Day 305 in Cambodia

Sua s’dei!

Ten months with LWF Cambodia. Incredibly, that leaves only one more month before our departure from the organization on 18 July. These days, we are much more conscious of time speeding by.

A month ago, we were showing Joanne and Glenn our world; this past Sunday (15 June) we were talking to them via Skype as they celebrated Mom and Dad Busch’s 60th wedding anniversary in Kelowna.

But back on 23 May-Royal Ploughing Day, Vannary’s youngest daughter, Linda, helped Joanne and Glenn and the two of us understand the display of royal pomp and the King’s cows’ predictions of a good rice harvest this coming year.

Rice planting may be aided by an early and hard rainy season. Our landlady, Mrs Kim Lay, says the river is rising more quickly this year. The pattern of a daily downpour has returned. While the temperature may have dropped several degrees, the humidity is rising.

Rice is so important to this culture. Most Cambodians eat it at every meal; Phallay feeds it to us with every lunch. We’re pleased to announce that on the cusp of our last month, we ate rice for the first time in a Cambodian home.

We were graciously, generously, and enthusiastic-ally welcomed into the heart of Vannary’s family. The eldest daughter, Marta, arrived just in time for dinner, with her young man, Thearith-soon to be fiancé (date of engagement TBA, perhaps July). Daughters Molika and Linda, however, had been in the kitchen, preparing dish after dish for our arrival. Marcus kept wanting to take a photograph of the dining table laden with food, but Vannary would say, “Wait, wait, there’s another dish!”

Speaking of gathering at the table, for the past several months we’ve been serving as Eucharistic ministers (communion assistants) at mass. It’s an honour and a privilege to serve in this way, to participate in the liturgy and to feel part of this community of faith. Marcus is scheduled to serve on Saturday 19 July at our last opportunity to worship with this congregation.

Food is always a good way for us to connect with people and it’s one of our successful entry points with Phallay and Ratna. This week, Marcus delivered two of his dill-pickled eggs to Ratna (who returned the empty jars with a pair of his delectable avocados). The dill was a flavour Ratna was not familiar with.

LWF Cambodia currently sets its annual priorities based on the “Country Strategy 2003 to 2008.” As the Country Strategy approaches its finish line, a 10-member Final Evaluation Team assembled this month under the guidance of Australian Type A consultant, Jan Cossar. She propelled the team through an incredible schedule over four weeks, gathering, analyzing, reporting data, and making recommendations for the next six-year strategy. We hadn’t anticipated hearing the results of the evaluation, but dropped in last week at the beginning of a three-day workshop to include staff leadership in the process and …stayed to the end.

The Final Evaluation Team included staff, government representatives, partners, and donors, including Chey Mattner, from Australian Lutheran World Service. Chey had visited LWF Cambodia earlier this year and granted us permission to use some of his photographs of Cambodian faces.

Tired at the end of the Final Evaluation, Chey came for dinner with us on his last night in Phnom Penh. Not surprisingly for those of you in the PP Visitors’ Club, although Maly’s departure was no more than 10 minutes after Chey’s arrival, he couldn’t get over what wonderful service she provides.

Although Mrs Kim Lay had spilled the beans to Maly about our departure, we were so sad to deliver to Maly her end-of-service notice.

With the results of the Final Evaluation of the 2003 to 2008 Country Strategy, LWF Cambodia prepares for 2009 to 2014. This week another two days are lifted from our schedule as we sit in yet another hotel conference centre to craft vision, mission, goals, and objectives and consider organizational structure and budgeting for the coming years. This time, the deliberations are in Khmer. David, Marcus and I huddle at one table to hear Sambaddh translate and we compare our thoughts, particularly on the words and grammar of the suggested texts.

This is one of our last opportunities to work with David. Friday we fly to Bangladesh and Saturday David flies home to Wisconsin for home leave.

David’s family left without him last week, but he’ll soon join Beth, Jonathan and Michal in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, for the summer. This time at the end of their home leave, David and Beth will return alone. Jonathan will be starting his third year of university and Michal her first.

Making our final month all the more exciting (and shorter!), we fly to Bangladesh on Friday to offer a four-day workshop on communications strategic planning in conjunction with Vuthy and his topic, rights-based advocacy.

Trying not to think of sad farewells, but leaning toward our good friends in Hokkaido and Honshu, we are
M&M in Phnom Penh