Tuesday I got to explore Angkor Wat--or at least as much as one can explore in a day. It's an amazing complex of ancient temples built by a succession on Hindu and Buddhist Kings from the 8th through the 13th centuries. It's the largest complex of religious buildings in the world.
It's a bit overwhelming, but then I guess it's meant to be. It would be easier to show you the place in photos because it is more a visual than verbal kind of experience. Other than clambering over ruins of ancient temples in incredibly hot, humid weather with thousands of other tourists, the high points of my day centered around the people I met.
First of all, everywhere you go in this country you are best by very persistent hawkers. This morning as I got out of my tuk-tuk I was accosted by a very young one of the female persuasion. "Buy my postcards, Mam? Where you from?" "Ämerica." "The United States is between Canada and Mexico. The capitol of the United States is Washington. The capitol of Mexico is Mexico City. The capitol of Canada is Ottawa. By some postcards, only two dollars for ten." "Nö." "The capitol of
California is Sacramento, the Capitol of Alaska is Juneau, the capitol of...buy some postcards!"
"You are very good, but I don't want to buy any postcards right now, maybe later." "But I won''t be here later. I have to go to school!" What a character!
I went to the big temple that is actually called Angkor Wat. It's beautiful. The architecture is amazing: the symmetry and proportions are magnificent. They have Buddhas in several places and they've set up incense and other offerings in front of them. Hawkers try to get you to buy some incense to offer. If you offer incense you also get to dip into a pot of water with an upside down lotus bud and sprinkle the water on yourself to refresh you. The whole process takes less than a minute. This is really hit and run worship! It occurred to me that if you are not worshipping a personal God there's no relationship involved to cultivate so worship can be quite perfunctory.
After I had sufficiently explored the temple I went out and was walking along the long walkway leading between the temple and the entrance and the surrounding moat. I sat down in the shade next to a Korean man and we got into a conversation. He said he had spent 5 years in the States and studied in Boston. I was wondering if he went to MIT or Harvard or Boston University or...and he said what I least expected: "Gordon Conwell Seminary". "Then you are a Christian! So am I and you are a brother in the Lord!" It seems that he is a pastor in a suburb of Seoul who had brought 18 of his young people to Cambodia to do evangelism for a couple of weeks. I told him I was coming to Seoul and he gave me his telephone numbers and said to call him when I arrived. After the intensity of the pagan temple, this was an amazing blessing!
On to the next temple. This one is called Bayon, and the best part is that it is in a park of the most amazing trees--Banyan trees, I'd guess with the most amazingly complex root systems that wrap themselves around the trunk or twist themselves together and make phenomenal patterns. I told my tuk-tuk driver to stop so I could explore (and photograph) these amazing trees. The feeling was the same as visiting the giant Sequoia trees in California. These trees are so awe inspiring that they got me out of my tuk-tuk!
Anyway, at Bayon Temple, which is also an awe-inspiring experience, I heard some people speaking Italian. In a country where I am linguistically challenged hearing a language I actually understand is a real treat, so I engaged them in conversation. They seemed to feel the same about speaking their language and we had a wonderful time together. Their famiy runs a hotel in Montecatini Terme, a spa town outside of Florence and I now have an invitation to stop by and have a glass of wine at their place next time I'm in the neighborhood!
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Trip to Siem Reap
This comes from Siem Riep, the gateway to Angkor Wat. Getting here was quite an adventure. I decided to take the boat up the Mekong River and across the lake, the name of which I can't remember. It's the largest lake in this part of the world and very abundant in fish.
So at 6:30 this am the tuk-tuk came (actually he was late since he couldn't find the street where I live) to take me to the boat for a 7:00 a.m departure. Oh, what an adventure! I'd wanted to see life on the river and well, today was a real revelation. Lots of people live on the river in boats or houseboats or along the shores where they farm as well as fish. It was so interesting to see whole villages that were made up of houseboats. Some of these had TV antennas, which looked really incongruous. OK it''s a developing nation, and though they have cable in the big cities, I doubt they even have electricity in some of these villages. By the way, a TV can run off a car battery, so the lack of electricity doesn't hinder the functioning of a TV. Most of the houses along the water were built on stilts, which makes good sense in the tropics, where homes are subjected to insects, rats and snakes. Having the house up off the ground also adds to the coolness of the place since air circulates under and over and through the building. There were rice paddies of a brilliant spring green, people plowing their land with a team of white oxen, there were miles and miles of jungle, flocks of snowy egrets all along the way--in short, it was a magnificent panorama! The photographer in me was enraptured with all this new visual material. She was also frustrated because this was a speed boat and sights flew by so fast it was impossible to capture most of it.
The boat is like any of the tour boats you might find anywhere in the world, in Paris, for instance. It probably held 100 people or more in an enclosed area, each with a quite comfortable seat. However, people could also sit outside, either in the prow or in the back. Since I didn't think I could handle 5 or 6 hours in the hot sun, I sat by the open doorway. This craft would never pass USCG standards for safety. Although there was a railing around the prow, there was nothing to protect people on the catwalk from the prow to the stern from falling into the river. I don't recall anyone mentioning that there were life preservers, of which we thankfully didn't have need.
A couple of hours into this trip we slowed down as we went through a populated area of the river (as in houseboats) and a smaller ferry came out into the channel in which we were travelling, sort of perpendicular to our trajectory. I thought, "Wow! Water traffic is just as crazy and daredevil as vehicular traffic on land here." However, our boat slowed down and the other pulled alongside us to transfer passengers from their ferry to the boat to Siem Riep. In something like 3 minutes we were on our way again.
When we landed at our destination, they put a gangplank from the prow to the beach. It was just a plank about 15 inches wide with smaller strips of wood attached horizontally, to help people to stay upright on the muddy gangplank--no railing, no ropes. It was quite a balancing act to get off.
