MCC U.S. Board Learning Tour 2023

In June 2023, the MCC U.S. Board of Directors spent eight days in Cambodia for a Learning Tour. There were 26 visitors in all, including Board members and MCC staff. We were quite a crowd when the MCC Cambodia team met up with them. On Sunday morning, the Learning Tour split up into two groups…

Fresno Pacific University Visit 2023

In July, we hosted a group from Fresno Pacific University in California. Fresno Pacific is a Mennonite Brethren University. The group spent most of it’s time in Vietnam but came through Cambodia for a week and ended with a few days in Thailand. The lead Professor for the group was Dr. Ken Friesen who was…

What is Seek?

Seek is a new cohort discipleship program from Mennonite Central Committee that had it’s first pilot earlier this year in Israel/Palestine. The second pilot is planned for next year in Cambodia. It is a 6 month discipleship program meant to engage Anabaptist youth (ages 18-20) with the core tenants of Anabaptist faith, MCC, and the global…

Chan Trea’s Class on Anger Management

I wanted to share a story of change from our Peaceful Education project. This story came specifically out of the Peace Club pilot and was collected by our MER Coordinator, Mr. Mok. A white shirt with a blue skirt or blue trousers is the sight of six grade students who attend Svay Chor Primary school…

New Service Workers

Back in September of last year, I shared that we were recruiting for three new service workers to join the MCC Cambodia team. I’m glad to announce that all three arrived safely and without incident in Cambodia on May 19th. We had a service worker back out after accepting last year so we waited to…

5 Year Program Review Team

Ideally, every MCC country program in the world should undergo a Program Review every five years. This doesn’t always happen due to instability, conflict, or other disruptions. Cambodia was scheduled for a Program Review in 2020 but it ended up being delayed for three years due to the pandemic. The Program Review is an opportunity…

New National Staff

In October, MCC Cambodia said farewell to our PME Coordinator, Visal, and our Finance Officer, Ringsey. It would have been hard to lose either of these senior national staff, but it was especially difficult to lose both of them the same month so soon after the catastrophic medical emergency on the team. I mentioned them…

Interview with Ratt Morn, a farmer

Transcribed by Imm Sokea, MCC Cambodia Connecting Peoples CoordinatorPhotos by Isaac Alderfer, 2022-2023 SALT participant at ODOV My name is Rath Morn. When I was a child living with my parents, there were two seasons – dry season and rainy season. There were no changes within the seasons unlike nowadays. I was able to support…

Clay Pots

One of the peacebuilding exercises that we’ve seen Women Peace Makers (WPM) and Peace Bridges Organization (PBO) use here in Cambodia is to split the training participants up into small groups with the assignment to work together to paint a clay pot with their vision of the future that they want for their communities. This…

Visiting Sokhim’s Vegetable Garden

During my visit to Kratie in January 2023, I meet with a poor farmer named Sokhim who lives along the Mekong river in Kratie province. She is a recent widow whose husband passed away after a lengthy illness leaving her to raise five children on her own. Sokhim’s husband was building a new house for the…