Stories from Cambodia - The Honeybuns
Imagine lying awake for a whole week, unable to shake a single idea. Then, almost as a dare, you pray what you yourself call a "stupid prayer": God, if this is really from you, would you confirm it through just one conversation this morning?
That is exactly where Adam Honeybun found himself one Sunday in October 2018. What happened next would move his whole family across the world.
As part of our OneCare Mission Month, our Missions Pastor Carly Cassidy welcomed Adam and Kate Honeybun home to share their story. The Honeybuns grew up among us and were sent out from our church, and they now serve with Pioneers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where Adam helps lead Hope International School. Their story is a little different from what we often imagine when we hear the word "missionary", and that difference is the whole point. You can watch the full conversation in the video above, or listen to the audio version below.
If the conversation with our Philippines partners showed us what mission looks like over 25 faithful years, the Honeybuns' story zooms right in to a single question for each of us: how might God use my ordinary skills and my everyday vocation for his mission?
A silly prayer and a string of open doors
Adam traces the move to Cambodia back to one evening conversation in 2018. The family had long talked about going overseas one day, but it had only ever been talk. Then Kate said something that landed harder than she probably expected: the kids are young now, moving them only gets harder as they grow, so if we are ever going to do this, we should do it now.
Adam could not get it out of his head for a week. So that Sunday he prayed a "Gideon prayer", asking God to confirm it through three things: that Kate would genuinely be on board, that the finances would somehow come together when he had always simply worked for a living, and that God would confirm it through just one conversation.
He had forgotten it was Mission Sunday. He walked in to find the foyer full of mission partners at their tables, much like our own expo this month. One conversation became many. Doors kept opening, including meeting mobilisers from Pioneers that very morning.
"God just continued to open doors and confirm that this was the right thing to do. And now, eight years later, here we are."
The courage to say a reluctant yes
Carly asked Kate what gave her the confidence to move her family into the unknown. Kate was refreshingly honest: she was, in her words, "a bit of a reluctant yes."
They arrived in the middle of COVID in 2021 with three small children; Jacob turned one the very day they were released from quarantine. Kate described sitting in that quarantine hotel room thinking, why are we here? How did this happen?
"There was like this bit of me that was waiting for a door to close, waiting for the opportunities to stop being open."
But the doors did not close. And once they arrived, they found people who had been praying for them by name.
"I had parents from the school say to us, we've been praying for you to come. We've been waiting for you to come."
The verse on Kate's heart was Jesus' words that the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. They have been busy ever since, because there is so much work to do. What gives them the confidence to keep raising their children there is the strength of the community around them.
Ordinary jobs, eternal purposes
Here is where the Honeybuns' story challenges our assumptions. When we hear "missionary" we often picture someone preaching or planting churches. Adam, now head of the primary school at Hope, says his daily work is not very different from any teacher at a local school down the road.
But that ordinary work has an extraordinary purpose. Around 80% of the families at Hope International School are themselves involved in mission across Cambodia. The school's job is to support those families and make it possible for them to stay and serve. And the range of vocations involved is striking.
"We've got accountants and HR people. There's a big engineering firm that supports mission by providing clean water, building bridges where needed. We've got a chef who takes vulnerable young men off the street and trains them with culinary and restaurant skills. Carpenters, you name the profession, people have found a way to do that in Cambodia for the gospel."
Then Adam turned it back on us: "I suspect that's true in Melbourne and Blackburn as well." The point is not the passport stamp. It is that God uses ordinary skills, faithfully offered, wherever we are.
Stories that show why it matters
Asked for a story that captures why the work matters, Adam struggled to choose just one.
He told of a family from Kangaroo Ground, just up the road from us, who are linguists. Their children are at Hope while the parents learn Khmer, and they will eventually move to a rural province to support church planting and translate the Bible into a minority "heart language" that has none.
Then there was the story from the last day of school. When grade five students graduate to middle school, Hope gives each of them a Bible, no small thing in a country where Bibles are hard to come by and are carried in by a visiting team each year. One student from a Buddhist background had been quietly longing for one. Her mother, who did not even know what the book was called, kept telling Adam how much her daughter loved "that book you gave her."
