Recently, I was asked to travel to the Gulf Coast region of the U.S. to consult with a small church plant about ideas for growth and how to reach out to the local Cambodian community. It was fascinating to see the Lord’s hand in the formation of this little church group and the members’ desire to be lights in their community. In fact, it was this desire that led the members to come together to form this church plant.

As the group leader and I visited homes in the community and prayed with people, I was struck with their general openness to talking about God and praying with total strangers. I was also struck with the overwhelming spiritual need. At times, especially among the young, I saw the same lack of knowledge of God, Jesus and basic Bible truths that I often witnessed in the mission field. Memories flooded back to me of my time pastoring in the Cambodian refugee camps of Thailand. I remembered camps so old and crowded that they had become veritable cities. I remembered holding church services in dirt-floored hovels, and little boys wearing girls’ skirts because that was all they had to wear. I remembered singing praises with my Cambodian brothers and sisters over the booms of artillery shells in the background. I remembered baptisms in muddy reservoirs. I remembered training sessions of lay Bible workers—the first to re-enter and evangelize Cambodia after the war. I remembered contacting local conference leaders around the world to inform them of the arrival of refugee families, and this led me to remember why this Cambodian community was living in the United States.

As we visited key interests in the Cambodian community throughout the week, a composite picture began to develop for me. These Cambodian immigrants are at once very connected and very isolated. They had been cut off from their homes, their cultures and their way of life by a brutal civil war. Although they are doing quite well here, this sense of being cut off is palpable to the keen observer. The older generation doesn’t speak much English. Their Cambodian language is a cherished connection to their old home. The young speak little Cambodian. They embrace English as a connection to the only home they have ever known.

As we talked with several young people and discussed worldview and the painful sense of trying to fit into two worlds and not feeling like a part of either, several said this was the first time they had really felt understood. They have difficulty articulating their “in-betweenness,” but it is very real. As a pastor who had lived for more than a few years in Southeast Asia and worked in the camps and as a missionary who has also experienced the in-between life, I could help them see that their feelings were natural, and they were not strange or weird. They were simply living in that undefined space between two worlds.

The Church has the wonderful privilege and opportunity to minister to the in-between. It has the joy of helping these Cambodian-Americans come to a new understanding of themselves in a worldview based on the great controversy between Christ and Satan, their role in it, and the plan of redemption.

This in-betweenness exists among many people groups in many places. The people in-between are looking for answers to life’s ultimate questions and want to understand where they fit in. We have the privilege of showing them the answers. They can find their true home and sense of belonging in Christ, and the Church can witness to the God who accepts every repentant sinner.

There is yet another class of the in-between that need ministering to. These are converts to Christ in difficult places. In Muslim lands, there are those who no longer feel kinship with Islamic teaching but do not yet feel comfortable with Christians. There are those from Animist backgrounds who want to break away from the worship of spirits and ancestors, but they do not know how. I visit with these in-between people as I travel throughout Africa in my role as field director. These people need to be connected to the Church, visited discreetly and made to know that they have a home in Christ. This type of ministry is not easy and will stretch the Church, but it is the work to which Christ calls us. Like the early church in Acts 2, we must form a loving church community that transcends race, nationality and background and invites people into God’s kingdom on earth to await Jesus’ soon return.

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