YAMEN (Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network) and SALT (Serving And Learning Together) are 11-month-long immersive cross-cultural experiences for young Christians that build up the global church. Participants travel from their passport country to a new context where they live with a local host family, attend a local church, and volunteer at a local church or…
Tag: YAMEN
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…
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…
2023 YAMEN/IVEP Alumni Gathering
Every year (when there aren’t COVID-19 gathering restrictions) we host the Cambodian YAMEN and IVEP alumni at our home. This also includes the current SALT and YAMEN participants serving in Cambodia, as well as the outbound Cambodian IVEP/YAMEN participants who will be leaving in July. This isn’t just a social gathering – though it’s wonderful…
Visiting Isaac’s Host Family in Mesang
Last month during our team visit to Prey Veng province we visited Isaac, our SALT participant, who is living with a Khmer host family there and working at ODOV. Isaac is a recent graduate in Environmental Science from Eastern Mennonite University and is supporting ODOV as the Climate Resilience Assistant. Isaac’s host family in Mesang…
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…
Medical Emergency Update
I wanted to provide a quick update on our YAMEN participant, Disha, who had a catastrophic stroke shortly before ending her term of service and returning home to India. Last week Disha was able to return home to India on a medical flight and has been admitted to a high quality hospital that specializes in…
Medical Emergency on the Team
This has been shared on the Mennonite Central Committee and Mennonite World Conference Facebook pages, but by the time we were given permission to share publicly we were too in the thick of it to post an update here on the blog. Just days from completing her term of service and turning home to India…
2022 Traditional Khmer Photoshoot
As has become tradition, two weekends ago we joined the ‘GSL’ team for a photoshoot in traditional Khmer clothing. GSL stands for Global Service Learning; it’s the department that our YAMEN and SALT exchange program fits under. There are a number of shops in Phnom Penh where you can inexpensively rent traditional Khmer outfits and have your…