However, the first thing that one noticed even before we got off the boat was the crowd that was waiting for us, holding up signs with names of the passengers they had come to meet. The man from my hotel had one that read, "Mr. Cora". There was a frenzy of confusion as people disembarked and the inevitable tuk-tuk drivers tried to solicit business.
They told us in Phnom Penh that it is 16 km. from the docking place to Siem Reap. The first few miles of dirt road are deeply rutted and dusty, but I would love to have filmed every bit of the way, as we passed mile after mile of bamboo houses, some with people sleeping in hammocks. In the tropics people live outdoors and life is very public. All you need a house for, really, is as a place to sleep. From the safety of my moving tuk-tuk I tried to take as many photos as I dared. For a while we were part of a parade of tuk-tuks that reminded me of a line of Amish buggies going down a road in Lancaster County, only with the putt-putt of motorbike engines rather than the clop-clop of horses. And like the line of Amish buggies, this is another world!
I'm staying at the Ancient Angkor Guesthouse, which has air conditioning in the rooms and cable TV so I look forward to watching CNN to find out what has been happening in the world since I've been out of touch. The cost? $15 per night.
My tuk-tuk drive, Mint, took me over to Angkor Wat just before sunset so I could see it at sunset. He didn't warn me that you have to climb a steep hill and then the ruins of a temple at the top of the hill. Actually, there is a way out. You can pay $15 to ride an elephant up the hill. I declined to pay that much for an elephant ride, although one of my goals while here is to ride an elephant, and joined the crowd who climbed the hill in the hot, muggy evening. The view from the top was too hazy to see clearly, and the sun sort of sank into a cloud bank, so I beat a hot path down the hill, hopefully before most of the rest of the crowd, although the path was pretty crowded.
Tomorrow I set out for Angkor Wat in earnest. Like Toad in Wind in the Willows I discovered something I MUST do. As we sat on those temple ruins at the top of the hill, I noticed a hot air balloon drifting over the valley below. Next time, I, too will be aboard!
So at 6:30 this am the tuk-tuk came (actually he was late since he couldn't find the street where I live) to take me to the boat for a 7:00 a.m departure. Oh, what an adventure! I'd wanted to see life on the river and well, today was a real revelation. Lots of people live on the river in boats or houseboats or along the shores where they farm as well as fish. It was so interesting to see whole villages that were made up of houseboats. Some of these had TV antennas, which looked really incongruous. OK it''s a developing nation, and though they have cable in the big cities, I doubt they even have electricity in some of these villages. By the way, a TV can run off a car battery, so the lack of electricity doesn't hinder the functioning of a TV. Most of the houses along the water were built on stilts, which makes good sense in the tropics, where homes are subjected to insects, rats and snakes. Having the house up off the ground also adds to the coolness of the place since air circulates under and over and through the building. There were rice paddies of a brilliant spring green, people plowing their land with a team of white oxen, there were miles and miles of jungle, flocks of snowy egrets all along the way--in short, it was a magnificent panorama! The photographer in me was enraptured with all this new visual material. She was also frustrated because this was a speed boat and sights flew by so fast it was impossible to capture most of it.
The boat is like any of the tour boats you might find anywhere in the world, in Paris, for instance. It probably held 100 people or more in an enclosed area, each with a quite comfortable seat. However, people could also sit outside, either in the prow or in the back. Since I didn't think I could handle 5 or 6 hours in the hot sun, I sat by the open doorway. This craft would never pass USCG standards for safety. Although there was a railing around the prow, there was nothing to protect people on the catwalk from the prow to the stern from falling into the river. I don't recall anyone mentioning that there were life preservers, of which we thankfully didn't have need.
A couple of hours into this trip we slowed down as we went through a populated area of the river (as in houseboats) and a smaller ferry came out into the channel in which we were travelling, sort of perpendicular to our trajectory. I thought, "Wow! Water traffic is just as crazy and daredevil as vehicular traffic on land here." However, our boat slowed down and the other pulled alongside us to transfer passengers from their ferry to the boat to Siem Riep. In something like 3 minutes we were on our way again.
When we landed at our destination, they put a gangplank from the prow to the beach. It was just a plank about 15 inches wide with smaller strips of wood attached horizontally, to help people to stay upright on the muddy gangplank--no railing, no ropes. It was quite a balancing act to get off.
However, the first thing that one noticed even before we got off the boat was the crowd that was waiting for us, holding up signs with names of the passengers they had come to meet. The man from my hotel had one that read, "Mr. Cora". There was a frenzy of confusion as people disembarked and the inevitable tuk-tuk drivers tried to solicit business.
They told us in Phnom Penh that it is 16 km. from the docking place to Siem Reap. The first few miles of dirt road are deeply rutted and dusty, but I would love to have filmed every bit of the way, as we passed mile after mile of bamboo houses, some with people sleeping in hammocks. In the tropics people live outdoors and life is very public. All you need a house for, really, is as a place to sleep. From the safety of my moving tuk-tuk I tried to take as many photos as I dared. For a while we were part of a parade of tuk-tuks that reminded me of a line of Amish buggies going down a road in Lancaster County, only with the putt-putt of motorbike engines rather than the clop-clop of horses. And like the line of Amish buggies, this is another world!
I'm staying at the Ancient Angkor Guesthouse, which has air conditioning in the rooms and cable TV so I look forward to watching CNN to find out what has been happening in the world since I've been out of touch. The cost? $15 per night.