"Her mum said, well, she's going to a non-Christian school now, but she says she really wants to be a Christian there too."
Adam noted that last year, two students from Buddhist backgrounds were baptised in his small local church, the first Christians in their families. For them, that is a very big deal.
Love whoever is nearby
As they finished, Carly asked the question many of us were quietly thinking: what would you say to someone here who is not sure they have anything to offer God's mission?
Adam's answer reframed the whole morning. He admitted there is something deeply uncomfortable about taking on the label "missionary", because who is he, an imperfect person, to tell anyone how to live?
"But that's not my job. My job, the one God calls me to, is to love whoever is nearby me. Wherever I am, I should love them the way that God loves me."
"We were called to Cambodia, but maybe you were called to Blackburn or Box Hill or wherever. Who are you loving that is right next to you? How can you love them abundantly, the way God loves us?"
For the Honeybuns, that has meant a long and extreme version of the same thing: playing chalk on the street with the neighbourhood kids, caring for students, and simply being good at their jobs. Adam cannot change the whole world, and God does not ask him to. He just asks him to love whoever is right nearby. And that, Adam says, is something every one of us can do.
Kim closed the morning by praying over the family, drawing on Paul's words in Acts that God determines the times and the boundaries of where each of us lives, so that we might seek him and find him, for he is not far from any one of us. As both stories this morning made clear: God's mission is not the work of a few extraordinary people, but the work of all of God's people together. Some are called to go, some to send, some to teach, some to pray, some to give. All of us are invited in.
One way to live it out this week
You do not need to move overseas to take Adam's challenge seriously. This week, name one person who is genuinely "nearby" you, a neighbour, a colleague, a parent at the school gate, someone you keep meeting at the supermarket, and ask God how you might love them well. Then take one small, concrete step: a conversation, an act of help, an invitation. Mission for most of us will not look like a foreign country. It will look like loving the person right next to us, abundantly, the way God loves us.
A short prayer
Father, thank you that your mission has room for all of us.
Thank you for the Honeybun family, for their reluctant yeses and their string of open doors, and for the way you use ordinary work for your glory.
Forgive us for thinking we have nothing to offer.
Open our eyes to the people you have placed right nearby.
Holy Spirit, show us where you are inviting us to go, even when it feels new or fearful.
Teach us to love our neighbours the way you have first loved us.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
Personal Reflection
Adam prayed a "Gideon prayer", asking God to confirm a step through specific things. Is there a decision in your life right now where you need to honestly ask God, "is this you?"
Kate described herself as "a reluctant yes", saying yes while half-hoping a door would close. Where might God be inviting you to obey before you feel fully ready?
Adam said his real job is simply "to love whoever is nearby." Who is nearby you right now, and what would it look like to love them abundantly this week?
Small Group Discussion
What part of Adam and Kate's story stayed with you most? Why?
Adam asked God to confirm the move through "just one conversation", and the foyer was full of them. How do you tell the difference between God's leading and your own wishful thinking? What helps you discern?
Kate was a "reluctant yes" who kept waiting for a door to close. Have you ever obeyed God while still feeling uncertain? What happened?
Around 80% of Hope's families serve in mission through ordinary jobs: teaching, engineering, accounting, cooking. How does this widen your picture of what a "missionary" is?
Adam said, "maybe you were called to Blackburn or Box Hill." What might it mean to treat your own suburb, workplace or street as your mission field?
Both this story and the Philippines story landed on the same truth: mission is the work of all God's people together, some go, some send, some teach, some pray, some give. Which of those do you most naturally lean toward, and which might God be stretching you into?
The grade five Bibles and the longing of one Buddhist-background student show how small acts carry eternal weight. What "small" thing could you offer that God might use more than you expect?
Adam's closing challenge was simply, "who are you loving that is right next to you?" Name one person each, then spend time praying for one another, and for those people by name, that you would love them well this week.