"Context is your friend"

My teacher was famous for saying that. I heard about it before I studied with him. Then it turned out he did say it a lot in class so we all joked about it while we were in

his class, and still think about that phrase over a decade and a half later.  It’s so useful in so many situations.

I remember seeing a friend lug his laptop to a café in Phnom Penh years ago.  I suggested to the visiting Australian that he might like to just go to an internet cafe and use a computer there. It was cheaper and easier.  No need to carry your computer in crazy traffic and you only pay a few cents per half hour instead of having to buy a café drink.

A couple of years later I went to Australia and noticed many people use the internet on their own laptops, and they are used to it. His decision had seemed strange to me while in Cambodia, but when I saw the context he was used to being in it made perfect sense.

If I, an Aussie get confused about what’s happening in Australia these days it feels like there is even a bigger gap for people who live in Australia and want to know what’s happening in Cambodia. Sometimes there’s moments when I realize people reading our newsletters are missing so much context but it’s great that they can pray anyway.

And then it’s quite overwhelming to think how this applies to me not understanding the Cambodian context that I live in. And then another huge jump to think about the gap between Cambodians who have never been to Australia and how they would see me and all the weird things I do.