Air traffic controller lands in Cambodia, takes on new role in nutrition program

via CAAI

ERIK TRYGGESTAD
The Christian Chronicle

PHOTO BY ERIK TRYGGESTAD
On a mission Dennis and Sharon Welch in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

In the Kingdom of Cambodia, Church of Christ members have healed the sick, clothed the naked and fed the hungry.

They also have caught the attention of public officials.

In his monthly briefing, the director of public health for Cambodia’s Kandal province said that Partners in Progress has done “more for the indigent people of his province than any other NGO (non-governmental organization)” said Bill McDonough, the ministry’s director.

Partners in Progress operates the Ship of Life, a medical mission that serves underprivileged communities along the Mekong River. The Arkansas-based ministry also launched a rural nutrition program that now provides food and education for 1,600 children in 12 Cambodian villages.

Recently, Partners in Progress began working with the Central Church of Christ in Stockton, Calif. The church will take oversight of the program, which will be renamed Giving Relief and Care Everyday (GRACE) for Cambodia.

Dennis and Sharon Welch will take over the program from missionaries Troy and Tabitha Snowbarger, who plan to return to the U.S. to pursue graduate degrees next year.

Dennis Welch was an air traffic controller for 29 years before he enrolled at Sunset International Bible Institute in Lubbock, Texas. He and his wife moved to Cambodia to work with a Sunset school in the capital, Phnom Penh.

“The last two years have changed our lives,” Dennis Welch said. “We are so grateful for the ways God has blessed us over and above what we need.”

TO SUPPORT THE MISSION, call the Central church at (209) 466-2701 or see centralchurchfamily.org/missions