True Life in God meeting in Cambodia

Vassula and Cecilia arrived at Ponchentong Airport on November 28th 2002. Welcomed by my family, couples for Christ members and a few friends. Catarina had arrived ten days earlier to help us arrange this meeting. Cambodia TV station channel 5, were already there for a brief interview. Vassula's message to the Cambodians was: I am a God full of pity and my heart can be touched. Come and learn. In the morning sow your seeds of love, at noon you sow your seeds of peace, in the evening sow your seeds of reconciliation. Then go and collect your harvest and offer it to me, your Father in Heaven, and I will tell you. In your graciousness, my child, you have obtained your reward in heaven. From above I call to you all, come! Come and make peace with me your God, and you will have My Blessings. Return to me and you will live forever. Thus her message concluded. The interview was in the headline the following evening news.

The following morning, November 29th, we visited Bishop Emil who is the Bishop of Phnom Penh. We invited him for the meeting although he was unable to come. We went to the Tuol sleng museum. This is the place where mostly government officials and their families were tortured and killed during the genocide in 1975-79, when the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh. 1.7 million people were killed. Later after the chilling scene, we went to have lunch. This was in memory of the day the angel Daniel brought us this good news we are living today (it was a token from Vassula). In the evening we had dinner with the Couples for Christ Community. We experienced a heavy shower of rain, and I was worried in case the roads flooded.

On the first of December was the meeting, and it was successful although not many people attended as had been expected. The Couples for Christ community choir added a colorful event to the already colorful atmosphere.

Vassula started her talk by thanking those who came to the meeting. She said those who came to the meeting, were sent by Jesus! The visit to Cambodia was her last leg in the four countries she had just visited. She was in Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan, Hong Kong and arriving in Cambodia brings the countries she has visited to 63 in total. She started her speech with her first experience, the day her guardian Angel approached her in 1985. She said that although these detestations with God were so evident when they were happening she had doubts because she never knew that God could speak to us in such a simple way. She couldn't imagine that one day the messages will reach the end of the earth, as was told by the Lord. She never thought that these messages could even go out to the world and yet they have, in such a powerful way without her making an effort.

"Why do we read the messages when we have the scriptures?" She asked the Lord this question and the Lord said to her "do you read the Bible? and for those who read it do they really understand?" What He means by this is it is kind of respelling scriptures.

What the Lord asks us is to convert, to return to Him and He calls us into unceasing prayer and unceasing repentance. The Lord would not have manifested Himself in our times if it were not necessary. In the messages the Lord talks about the end of times. This does not mean the end of the world but an end of one epoch. The Lord is at this time speaking of the time we are leaving in. There is an indication in the scriptures as well as Fatima that there will be an apostasy spreading out around the world. What is an apostasy? It is when Christians who have been baptized, but voluntarily reject the divine truth. And it is very evident in our times. God as a father wouldn't just watch us but He would get out of His throne, put aside His crown and run to us. So these times are called the times of mercy. Vassula also talked about the blessed Mother's role. The blessed Mother's role is to remind us, her children, that we can reach God through prayer. This message in True Life in God is very rich in the sense that God is not only reminding us to pray but also to repent, and he tells us how to go about it. He specifically talks about the day of Easter. He says, "Let it be unified".

The second Pentecost is mentioned a lot in the messages; the Lord says His Word is alive. (Apocalypse 21) He describes the Pentecost as the New Heaven; the new earth the New Jerusalem, the new world. God speaks in this way, but it is all spiritual.

Vassula told us that one day when she was writing about the apocalypse 12, she was trying to hurry maybe because she was very excited, and the Lord said to her "Do not rush I'm not leaving." She told us many experiences with the Lord about the way He speaks to her in a really simple way. All these sound like stories or legends, but it is a way to show us that God lives very close to us as close as our heart beats. She continued her talk by telling us how God can transform us and renew our hearts. Jesus says we could be like a desert where God will be stumbling on rocks, or we can be a garden, or a palace, and we can also be a heaven and a New Jerusalem in us.

The Lord says everybody is welcome to be a living altar of God. He comes with mercy and He welcomes us with poetry. The world is self-destroying itself by it's materialistic ideas, because it has no place for God. It refused to give glory to God as it is instead glorifying itself.

"Humanity and Love is the key to unity". It is not enough to keep the law of the church and obey it. The Lord needs humility of your heart. To pray for others, she again told us, "You shed your own blood if you pray for others. It is very powerful if you pray for others, because our love to others resembles Christ who shed blood for us. An act of reparation. 'I myself came to this world to serve but not to be served. No king was never known to be a slave of his subordinates! When your heart longs for Me all day, there is a renewal going on. Pray without ceasing'."