My tuk-tuk drive, Mint, took me over to Angkor Wat just before sunset so I could see it at sunset. He didn't warn me that you have to climb a steep hill and then the ruins of a temple at the top of the hill. Actually, there is a way out. You can pay $15 to ride an elephant up the hill. I declined to pay that much for an elephant ride, although one of my goals while here is to ride an elephant, and joined the crowd who climbed the hill in the hot, muggy evening. The view from the top was too hazy to see clearly, and the sun sort of sank into a cloud bank, so I beat a hot path down the hill, hopefully before most of the rest of the crowd, although the path was pretty crowded.
Tomorrow I set out for Angkor Wat in earnest. Like Toad in Wind in the Willows I discovered something I MUST do. As we sat on those temple ruins at the top of the hill, I noticed a hot air balloon drifting over the valley below. Next time, I, too will be aboard!
Thursday, January 24, 2008
GENOCIDE MUSEUM PART II
Since I posted my last blog on my visit to the Genocide Museum I've learned two interesting facts: First of all, one of the aspects of the sacrilege of it all is that the high school that was taken over by Khmer Rouge and became the center for torture and condemnation to death was, in fact, built by a Christian organization: World Vision. It may sound like the plot of a Frank Peretti novel, but it really happened.
Secondly, evidently before the whole frightful period of Khmer Rouge, Christian workers found very little response to the gospel here. Since that time there has been an extraordinary spiritual hunger and people are very responsive to the gospel. The Lord indeed makes even the wrath of men to praise Him.
Secondly, evidently before the whole frightful period of Khmer Rouge, Christian workers found very little response to the gospel here. Since that time there has been an extraordinary spiritual hunger and people are very responsive to the gospel. The Lord indeed makes even the wrath of men to praise Him.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
The Children's Prayer Network
On Wednesday I had lunch with Laura, an American woman who works with a Cambodian man named Phang, who runs a children's ministry. He is particularly concerned with children at risk and educates pastors and church leaders about how they can improve the situation of children in their community.
Often parents, particularly in the northern provinces go off to Thailand to find work. Sometimes they have to leave their families here in Cambodia. Sometimes both parents have to leave home to work. Other times they never come back: they take on a new identity in their new country and marry a new spouse. This leaves the kids in the lurch. With no supervision they don't go to school and grow up illiterate. Often they are recruited as labor force.
Phang encourages churches to do "non formal education", that is, they tutor kids who have dropped out of school in the lower grades to bring them up to grade level so that they can go back to school in the next grade from when they dropped out. Evidently this has been a very successful endeavor, and they have wonderful stories about how kids can now read and write and are doing well in school.
One of the most exciting aspects of Phang's ministry Ka Kmeng (Kmeng means Children) is the Children's Prayer Network. Sometimes congregations are composed largely of children and young people. Sometimes these kids are the only believer in their family and are beaten or otherwise persecuted for their faith.
In order to provide support for these kids, Phang has organized the Children's Prayer Network. He invites churches to send up to ten children to a prayer retreat, where they meet other Christian kids and pray for their needs, their families and their nation. These kids really mean business when they pray! They are a force to be reckoned with!
At the first prayer retreat, 5 churches each sent 10 kids. At the last one 40 churches sent a total of 340 children! Now there is a prayer force!
The Cambodian church is not likely to die out within a generation or so. Their future leaders are prayer warriors who have learned at a young age to depend on their Heavenly Father through prayer.
Often parents, particularly in the northern provinces go off to Thailand to find work. Sometimes they have to leave their families here in Cambodia. Sometimes both parents have to leave home to work. Other times they never come back: they take on a new identity in their new country and marry a new spouse. This leaves the kids in the lurch. With no supervision they don't go to school and grow up illiterate. Often they are recruited as labor force.
Phang encourages churches to do "non formal education", that is, they tutor kids who have dropped out of school in the lower grades to bring them up to grade level so that they can go back to school in the next grade from when they dropped out. Evidently this has been a very successful endeavor, and they have wonderful stories about how kids can now read and write and are doing well in school.
One of the most exciting aspects of Phang's ministry Ka Kmeng (Kmeng means Children) is the Children's Prayer Network. Sometimes congregations are composed largely of children and young people. Sometimes these kids are the only believer in their family and are beaten or otherwise persecuted for their faith.
In order to provide support for these kids, Phang has organized the Children's Prayer Network. He invites churches to send up to ten children to a prayer retreat, where they meet other Christian kids and pray for their needs, their families and their nation. These kids really mean business when they pray! They are a force to be reckoned with!
At the first prayer retreat, 5 churches each sent 10 kids. At the last one 40 churches sent a total of 340 children! Now there is a prayer force!
The Cambodian church is not likely to die out within a generation or so. Their future leaders are prayer warriors who have learned at a young age to depend on their Heavenly Father through prayer.
Geocide Museum
Last night I had as much of a conversation as I could with a survivor of the holocaust here. (I don't speak Cambodian and her English is rather rudimentary and she has forgotten her French). She was from an educated family and was enrolled at a good French High School (lycee) when Pol Pot came to power Her parents and schoolmates were murdered in the killing fields She escaped by insisting that she could neither read or write, as her parents instructed her to do. It's affected her emotionally, of course, and she has a hard time functioning, but her story broke my heart.
So this a.m. I decided that it was time to visit the Genocide Museum at Toul Sleng. It was once a high school but the Pol Pot people took it over and turned it into their central prison and torture center, from which they sent people to the killing fields. If ever anyone doubts the depravity of man they ought to visit Toul Sleng. Photographs and paintings depicting the outrageous torture that went on there (and the rules of prison which forbade anyone to cry out during torture with the penalty a beating) make one shudder. It was all so unspeakably evil.
There is a guest book that people can sign at the end. Someone a few pages before me had written: Romans 8:28. For me that didn't quite fit. I wrote, "Lord, have mercy upon us."
