Incurable Fanatics.

IncurableFanatics.org/donateIncurableFanatics.org/donate

And join us with a team to be onsite in the work. We have some select opportunities.

09.15.2022

Pressing Into Disrupted Lives

When plans are disrupted. When the ability to plan around those disruptions goes away. When that inability extends on and on and…….on.

Familiar? Who isn’t.

So it has been during Covid days (and months and years), but doors are opening again.

On the first of February this year, Debbie and I were able to return to Cambodia for a planned 30 day stay. Long term visas have remained just beyond our reach but we were able to stay for almost 60 days as we both tested positive for Covid near the end of February. We experienced very minor symptoms. We were able to continue working right up to the hours before our departure in late March.

We were able to get a great picture of the continuing great need for the Gospel in the communities suffering from financial, educational and spiritual poverty. We are excited that the work we have continued is addressing these three factors head-on and by addressing the first two, folks are more open to the spiritual truth we get to share. It is beautiful to see transformation.

When these things happen in a community already brittle because the default setting of life is not rooted in the Gospel, a disruption of this magnitude is vast in breadth and depth. Children are frequently lost in the wake or disruption, “trampled” by those who should care for them. I am not being dramatic. This is real. This is the rolling effect of increased poverty following Covid around the world.

That is where we enter in!

We will return again to our field of work in November. How long this time?

At this point 30 days is our visa. Now there are new challenges emerging and new opportunities to help our team of Cambodians change their own community.

We have a full schedule of training and mentoring planned and prepared. The schedule looks daunting but the Lord has given us these days and we find so much joy in seeing the work advance while we encourage, enable and empower these great young leaders. We will continue to build on a firm foundation.

During this period of being more in the states than in Cambodia, we have found new ways to encourage and train. We meet weekly with our team leaders by Zoom etc., and while this has been effective, it is not the same as face to face. We need the face to face, arms wrapped around each other kind of encouragement.

If you have been a supporter of IncurableFanatics, we thank you and invite you to join us again. If you have not previously been in a position to donate to this work, please consider it now. All donations are tax deductible and so very much appreciated.

Rebuilding our support base is critical to the expansion of this growing work.

If you already support your local church and have it in your heart to do more, please consider a tax deductible donation to Incurable Fanatics.

08.17.2021

Uncomfortable with the new normal

Greetings from the heat of SE Texas. I could be saying SE Asia because the temp and humidity is quite familiar to our life in Cambodia. While the weather conditions are familiar, new normal is not. For me new normal is is not comfortable.

There is a remarkable tension for us in being grateful to our Lord for new and very meaningful work of church restart/rejuvenation at Westway BC in Huntsville. I certainly remain humbled at what I see God unfolding in this place and these wonderful people. The tension comes to me as I ponder the enormous difficulty being faced by our teams in Cambodia as they continue in intense poverty brought on by continued Covid related restrictions. We so long to be at their side day by day to encourage and lift their weary hearts. It seems so wrong to have the comfort of our homes when our beloved family there frequently goes without food.

Then the tension flips as we see the developing faith of our Cambodian teams, the trust and hope they have in Christ and each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord in spite of their trying conditions.

We love the people in both places.

Daily it seems we search for new alerts that travel might open for us to make a return to Cambodia to be the encouragement our friends so long to experience. How many times can they say, “we want you to come mom and dad” and we have to say “soon”?

I feel the days passing by. And Zoom, while we do this nearly weekly with our Cambodian families, is an extremely poor substitute for real touch. They and we long to embrace and move forward with the Gospel spreading plans now delayed since January 2020.

We continue with events and desire to schedule more. Always well received and helpful when we do them here in the US, they provide both education for those here and a source for selling the goods our teams make in Cambodia and send to us to sell. For several it has been significant income over the 18 months. I believe Cambodia has been set back easily 50 years. We continue to send financial support needed for subsistence living during Covid restrictions.

The church, not permitted to meet and assemble, is struggling to find underground methodologies. We coach them in the ways adopted in so many places where the church has been underground for generations.

We will go back. If God will open the door we will go back. And we will continue our work at Westway as God has given us those people to shepherd.

For your continued interest, prayers, and support, we express our most sincere appreciation.

May we see you soon (in some way other than Zoom). Face to face would be great.

God bless you

04.20.2021

Not Exactly Enough

This morning I wake and feel heaviness in my heart. Our sweet brothers and sisters in Cambodia are experiencing starvation in some places due to the extreme lockdown due to Covid outbreak. Lockdown is so tight that people cannot leave their homes or where they were visiting when the lockdown went into effect. The lockdown hit during a period of significant population movement for a national holiday, Khmer New Year. People are stuck.

One egg a day Food is gone from some markets. Income has evaporated as workers can’t get back to work. Starvation is actually now being reported. Even in the city, some folks have 1 egg a day and some have rice.

Saturday night I received a call from a young woman, the first girl we rescued. She has never asked us for anything. We have stayed in contact with her after her rescue and during her recovery program. We were invited to her wedding over a year ago. She became a believer and has been tracking well. Saturday she called me on FB Messenger and told me she had not eaten in 2 weeks. She and her husband were visiting her sister in a remote village and were now trapped until the lockdown is ended. No access to food. No way for us to get some to her – yet.

And she is 7 months pregnant.

But God! Some of my favorite words. Pray that God opens the door for food to arrive at their feet. That God would make a way and be glorified in doing it.

But feeling sad is not exactly enough. Food is not exactly enough. More than anything I am asking for prayer. That will be exactly enough.

Christ was moved to act out of feelings of compassion and we are to be imitators of Christ (Ephesians 5:1). Feeling bad is the reaction that is to lead us to act. Christ frequently acted out of compassion. There is no action you can take that I can point you to EXCEPT PRAYER. Prayer is the primary action in this case. Don’t let the feelings be wasted. Act in prayer. Please pray fervently and we will see what God will do.

Thank you.