After just shy of three years in Cambodia we finally made it back to North America on our first home leave. The first sign of culture shock on this trip has been particularly rough. It started when we arrived at the Seoul airport and discovered that most of the toilets required toilet paper. I haven’t…
Category: Back Home
And we’re on our way!
And we’re on our way back to North America for our first home leave! I’m writing from the Seoul airport where we have a six hour layover. It’s been a long time since we’ve been home and almost as long since we’ve left the Kingdom of Cambodia. The last time we left Cambodia was a…
Two stories about gunmen in today’s news
Today there are two stories about gunmen in the Phnom Penh newspapers. The local story is about a ‘Phantom Gunman’ who – twice this week – has driven through different neighborhoods at night and fired 3 to 4 shots into the air before driving off. The other story is the horrific and tragically familiar school…
Home Leave 2022
Next month we will finally be on our long delayed first home leave. We will be spending June in Pennsylvania/New Jersey, United States and July in Saskatchewan, Canada. Home leave is not purely a time of respite and reconnection, we will still have some meetings and work to do, but we are looking forward to…
Earl Shutt
I haven’t shared the story of how I became Mennonite here (and I won’t be now) but the course of my life was changed profoundly by attending Fairfield Mennonite Church while in High School. Suffice to say, I wouldn’t be with Mennonite Central Committee or in Cambodia now if not for that congregation’s influence. As…
No visit to the US this year.
We had originally planned to travel back to the US in March of this year for our first home leave. There were many reasons we couldn’t do this in March but they all have the same root cause; as Charlotte has come to say with weary disgust, “because of COVID.” That remains true now as…
Willard Swartley
One of the books that I brought from North America is Health, Healing and the Church’s Mission. Reading this book was the extent of my interaction with Willard Swartley. The book is a wonderful – if dense – discussion of the Christian Church’s formal role in healthcare. A role that the contemporary Church has largely…
Care & Share Thrift Shoppes
Over the last four months we have slowly been downsizing everything we own to a few suitcases, some storage tubs, and a couple pieces of furniture. That’s meant donating a lot of our belongings to thrift stores. Today I took a load of our belongings to the Care & Share Thrift Shoppes in Souderton Pennsylvania…