Although Cambodians are friendly and gracious when you meet them, there is this terrible grief and fear not far below the surface. How can such a horrendous experience not scar the national psyche? Anyone over 30 actually lived through the Pot regime. Their fear and sadness has also been passed down to their children and children's children. Perhaps their longing for healing accounts for the great spiritual hunger here.
About 35 years or so ago when I was visiting Germany I was in Munich for a weekend and decided on sunny June Sunday afternoon to visit Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp. The Nazis were meticulous in their documentation and had photos of everything. (Khmer Rouge wasn't too far behind, with their photos and dossiers). I remember walking out of the exhibit at Dachau and looking up at the sun pouring through the green leaves of the trees and thinking how unreal it all seemed but it did really happen and right there. It was absolutely shattering and took me a few days to process it, but in the end I think it shows how important the Final Judgement will be to set everything right. There is a holy God who will judge sin and these barbaric wrongs will be put to right.
As Christians, we have hope. As I was leaving Toul Sleng a large group of Koreans came in all wearing black T shirts with Acts 1:8 written on the back (in English). "But you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be my witnesses..." Even in Tuol Sleng.
So this a.m. I decided that it was time to visit the Genocide Museum at Toul Sleng. It was once a high school but the Pol Pot people took it over and turned it into their central prison and torture center, from which they sent people to the killing fields. If ever anyone doubts the depravity of man they ought to visit Toul Sleng. Photographs and paintings depicting the outrageous torture that went on there (and the rules of prison which forbade anyone to cry out during torture with the penalty a beating) make one shudder. It was all so unspeakably evil.
There is a guest book that people can sign at the end. Someone a few pages before me had written: Romans 8:28. For me that didn't quite fit. I wrote, "Lord, have mercy upon us."
Although Cambodians are friendly and gracious when you meet them, there is this terrible grief and fear not far below the surface. How can such a horrendous experience not scar the national psyche? Anyone over 30 actually lived through the Pot regime. Their fear and sadness has also been passed down to their children and children's children. Perhaps their longing for healing accounts for the great spiritual hunger here.
About 35 years or so ago when I was visiting Germany I was in Munich for a weekend and decided on sunny June Sunday afternoon to visit Dachau, the Nazi concentration camp. The Nazis were meticulous in their documentation and had photos of everything. (Khmer Rouge wasn't too far behind, with their photos and dossiers). I remember walking out of the exhibit at Dachau and looking up at the sun pouring through the green leaves of the trees and thinking how unreal it all seemed but it did really happen and right there. It was absolutely shattering and took me a few days to process it, but in the end I think it shows how important the Final Judgement will be to set everything right. There is a holy God who will judge sin and these barbaric wrongs will be put to right.
As Christians, we have hope. As I was leaving Toul Sleng a large group of Koreans came in all wearing black T shirts with Acts 1:8 written on the back (in English). "But you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be my witnesses..." Even in Tuol Sleng.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Getting Around in Phnom Penh
In any international or cross cultural situation there are bound to be areas of adjustment. Going to a country as different from my own as Cambodia, there are lots of adjustments to be made.
In the US we have lots of numbered streets. How would anyone in Philadelphia find Tenth Church, for example without Seventeenth Street? In New York you find your way uptown and downtown by the numbered streets and across town by numbered avenues. Here every street seems to have a number. I'm staying on street 460 for example, in the southern part of town. It's accessed by street 123, which is the nearest cross street. And the numbers keep going up. I don't know where they stop. By the way I'm staying in the neighborhood of the Russian Market, a huge indoor market where they sell a little of everything: clothing, knock off designer fashions, fabric and other dry goods like towels and sheets, artistic and craft productions, wathces and jewelry. And you need to bargain for a good price. They figure that foreigners are rich and so they try to charge us more.
A surprising number of streets are not paved, although friends who have been here for some years tell me that it's much better than it used to be. Therefore, dust is a way of life. It's everywhere! People who ride motorbikes, the preferred means of transportation, since gas costs $4.60 a gallon, (quite a bite out of the family budget when you consider that a teacher's salary is only about $25 a month!) anyway, people who ride on motorbikes tend to wear a surgical mask or some other means of covering their nose and mouth so that they minimize the amount of dust that they breathe. By the way, I went to church on the back of a motorbike yesterday. One of the students who hangs out at the Friendship Club graciously took me.
One of the other great adjustments is stairs. I don't think they have a buildilng code that regulates the size and steepness of steps. When they have a given space in which to build stairs, they make the steps as steep as necessary to get from one end of the staircase to the other. Consequently, the bottom step may require a bit of a giant step. After the first time you come down the steps and realize how long the last step is, you take it gently!
As in Europe, light switches work the opposite from American ones. Generally we push the switch up for "on" and down for "off". here it's the opposite. Consequently I think I push away at light switches more than people who know what they are doing. By the time I leave here I may even have it all figured out!
In the US we have lots of numbered streets. How would anyone in Philadelphia find Tenth Church, for example without Seventeenth Street? In New York you find your way uptown and downtown by the numbered streets and across town by numbered avenues. Here every street seems to have a number. I'm staying on street 460 for example, in the southern part of town. It's accessed by street 123, which is the nearest cross street. And the numbers keep going up. I don't know where they stop. By the way I'm staying in the neighborhood of the Russian Market, a huge indoor market where they sell a little of everything: clothing, knock off designer fashions, fabric and other dry goods like towels and sheets, artistic and craft productions, wathces and jewelry. And you need to bargain for a good price. They figure that foreigners are rich and so they try to charge us more.
