When Sacrifice is Gain

Life lessons are best learned on the battlefield of experience. These pages highlight what happens when God is factored into the learning equation.

Four life-changing choices set the trajectory for the Maddocks family. They promised God that they would go anywhere, do anything, for any length of time, and at any cost. God took their promise seriously taking them on a journey from which the reader will learn invaluable life lessons.

After going through bootcamp in Samoa and Fiji, the Maddocks family arrived in war-torn Cambodia with two small boys and a mission to help Cambodian farmers improve their rice yields. Over the next 32 years the missions would change and be multiplied and sacrifices would be made with gain.

Lessons would be learned from numerous events including a Khmer Rouge attack, a coup d'état, armed robbery, a motor cycle crash, and demon possessed neighbours. Lessons learned resulted in greater resilience fostered by a growing faith in God and His ability to deliver and provide.

These pages illustrate how one family, in partnership with God, can transform the lives of many. The reader will enter into an experience of self sacrifice that pays out in true joy.

Tim Maddocks is married to Wendy, and between them they have 78 years of foreign mission experience. Growing up in Western Australia, they met at Carmel College, marrying when still in their teens. In 1985 they entered foreign mission service in Samoa when just 21 years of age. Moving to Fiji saw the growth of their family with the births of Caleb and Shannon. In 1992, under direct inspiration from the Holy Spirit, Tim moved his family to war-torn Cambodia to work with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency. It was during this time that God laid out to Tim an audacious plan that would see his family move out into the Cambodian countryside to live incarnationally, trusting in God to provide for his family's and ministry's needs. Tim and Wendy founded SALT Ministries-Cambodia in 1996, primarily to prepare new members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to become church planters and facilitating the planting of churches in north-west Cambodia. This family-run ministry has subsequently built two schools, an orphanage, media centre, and butterfly garden. Tim enjoys speaking on missions, spiritual warfare, and living in the presence of God. He currently serves as a board member for the Cambodia Adventist Mission, Adventist Development and Relief Agency Cambodia and Jesus for Asia, and as a General Conference task force member for Adventist Possibilities Ministries. He has also held several honorary departmental positions at the Cambodia Adventist Mission and served as a lay district pastor in the northeast of Cambodia.