YAMEN (Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network) and SALT (Serving And Learning Together) are 11-month-long immersive cross-cultural experiences for young Christians that build up the global church. Participants travel from their passport country to a new context where they live with a local host family, attend a local church, and volunteer at a local church or organization. YAMEN is a joint program of MCC and Mennonite World Conference.

This year we welcomed a wonderful group of young Christians from around the world and I wanted to tell you a little about them. We have also two Cambodians who went out this year, one to Indonesia and one to Maryland, USA.

You might remember that last year we sent Esther from Cambodia to Pennsylvania and she even attended Plains Mennonite. This year we welcomed another Esther from Kenya.

Esther Otieno is a YAMEN participant from Kenya who will serve with local Cambodian NGO Women Peace Makers as their Communications and Partnership Officer.

Htun Kee is the first YAMEN participant from Myanmar. We’ve been working for a long time to bring Myanmar into the exchange program and we are very glad that we were finally able to do it despite some major challenges. Kee will serve with local Cambodian NGO Building Community Voices.

Garrett Walker is a SALT participant from Canada who will serve with local Cambodian Christian NGO Mission DOVE as the Youth Worker and Teacher. Garrett was part of our first Seek cohort earlier this year and decided to return to Cambodia. As a Bluffton University alumni I was very glad that he choose to explain what a beaver is to the host families as part of his presentation.

Joyce Niyigena is a YAMEN participant from Rwanda who will serve with local NGO Organization To Develop Our Villages (ODOV) as the Climate Change Resilience Assistant. She will be living in the countryside in Mesang district, Prey Veng province. Several of the Cambodian host families were surprised when Joyce shared about the 1994 Rwandan genocide and wanted to know more about it. Many of them are Khmer Rouge survivors themselves.

Victoria Christine is a YAMEN participant from Indonesia who will serve with Christian NGO HOPE Village as a Teacher. She will be living in the Provincial Capital of Prey Veng province where I lived during my first term of service.

Samuel Suwangin is our second YAMEN participant from South Sudan, the world’s newest country. Sam will serve with Cambodia’s largest Christian radio station, Voice of Love Cambodia – Family FM, as the Radio Communications Officer.

Please pray for these young Christians as they begin their year of cross-cultural immersion, service, and learning in Cambodia.