A surprising number of streets are not paved, although friends who have been here for some years tell me that it's much better than it used to be. Therefore, dust is a way of life. It's everywhere! People who ride motorbikes, the preferred means of transportation, since gas costs $4.60 a gallon, (quite a bite out of the family budget when you consider that a teacher's salary is only about $25 a month!) anyway, people who ride on motorbikes tend to wear a surgical mask or some other means of covering their nose and mouth so that they minimize the amount of dust that they breathe. By the way, I went to church on the back of a motorbike yesterday. One of the students who hangs out at the Friendship Club graciously took me.
One of the other great adjustments is stairs. I don't think they have a buildilng code that regulates the size and steepness of steps. When they have a given space in which to build stairs, they make the steps as steep as necessary to get from one end of the staircase to the other. Consequently, the bottom step may require a bit of a giant step. After the first time you come down the steps and realize how long the last step is, you take it gently!
As in Europe, light switches work the opposite from American ones. Generally we push the switch up for "on" and down for "off". here it's the opposite. Consequently I think I push away at light switches more than people who know what they are doing. By the time I leave here I may even have it all figured out!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Christian Ministry in Cambodia
There seem to be quite a few Christian ministries in the area of Phnom Penh where I'm staying. Actually there seem to be quite a few more Christians than Í'd expected. There seems to be a tremendous spiritual hunger here, and people are really searching for a spiritual connection. That means that Christian ministries are doing great work and it also means that groups like the Mormons are also gathering large numbers of people, too.
First thing this morning I met with Narin and Quenie, who pastor the church I attended on Sunday. They wanted some input on starting an Adult Bible School and mentioned that most of their people are new believers. I suggested that their first class needs to be one about basic discipleship, and that those who complete this course can be the leaders of the next one. I gave Narin a copy of Dr. Boice's Foundations of the Christian Faith and assured him that his job is to preach and teach the Word of God and that other things in the church can be done by others who are gifted to do them.
The other night I had supper with Professor S.K. Lee of Hang Dao (or however you spell it!)University in Korea, a Christian university, that the provincial government in one of the northern provinces here has invited to build a similar university there. The governement has even donated the land on which to build it. They have the land for 70 years and it must be retuned to the government if they fail to build the university. Said Professor Lee, "If we can't build a university in 70 years we don't deserve the land." He also pointed out that there are 600 Korean missionaries working in Cambodia. That rather took me aback. Wherever I've gone in the world, I've found Korean missionaries doing great work.
Today I visited two more businesses that have been established for women at risk. The first was another restaurant, Cafe Yejj, which buys organic produce from local farmers outside of Phnom Penh (in a country where you need to be very careful what you eat!) and produces really creative, tasty, beautifully presented meals, including some fabulous vegetarian entrees. They even make vegetable juices from organic produce--and I thought I was going to have to give up juicing for the duration of this trip! This business was begun by a British couple who also established a school for computer repair. though I expect that not all their students are women.
Ken explained a bit about the "women at risk". Sometimes they are kidnapped, sometimes poor families are promised that their daughter will be trained for a job and allow her to go with the exploiters. other times poor families just sell their daughters to have money to live on. In any case, human trafficking is a very ugly reality in this part of the world.
Then I went off to "The Pampering Room" where they offer pampering services: manicures, pedicures, shoulder rubs, foot rubs, shampoo and blowdry. Each service cost about $2.00 US, which is a significant amount of money here, and gives some of the women a trade by which to earn their living. I had a manicure, my first professional one.
Tomorrow I hope to have lunch with the two women who run White Lotus, the organization that rescues women at risk.
First thing this morning I met with Narin and Quenie, who pastor the church I attended on Sunday. They wanted some input on starting an Adult Bible School and mentioned that most of their people are new believers. I suggested that their first class needs to be one about basic discipleship, and that those who complete this course can be the leaders of the next one. I gave Narin a copy of Dr. Boice's Foundations of the Christian Faith and assured him that his job is to preach and teach the Word of God and that other things in the church can be done by others who are gifted to do them.
The other night I had supper with Professor S.K. Lee of Hang Dao (or however you spell it!)University in Korea, a Christian university, that the provincial government in one of the northern provinces here has invited to build a similar university there. The governement has even donated the land on which to build it. They have the land for 70 years and it must be retuned to the government if they fail to build the university. Said Professor Lee, "If we can't build a university in 70 years we don't deserve the land." He also pointed out that there are 600 Korean missionaries working in Cambodia. That rather took me aback. Wherever I've gone in the world, I've found Korean missionaries doing great work.
Today I visited two more businesses that have been established for women at risk. The first was another restaurant, Cafe Yejj, which buys organic produce from local farmers outside of Phnom Penh (in a country where you need to be very careful what you eat!) and produces really creative, tasty, beautifully presented meals, including some fabulous vegetarian entrees. They even make vegetable juices from organic produce--and I thought I was going to have to give up juicing for the duration of this trip! This business was begun by a British couple who also established a school for computer repair. though I expect that not all their students are women.
Ken explained a bit about the "women at risk". Sometimes they are kidnapped, sometimes poor families are promised that their daughter will be trained for a job and allow her to go with the exploiters. other times poor families just sell their daughters to have money to live on. In any case, human trafficking is a very ugly reality in this part of the world.
Then I went off to "The Pampering Room" where they offer pampering services: manicures, pedicures, shoulder rubs, foot rubs, shampoo and blowdry. Each service cost about $2.00 US, which is a significant amount of money here, and gives some of the women a trade by which to earn their living. I had a manicure, my first professional one.
Tomorrow I hope to have lunch with the two women who run White Lotus, the organization that rescues women at risk.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Narin and Quenie
On Sunday I met the Cambodian pastor and his Filipino wife with whom I will be working, Narin and Quenie. What an amazing couple they are.
Ken and Donna Rudy have mentored them and they even named their daughter Donna, in honor of Mrs. Rudy, who has mentored some of the women in leadership here in Cambodian Christian circles.
