Too messy to worship

The other night we were talking idols and images of gods. I brought up the "classic Jesus" picture as an example of a picture of the God of Western Christianity. You know the guy with the long hair and dress?

Kimsoeun said from his non- Western point of view it seemed funny that people would have someone so messy looking for their god. He doesn't even shave his beard.

He contrasted the Jesus images to a picture of some kind of divine man in Buddhism. This man is worthy of worship- he is clean, spotless, blemish free.

Although interestingly Soeun first started going to church after seeing the Jesus movie.

On the weekend Soeun preached at a school a few hours out of town. He often preaches at church, and the Bible school, so usually to groups of Christians he knows. But this was to a group made up of many non Christians as well as Christians. It was hard to prepare as he didn't know them. He ended up having to change some of his illustrations as he went.
He stayed over night and preached the next day too, so he got to know them a bit. He was surprised to find they knew how to sing one of the songs he wrote, and they were surprised to find he was the songwriter.

(It turned out the students from the Bible school who work there had taught this group one of Kimsoeun's song.)

Chinese New Year/ Valentines Day

Valentines Day is huge here, even the day before the streets are lined with people selling flowers, as you see in this photo.

Chinese New Year is also big here, there are lots of Chinese people in Cambodia and lots of other people who like Chinese things and/or like holidays (I guess). In the lead up to CNY I saw heaps of people buying and selling what looks like a bundle of sticks. I never saw this in China, I don't think they do it in the part of China I was in.

Also in the lead up to CNY there are lots of shiny red and gold things for people to buy to get ready for new year. Can you see these decorated pumpkins being sold alongside the usual produce?

Anyway, back to the bundle of sticks. It turns out they are trees. You can buy them and if the yellow flower blooms on new year it means you will have good luck all year.

You can see the tree in this petrol sellers house has been untired and decorated with red money packets.

This one in the house of the chemist shop was already blooming on the 13th Feb, so i guess they won't have good luck this year. There was an article in the paper about someone who had worked out how to control the blooming by the amount of water they used. So he knows he will always have good luck because he can make his tree bloom on the right day.

Kimsoeun preaching at church yesterday

Our friend’s father recently passed away after being sick for some time. Our friend and her mother are Christians, and are so thankful that their father/husband accepted Jesus just before he died.

Recently I’ve heard of a few Christians who have ended up having a Buddhist funeral. As soon as some dies, or when they are dying, the monks are called in to carry out the Buddhist rituals. Apparently it all happens automatically, with friends and neighbours playing their part. As the major religion is Buddhism, and many parts of life are very religious it seems that everyone knows the proper thing to do when someone dies. So this is how Christians end up having Buddhist funerals, even when they have lived their life as a Christian and their family knows they are not Buddhist.

In the case of our friend, if she’d wanted her father to have a Christian funeral, she and her mum would have had to confront her relatives with this strange idea. I’m guessing that wouldn’t have been an easy thing to do at any time- but especially hard if you were to do it the same hour your father/husband had passed away. So I think they just let everyone take care of everything, knowing it was only his body and that they will see him again.

Inside the temple

At the moment Festival of the Dead is on, as I mentioned below. Last year Rachael went to see what they were all up to at 4.30am in the temple. Have a look at her photos here.

Looking after your deceased family members in Asia

Last Thursday as I rode to and from work I saw people burning things outside their houses. They used metal bins or big metal bowls to burn money and other paper things for their dead ancestors. I'll try to get a photo next year. I think they also had a special meal that day. Its a Chinese festival, although I don't remember seeing it in China. Religious things are more obvious here.

And on Saturday the Cambodia "Festival of the Dead" began. It's called 'Pchum Ben'and goes for two weeks. During these two weeks the streets are filled with people in their best clothes going to temples to give food to their ancestors. Some photos: KI Media, Pchum Ben photos
See also Feeding the Dead
The last few days are public holidays and everyone goes back to their hometown.

Quick renovations

We mentioned in a previous post that the church at Preach Vihear was meeting in someone's house. Unfortunately that can't happen anymore, but another lady who has a much smaller house hosted their meeting yesterday. Her house is too small to fit everyone, but they took all her things out, except for her bed, then cut the wall near the window to make it bigger.

Temple on the cliff- Preah Vihear!

Recently Soeun and some students went to Preah Vihear Province and visited Preah Vihear temple. In July last year UNESCO declared it World Heritage.

Since then this entrance has been blocked. There are troops on both the Thai and Cambodia side of the border here. Both countries claim it as their own. Else where on this blog you can read about the Khmer/thai relations and the tensions that were at their height in October last year.





