SAXONBURG — It's not obvious, but the school children of Banteay Meanchey Province in Cambodia and the New Life Christian Center, 328 Knoch Road, have one thing in common.

That's Mark Geppert, 68, of Oakmont, founder of South East Asia Prayer Center, who's in Cambodia now at the request of the Cambodian government to improve educational opportunities.

Geppert also serves on the five-member board of directors for the rapidly growing Butler County church.

“He's been on the board of directors for the past two years,” said Chris Marshall, lead pastor at New Life.

“The board is made up of two pastors from New Life and three pastors who have served at larger churches,” said Marshall.

“The church has been growing over the past several years since we moved into our new building in 2013,” said Marshall. “We've gone from 450 people at weekend worship services to 900 worshippers a weekend.”

Geppert, although retired now, has a background of being a pastor at big churches, said Marhall, including one in Singapore.

Geppert also has been involved in missions in Southeast Asia.

That includes SEAPC, which he founded more than 20 years ago.

“Through the help of many people over the past 20 years the South East Asia Prayer Center has seen a dream come to pass. From the killing fields of Cambodia, Jesus is raising up a generation of Christ-centered, Bible-based Holy Spirit-filled academically excellent young people, who are becoming emerging leaders in this resonance nation,” said Geppert

In 2005, a group of lay people began to meet and discuss the most responsible way to respond to an invitation from the government of Cambodia to establish a model public school

SEAPC developed a four-point system that was implemented for the Rongko High School that included:

- Initiation of the Lord's Prayer to start each academic school day

- Establishment of a daily Bible verse

- Initiation of a preschool starting from age 3

- Incorporating the S.T.E.M. learning system, an environmentally based science curriculum that integrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Rongko High has placed first in the Cambodian nation in the disciplines of science, math, technology, and English, according to Geppert.

On behalf of the center, Geppert has received a nation's builder award from the prime minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen.

But along with the award came a request to apply these same principles at a provincial level.

“Mark and his wife, Ellie, are in Cambodia right now,” said Marshall, to work with 12 young people who have graduated from the Rongko school.

The 12 have completed bachelor's degrees through scholarships from SEAPC, and have dedicated the first four years of their professional lives to bringing encouragement to the 130,000 kindergarten through 12th grade students in the province.

“Students in the ninth grade are learning a skill. This is a vocational approach so they will have a skill to market in their own country,” said Marshall, whose church members have been to Cambodia on a mission last year.

In fact, Marshall said, New Life plans to send a 15- to 20-member mission to Cambodia between July 24 and Aug. 3 to further the educational mission.

“We will be doing some tutoring, some construction work and some teaching,” Marshall said.

“We will be having a learning English program through the Bible,” he said. “We will be teaching English to fourth graders by using a children's Bible. Learning English opens opportunities to the students.”