Narin didn't start out intending to be a pastor. He was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, but felt that God was leading him to plant a church here in Cambodia. He took a one year course for astors and then they bravely started out, gathering a group of believers in their home for worship and then moving to the ballroom of a very nice hotel. They really had to trust God to provide the rent money each month. They shared wonderful stories of how they had no idea how they were going to pay the rent and how God provided month by month what they needed to go on meeting in that facility.
Within a year, they outgrew the hotel facility and had to look for another accommodation. They now occupy the ground floor of a building in a very nice part of town, which they have decorated with potted palms, festooned with netting, and moved in lots of plastic chairs to accommodate the people who attend the services. They have a worship team, led by a classically trained musician, now on staff with Campus Crusade, and a congregation of over 100 people.
And they have vision! They are praying as a congregation for their number to grow to 300. They want me to help them to develop an adult Bible school, and I expect that we will probably discuss small group Bible study groups before I leave here. Most important, I think, is that they understand that God will be the one who builds His church and so they bathe everything in prayer. It is so refreshing to meet with a couple who is so aware of their dependance on God and who is seeing Him do great things.
Ken and Donna Rudy have mentored them and they even named their daughter Donna, in honor of Mrs. Rudy, who has mentored some of the women in leadership here in Cambodian Christian circles.
Narin didn't start out intending to be a pastor. He was on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, but felt that God was leading him to plant a church here in Cambodia. He took a one year course for astors and then they bravely started out, gathering a group of believers in their home for worship and then moving to the ballroom of a very nice hotel. They really had to trust God to provide the rent money each month. They shared wonderful stories of how they had no idea how they were going to pay the rent and how God provided month by month what they needed to go on meeting in that facility.
Within a year, they outgrew the hotel facility and had to look for another accommodation. They now occupy the ground floor of a building in a very nice part of town, which they have decorated with potted palms, festooned with netting, and moved in lots of plastic chairs to accommodate the people who attend the services. They have a worship team, led by a classically trained musician, now on staff with Campus Crusade, and a congregation of over 100 people.
And they have vision! They are praying as a congregation for their number to grow to 300. They want me to help them to develop an adult Bible school, and I expect that we will probably discuss small group Bible study groups before I leave here. Most important, I think, is that they understand that God will be the one who builds His church and so they bathe everything in prayer. It is so refreshing to meet with a couple who is so aware of their dependance on God and who is seeing Him do great things.
Cambodia, Days One and Two
Saturday Ken Rudy came over in a Tuk-tuk (took-took?) which is a kind of cart with seats facing both forward and backward and an awning overhead, pulled by a motorbike. It looks like it ought to be on a boardwalk somewhere but the streets here have a fair share of them. There are more cars here than I'd thought, but most of the traffic is motor bikes and there don't seem to be any traffic rules. If you are going to turn left, for instance, and there's oncoming traffic you just pull over to the left side of the street and stay there until you make your turn. Somehow all the various vehicles seem to avoid one another like a big game of chicken or something.
Anyway, we did some errands, and he took me to an incredibly elegant supermarket called "Lucky"" that looks like an upscale European place, where you can get products from all over the world, including a whole deli counter of French cheeses. I was thrilled that they had brown rice and fresh fruits in a refrigerated case and good looking veggies. They also have bottled water from all over, including Evian, which is a bit pricey. The local waters seem to be processed by reverse osmosis, but they seem to be quite sanitary and dont taste bad and I''m not willing to pay the price of Evian, so I'm drinking local products.
Then we had lunch at a place called Jars of Clay, a coffee shop founded by an English woman named Barbara, as a business for some of the women at risk that they've rescued from brothels and off the streets, in order to give them an alternative way to earn a living. The young women I met have become Christians and are just radiant in their faith. These women are really lovely and gracious and they do a wonderful job. The decor is charming, too. Besides, the food is clean and good and they have things that even I can eat.
I also went to the "Russian Market" which is a big, enclosed market (with no air conditioning) where we could buy some dry goods--I hadn't brought any towels, for instance"--and a number of the merchants recognized Ken, so going through the market was a bit like "Hello, Dolly! They have everthing you could imagine--much of the stuff you buy in stores in the US is made here--including many of the latest movies on DVD. Ken explained that here "copyright"seems to mean "the right to copy".
We went to two church services yesterday: one in Cambodian at 8:00 am and one in English in the afternoon at the International Christian Fellowship that really was incredibly international. In the congregation there was a pair of newlyweds from Nigeria, many Cambodians, a group from Calvin College in Michigan travelling with a group from a Christian University in Korea on a study tour of Cambodia, a large group of anglophones from all over, including the Austrailian pastor. It was another "Hello Ken!" experience. One person came over and said "I thought that was you but that's not your wife with you!"
Anyway, we did some errands, and he took me to an incredibly elegant supermarket called "Lucky"" that looks like an upscale European place, where you can get products from all over the world, including a whole deli counter of French cheeses. I was thrilled that they had brown rice and fresh fruits in a refrigerated case and good looking veggies. They also have bottled water from all over, including Evian, which is a bit pricey. The local waters seem to be processed by reverse osmosis, but they seem to be quite sanitary and dont taste bad and I''m not willing to pay the price of Evian, so I'm drinking local products.
Then we had lunch at a place called Jars of Clay, a coffee shop founded by an English woman named Barbara, as a business for some of the women at risk that they've rescued from brothels and off the streets, in order to give them an alternative way to earn a living. The young women I met have become Christians and are just radiant in their faith. These women are really lovely and gracious and they do a wonderful job. The decor is charming, too. Besides, the food is clean and good and they have things that even I can eat.