Cambodians here worship DaDy, a local spirit to ask for protection. He was a General who lived here many years ago.




The photo above is taken from the edge of the cliff that the temple is built on. You can see the roads and the village at the bottom of the hill on the Khmer side.

If you have read about Pol Pot time you may have read about some Khmer refugees being pushed back into Cambodia by Thai people. I think this is the area where these Khmer people who had fled their country to the safety of Thailand were taken back and pushed off a cliff.


Want to know more? See Journey to the top of Cambodia

Cambodians go cross cultural in the comfort of their own country.

Recently Soeun and a group of Bible school students spent a few days in Preah Vihear province. Visiting this remote location was a cross cultural experience for Soeun- even though he is Khmer.

A church in Preah Vihear province
A lady about 27 years old makes multiple trips on her motorbike each Sunday to pick up kids from all around her village in Preah Vihear province. She takes them to her house, where she lives with her 2 children, the eldest is 11 years old. (Someone younger than me has an 11 year old! They tend to get married young in villages. Her husband is a farmer and often has to live out in the fields so she is home alone with the kids.)

Each week they sing Christian songs and memorize some parts of the Bible. There were only about 5 Bibles for around 20 people. They don’t have a pastor (or a church building), so their meetings are different from what I know as a “church service”.

Even though they don’t have the plans and strategies that a Phnom Penh church might have, they have continued meeting each week for years. Soeun was really struck by this. So much human effort and planning goes into church as we know it. In contrast this church is planned and held together by God, in a way that is more obvious than it might be in a city church.

When Soeun preaches in Phnom Penh, the church members sit and listen. But when he tried to preach in Preah Vihear it was a whole different experience. When they understood something or were excited it was obvious by their body language and comments. So it was obvious to him when they didn’t understand what he was saying as they sat their looking confused. He had to work hard at using language they can understand easily, rather than the sort of language used in a Bible school.
One sermon was on a passage they knew by heart so he got them to recite bits of it though out his talk.

Currently there are two students at the Bible school from Preah Vihear. They are planning to go back when they have finished their study. Soeun is really excited about this, there is so much need for them there. Generally in the Cambodian church leaders and church members with a good Bible knowledge are needed.

When it was time for the team to leave, the children had already gone to school. Soeun was sad the kids couldn’t see them off as they had so much fun together.


Remote, unexpected, different.

Until recently Preah Vihear was ‘cut off’ from the rest of the country as there was no road access. Also it was one of the last strong holds of the Khmer Rouge so it was known as a place of fighting.

Siem reap province is known for Angkor Wat, Kompong Cham is known for rubber trees, Battambang is known for rice and oranges but Soeun doesn’t remember hearing anything special about Preah Vihear province.

It now boasts a World Heritage site- the temple on the border with Thailand. The Bible school team went to visit; there are photos elsewhere on my blogs.

Before the team headed up there they made a program of events. They knew they would probably need to be flexible as they didn’t know what to expect. This was true- even more than they thought. Lots of surprises.

Some of the things Soeun wasn’t expecting included the fact that there were schools and markets and the crime rate seemed to be less than in other parts of Cambodia. We don’t know any official stats on this, but from the way people live it seems to be the case. Parents were happy for groups of girls to walk home in the dark, and it must be really dark as there is no electricity (apart from people’s generators which they turn on at certain times). Surrounded by thick jungle too. There didn’t seem to be gangs there as there are in other places.

One of the boys got a nail in his foot. When this happened Soeun was surprised to find the community didn’t seem to have access to medical care.

Lots of jungle and dust, like in R’kiri we visited at Christmas.

That’s just some of the things that Soeun told me within the first few hours of getting back to Phnom Penh, plus the fact that the team had brought back a boy. Buts that’s a story for another day… maybe an email rather than a blog.

Spirit houses, "neak da"

One of my first impressions of Phnom Penh, when I arrived three years ago, was that there were so many religious things everywhere. In many ways it looked the same as another Asian city I’ve lived in, apart from the monks, temples and “spirit houses”.


Almost every shop and house has one of these spirit houses you can see in these photos. These mini houses are used for offering candles, incense, food and drink to local spirits called “neak da”

Officially a Buddhist country, Cambodians actually practice spiritualality that is a mixture of Buddhism, Hinduism and animisim.

