Charlotte and Catherine attend The Giving Tree, a small international school in Phnom Penh that a group of expatriate* parents started as a nursery 14 years ago. The nursery grew into a school with it’s first students and now offers Nursery through to Sixth grade. What’s an Expatriate? Expatriate, often shortened to Expat, is a…
Author: Charles
Bua Tong Sticky Waterfalls
While we were in Thailand we traveled about an hour and a half out of Chiang Mai to visit the Bua Tong Sticky Waterfalls. When the MCC Nepal Reps first invited us to join them we had no idea what sticky waterfalls were… It turns out that they are waterfalls in the jungle that have…
Asia Leadership Team Meetings 2022
Last week, for the first time since 2019, the Mennonite Central Committee Asia Leadership Team was able to meet in person at the Regional Office in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We met with the International Program Directors from MCC US and MCC Canada, as well as MCC International’s new Security Officer, both sets of Area Directors,…
Karma, skin tone, and gender.
In Cambodia, lighter skin tones are traditionally associated with fortune, virtue, superiority, and good luck. These associations have a spiritual component due to how Buddhist beliefs around karma are interpreted locally. Skin tone – along with other traits such as class, health, and gender – are believed to have been determined by the individual’s accumulation…
How many Christians are in Cambodia?
As part of their horrific year zero policies the Khmer Rouge regime banned all religious practice in Cambodia and persecuted the local Christian Church almost to extinction. Buddhist institutions were allowed to reform soon after the regime was driven from power but Christianity remained illegal throughout the 1980s and the few Cambodian Christian believers who…
Big Bad Beetle
This morning I found a delightful rhinoceros beetle in our courtyard that must have been knocked down from it’s perch by the heavy winds and rain caused by Typhoon Noru last night. Well, I shouldn’t say delightful because this pest is one of the critters that’s been infesting our poor coconut palm! The Coconut Rhinoceros…
Pchum Ben
Pchum Ben is the second most significant public holiday in Cambodia after Khmer New Year. The pronunciation of Ben here is somewhere between the name ‘Ben’ and the word ‘Bun’, phonetically ‘Bĕn’ is most accurate. Pchum means ‘to come together’ and Ben means ‘ball of food’, usually a rice or meat ball used as a…
Three New Service Worker Positions with MCC Cambodia
It seems hard to believe but our Peace Coordinators, Rory and Marcia, have 10 months left in their term of service with MCC. It seems like only yesterday that we were praying desperately for their safe arrival after their flights were delayed because a plane collided with theirs while taxing on the runway in Philadelphia…
Run with Endurance
In this life we’re living there are certain verses that come up again and again. One of them is Hebrews 12:1. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips…
2022 YAMEN and SALT Class
A few days after Disha departed for India, we welcomed our new class of YAMEN and SALT participants. This year we have our largest class since prior to the pandemic, with six participants from Kenya, India, Zambia, Tanzania, and the United States. These young professionals will spend the next year living with Khmer host families…