Vassula said that she can see conversion going on, as for example you know someone who is spiritually dead lying like a corpse, but suddenly the mercy of God challenges her justice and breathes in her a resurrection breath, and puts in her a flame with His fire. She runs like a Samaritan woman, declaring to the world that she met God and she tries to convert everybody. You can see many charismatic churches nowadays. This is God's fire of repentance and love. Nobody will be able to stop it.

In brief, this was Vassula's speech. Happy are those who were able to attend, her talk is about what the world is lacking today. God our Father is out there calling us for repentance, unceasing prayer, unity of all Christians, apostasy, to recognize the holy spirit our guide, and hope and renewal.

The True Life in God meeting was very exciting. It was like an overdue pregnancy! I had started talking and announcing Vassula and her mission and the hope to visit Cambodia fifteen months ago, a few months after I had arrived in Cambodia. The first time I saw her was in Bangladesh on the 18th of February 2001. Before that I had read many volumes of the messages from the Banani chapel, and heard a lot about her through Fr. "X"'s sermons at mass.

Now in Cambodia, I enjoyed it a lot when Vassula was witnessing and I wished that everybody I knew had attended that meeting. All my friends from the international community I had labored with invitations never came, and it was really painful on my part. When she talks about Jesus, you start feeling Him. It gives a feeling of guilt for not noticing that He has been there always. When I arrived here I gave away nearly all the True Life in God books I had. I wanted everybody to know about these messages and everybody to feel the way I do. A year ago, I started visiting the Bishop several times, the Parish priest of the Catholic Church, and Father superior of the Mary Knoll community. Within a few months I started preparing for a meeting. I invited Catarina from Bangladesh (this is a lady who spent nearly a full day at my home in Bangladesh explaining and telling me about the messages). I had read the books but I needed some more information about Vassula. Because it is quite extraordinary and I had a lot of questions, somehow God made our eyes meet at a prayer meeting at Banani chapel. I asked her whether she had seen Vassula before, and she said, "Oh! I know her personally". I invited her to my home because I needed some information about "True Life in God". It happened that she is a convert of True Life in God messages. What a blessing!

I think I put her on a big task. I can feel it now. We have met and lived together for many days, but I had never remembered to remind her of that day! From then on, I started buying the books and giving out the books (messages) to my friends, talking always about these messages. Others I gave as gifts for those who were living in Bangladesh in our community. I started noticing the reality of living with God.

In Cambodia it has been hard, because to reach the people you have to go through the Priests and of course in our church (catholic), new things have to be given time to avoid confusion. Especially here, where the Christian faith is still new to the people. Cambodia is a Buddhist country. 95 percent of Cambodians are Buddhist, but most are very amiable to all beliefs. It is a free country and they respect all religions. The Catholic Church has been here for a long time and now many Protestant churches of different denominations are coming up. Generally the people here understand and know Jesus but not in details. It gave me a lot of hope that many people will come, but not many turned up that day! My consolation was the faces I saw reminded me of the day Jesus was born. The three wise men came from different parts of the world and represented the whole world. Now Christmas is known everywhere and of course Jesus is too, just like I feel the same for True Life in God. We had a few people, but they were well represented. Many nationalities were at the meeting that day. America, Australia, Burma, Philippines, Kenya, Ireland, Uganda, Nigeria, Sierra-Leone, Peru, Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam. So in a way it was not only for Cambodians but this merge and gathering of people from all over the world. Also on unity, we had Catholics, Protestants of different denominations, Anglicans, Seventh Day Adventists, International Church Assemblies of God, Buddhists, and a Muslim who brought her children for a blessing.

On the second of December, we had a brief meeting with Vassula, Cecilia, Mama Gilda, Maricu and Mrs. Rhodara Gazmin.Vassula wanted us to improve our Sunday mass. I would like to thank Vassula and Cecilia for this journey around East Asia. I pray and hope that the seed you planted will grow and bear fruits as many as Cambodian fruits (we have many kinds of fruits here!) in a special way. I would like to thank Catarina and Duleep, without their support we would not have managed. Finally we thank Mrs. Maricu, Thida (the Khmer translator), Lad Byenkya and Couples for Christ community in Cambodia. We hope that our mission in spreading True Life in God messages will grow stronger in Cambodia and many Cambodians take up this beautiful message. Pray for us to get a translation for the messages. The Cambodians I have talked to are not able to translate the messages and say what Vassula said is not new but a reminder because Buddhism teaches the same way. God bless.

Leocardia Byenkya