I also went to the "Russian Market" which is a big, enclosed market (with no air conditioning) where we could buy some dry goods--I hadn't brought any towels, for instance"--and a number of the merchants recognized Ken, so going through the market was a bit like "Hello, Dolly! They have everthing you could imagine--much of the stuff you buy in stores in the US is made here--including many of the latest movies on DVD. Ken explained that here "copyright"seems to mean "the right to copy".
We went to two church services yesterday: one in Cambodian at 8:00 am and one in English in the afternoon at the International Christian Fellowship that really was incredibly international. In the congregation there was a pair of newlyweds from Nigeria, many Cambodians, a group from Calvin College in Michigan travelling with a group from a Christian University in Korea on a study tour of Cambodia, a large group of anglophones from all over, including the Austrailian pastor. It was another "Hello Ken!" experience. One person came over and said "I thought that was you but that's not your wife with you!"
Arrival in Cambodia
Well, I made it! The trip took 24 hours and we lost a day going west over the International Date Line, but I made it to Cambodia shortly before midnight on Friday January 11.
Flying on Korean Air Lines was a real treat and I recommend them highly. They are an efficient organization and the cabin service is elegant and gracious. I can't say enough good about the elegant, graceful cabin staff, who really understand what it means to serve people.
My overseas flight left out of Seattle, and we went up along the coast of Canada, the panandle of Alaska, across the Bering Straight, down along the coast of Siberia and Russia, over Shanghai and then across the Korean peninsula. Incheon Airport, which serves Seoul, is actually about an hour's train ride out of Seoul, located on an island off the coast, which certainly saves Seoul the extra noise and pollution of an airport in a metropolitan area. We had to circle a long time before landing. The pilot said that they had closed two runways. When we finally landed, I noticed that there was snow on the ground, which would explain that. The airport is new and modern with every possible amenity. We had to go through security before going to the next flight, and my flight to Phnom Penh left from the gate furthest from where we landed. Fortunately, they held the plane for passengers from delayed flights. A special treat on that flight was my seat partners, who are Cambodians who live in Boston, who announced, "We are Christians." What a special gift from the Lord!
It was cold in Korea, but here in Cambodia, it's hot. Ken Rudy and a couple of friends met me at the airport. They had taken the team of students from Liberty University who had been here for two weeks to the airport to catch the return flight of the plane on which I arrived, so that worked out beatifuly. As I stepped outside the airport, the first thing I noticed was a delightful fragrance of night blooming jasmine. What a great welcome that was.
I'm staying at the Friendship Club. Jenn, who used to teach English with ELIC rented this house as a hospitality center for students and I have a room on the third floor. It's very reminiscent of Italy in that everything is done in ceramic tile, both floors and walls, so you can imagine the noise factor.
I got in after midnight local time (we are 12 hours ahead of Philadelphia) and was awakened at 5:00 a.m. with incredibly loud ululating music. I thought at first that we were in a Muslim neighborhood and this was the first call to prayer, so I thought it was best to get up and pray, but actually it was just a wedding celebration at the end of the block. They close off the street, build a kind of pavillion and start celebrating early. Wedding celebrations can go on for 3 or 4 days and they are loud and long. The certainly know how to celebrate here!
My biggest surprise so far? I told Ken Rudy that I needed to change some money since I had no Cambodian currency. He said the easiest way to do this is to go to an ATM so we did and I was shocked when it dispensed American dollars. They are legal tender here. The local currency is so badly inflated that everyone spends US dollars, (prices are given in dollars) with Cambodian rial given as small change. (There about 4000 rial or so to the dollar!)
So many sights, smells, tastes, experiences, how to get them all into words? Stay tuned.
Flying on Korean Air Lines was a real treat and I recommend them highly. They are an efficient organization and the cabin service is elegant and gracious. I can't say enough good about the elegant, graceful cabin staff, who really understand what it means to serve people.
My overseas flight left out of Seattle, and we went up along the coast of Canada, the panandle of Alaska, across the Bering Straight, down along the coast of Siberia and Russia, over Shanghai and then across the Korean peninsula. Incheon Airport, which serves Seoul, is actually about an hour's train ride out of Seoul, located on an island off the coast, which certainly saves Seoul the extra noise and pollution of an airport in a metropolitan area. We had to circle a long time before landing. The pilot said that they had closed two runways. When we finally landed, I noticed that there was snow on the ground, which would explain that. The airport is new and modern with every possible amenity. We had to go through security before going to the next flight, and my flight to Phnom Penh left from the gate furthest from where we landed. Fortunately, they held the plane for passengers from delayed flights. A special treat on that flight was my seat partners, who are Cambodians who live in Boston, who announced, "We are Christians." What a special gift from the Lord!
It was cold in Korea, but here in Cambodia, it's hot. Ken Rudy and a couple of friends met me at the airport. They had taken the team of students from Liberty University who had been here for two weeks to the airport to catch the return flight of the plane on which I arrived, so that worked out beatifuly. As I stepped outside the airport, the first thing I noticed was a delightful fragrance of night blooming jasmine. What a great welcome that was.
I'm staying at the Friendship Club. Jenn, who used to teach English with ELIC rented this house as a hospitality center for students and I have a room on the third floor. It's very reminiscent of Italy in that everything is done in ceramic tile, both floors and walls, so you can imagine the noise factor.
I got in after midnight local time (we are 12 hours ahead of Philadelphia) and was awakened at 5:00 a.m. with incredibly loud ululating music. I thought at first that we were in a Muslim neighborhood and this was the first call to prayer, so I thought it was best to get up and pray, but actually it was just a wedding celebration at the end of the block. They close off the street, build a kind of pavillion and start celebrating early. Wedding celebrations can go on for 3 or 4 days and they are loud and long. The certainly know how to celebrate here!
My biggest surprise so far? I told Ken Rudy that I needed to change some money since I had no Cambodian currency. He said the easiest way to do this is to go to an ATM so we did and I was shocked when it dispensed American dollars. They are legal tender here. The local currency is so badly inflated that everyone spends US dollars, (prices are given in dollars) with Cambodian rial given as small change. (There about 4000 rial or so to the dollar!)
So many sights, smells, tastes, experiences, how to get them all into words? Stay tuned.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Cora's Travel Blog
Just before leaving Philadelphia at Christmas, I started a new travel blog: coraspacificoddyssey.blogspot.com
I invite you to follow my travels on the blog I created especially for this trip. Please note that I've spelled Oddyssey with two d's, which is a misspelling or a pun, depending on how you look at it. The adventures will be new, but I hope not too odd.
I invite you to follow my travels on the blog I created especially for this trip. Please note that I've spelled Oddyssey with two d's, which is a misspelling or a pun, depending on how you look at it. The adventures will be new, but I hope not too odd.
Monday, January 7, 2008
SABBATICAL REPORT
“Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples,
Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously, let this be known in all the earth.”
(Isaiah 12: 4, 5)
In celebration of my 25th anniversary on staff at Tenth Church in September, many of you contributed toward my sabbatical, which goes approximately from Christmas to Easter. I praise God for His faithfulness during my 25 years of service here. I also thank all of you for your friendship and encouragement and your prayers over the years, and for making this sabbatical adventure.
I left Philadelphia on Christmas Eve to celebrate the holiday with my sister and her husband in San Diego, California. The highlights of that time were a hike on Christmas day over hills that had been charred during the recent wildfires, and the joy of seeing fresh shoots of grass growing amid the ashes. (This part of the country, which is basically desert, has had an extraordinary amount of rain since the fires, which fed on tinder produced by several years’ drought.) It was a great reminder that God has promised to give us “Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning.” The day after Christmas we went to see the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at a museum here. It was very thrilling to see something with my own eyes that I had only heard about over the years. As I took in the background information about the community that produced these scrolls and how in God’s providence they had been stored in a way and a climate that preserved them for two millenia or more, I was thrilled to think that “The word of the LORD endures forever.”
This Thursday I left for the next phase of my sabbatical: a trip to Asia. By the time you read this I should have arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to be met by our own Ken Rudy, who has made arrangements for my time there, working with a church in Phnom Penh, doing a variety of things, and certainly teaching English. Tenth Church already has strong ties with this congregation: Ken and Donna Rudy have worked with them, a short term team from Tenth Church went over to minister there in summer of 2006, and Naty Lopez spent time with the pastor and his wife on her visit there this past summer.
In early March, I hope to travel to other parts of southeast Asia to visit some of our partners who are working there, starting with Shelagh Wynne in Thailand, who is serving people who are teaching English throughout that region, then on to Hanoi, to visit one of our former staff members who is teaching English there, and finally to Seoul, to visit Danya Kelberg, who is teaching English to prospective Korean missionaries. I feel extraordinarily privileged to be able to visit partners in these places and to see what God is doing there.
Although my original travel plans were much more ambitious than this, taking in New Zealand and Hawaii, the Lord has helped me pare this down to doable proportions. Just before Easter, which comes on March 23 this year, I plan to head back to Philadelphia in order not to miss the Easter services at Tenth Church. Where else on earth would anyone find such glorious worship services?
“Give thanks to the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples,
Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously, let this be known in all the earth.”
(Isaiah 12: 4, 5)
In celebration of my 25th anniversary on staff at Tenth Church in September, many of you contributed toward my sabbatical, which goes approximately from Christmas to Easter. I praise God for His faithfulness during my 25 years of service here. I also thank all of you for your friendship and encouragement and your prayers over the years, and for making this sabbatical adventure.
I left Philadelphia on Christmas Eve to celebrate the holiday with my sister and her husband in San Diego, California. The highlights of that time were a hike on Christmas day over hills that had been charred during the recent wildfires, and the joy of seeing fresh shoots of grass growing amid the ashes. (This part of the country, which is basically desert, has had an extraordinary amount of rain since the fires, which fed on tinder produced by several years’ drought.) It was a great reminder that God has promised to give us “Beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning.” The day after Christmas we went to see the exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls at a museum here. It was very thrilling to see something with my own eyes that I had only heard about over the years. As I took in the background information about the community that produced these scrolls and how in God’s providence they had been stored in a way and a climate that preserved them for two millenia or more, I was thrilled to think that “The word of the LORD endures forever.”
This Thursday I left for the next phase of my sabbatical: a trip to Asia. By the time you read this I should have arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia to be met by our own Ken Rudy, who has made arrangements for my time there, working with a church in Phnom Penh, doing a variety of things, and certainly teaching English. Tenth Church already has strong ties with this congregation: Ken and Donna Rudy have worked with them, a short term team from Tenth Church went over to minister there in summer of 2006, and Naty Lopez spent time with the pastor and his wife on her visit there this past summer.
In early March, I hope to travel to other parts of southeast Asia to visit some of our partners who are working there, starting with Shelagh Wynne in Thailand, who is serving people who are teaching English throughout that region, then on to Hanoi, to visit one of our former staff members who is teaching English there, and finally to Seoul, to visit Danya Kelberg, who is teaching English to prospective Korean missionaries. I feel extraordinarily privileged to be able to visit partners in these places and to see what God is doing there.
Although my original travel plans were much more ambitious than this, taking in New Zealand and Hawaii, the Lord has helped me pare this down to doable proportions. Just before Easter, which comes on March 23 this year, I plan to head back to Philadelphia in order not to miss the Easter services at Tenth Church. Where else on earth would anyone find such glorious worship services?
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