Our news

This year we started going to a new church. Soeun has already begun helping with music and preaching. Its nice to go somewhere together and fairly close to our home. I'm pleasantly surprised at the amount of Khmer I can understand. Although maybe I shouldn't be surprised as the main thing I've been doing is studying the language! And there is still so much I don't understand. I've been writing about it under the topic of church on our other blog if you want to know more.

I have started helping some Khmer people teach English. Khmer teachers, Khmer kids, but all in English- they are amazing! My role is to help the teachers with their English and with class activities. My only training and experience in English language teaching is with adults, so I'm finding it challenging to think of learning activities for kids. Five year olds are quite different to adults! I'm blogging about it on the other blog under Bilingual school.

So I have been getting to know lots of new people which is both exciting and exhausting. It has been hard as I have had a cold on and off all for about a month. I keep thinking I'm better but then I get sick again. Very frustrating!

Second semester at the Bible school is beginning this week, so the students are back after a week holiday and Soeun is back teaching again. He was marking papers most of last week- one of his least favourite parts of the job. 

This semester Teacher Soeun is teaching two subjects: Intro to Preaching and Observation (as in observing the Bible)

Oh, and the project evaluation is underway!

Baptism

On Saturday three churches got together about an hour or so outside Phnom Penh to baptise about 24 people in a river (the Mekong I think). The church we just started going to went, but I wasn't feeling well. Soeun went though and here are some of his photos.

Above is a pile of noodle type things that go in a dish of food I really like. Its kind of like a salad, they often have it at weddings.
And here are some fish being grilled. Below is a photo of some boys using a banana tree as a boat! It had nothing to do with the church day out, Soeun just thought it was interesting.
Here is the table set for lunch.

And here are some of the people getting baptised!

Do you have a Bible?

Facts about Bible Poverty (click to see Vision2025)

Languages spoken in the world: 6,912

Languages needing Bible translation work to begin: 2,251

Languages with some or all of the Bible: 2,426

Population of people groups waiting for work to begin:193M

Click here to read a story about someone explaining to a man why there was no one to help translate the Scriptures into his language.

Cambodian History books

Alongside language study I have been trying to study Cambodia in general. In the first half of 2008 I read some books about Cambodian history, here is list, some titles are clickable.




Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Nation, Henry Kamm, Arcade Publishing, 1998


Covers 1970-1998. Very readable and put together lots of different events that I didn’t know how they were related. Let me tell you about the first chapter and the afterword.

“Hope is for the unborn” (chpt 1) talks about the state Cambodia was in 10 years ago, when the book was written. It was in such a bad state that a UNICEF worker concluded there was no hope for the people who are here now, only for those who will be born in the future.

“How much can be expected from an education system that started from zero in 1979? After the Pol Pot years, in which schools were abolished, only three hundred Cambodians with a higher education were left in the country.” (pg 11)

“Cambodia today is also a ward of untreated psychiatric illnesses that have their principle origin in the four years of the genocide. Twelve psychiatrists practiced in Cambodia before 1975; none were left after the despots fall.” (pg 14”)

And in the afterword…

“Over the past century its (Cambodia’s) life has been grossly tampered with by many outsiders. By France…By Japan… By the United States…By China…By Vietnam…By the Soviet Union…” (pge 251)

“Cambodia looks mortally ill, and experience has shown that its own doctors are not up to the task of curing it. When a powerful Cambodian falls ill he goes abroad to be treated. I fear “abroad” would have to come to Cambodia to try to pull the stricken nation through. I see no other way but to place Cambodia’s people into caring and disinterested hands for one generation, administer it for its own sake, and gradually hand it back to a new generation of Cambodians , who will have matured with respect for their own people and are ready to take responsibility for them.” (pg 252)

A bleak diagnosis! I wonder what Kamm would say ten years on?



Christians and the Church in Cambodian History


The Tears of my Soul, by Sokreaksa S. Himm, Monarch Books, 2003
After the Heavy Rain, by Sokreasa S.Himm, Monarch Books, 2007

The author of these books lived through Pol Pot time. After crawling out from under his dead family members he managed to survive the rest and eventually made it to Canada. Recently he has shown his forgiveness to his family’s killers in very tangible ways (building a school).

From Phnom Penh to Paradise, by VarHong Ashe, Hodder and Stoughton, 1988

This is an autobiographical account of the Khmer Rouge time. This lady was a new Christian, living in Phnom Penh in 1975 when the city fell. She and her extended family are forced out of the city, along with everyone else. Its hard to imagine all the horrible things that happened to them are real.

Where blood flows the heart grows softer, by Jeanette Lockerbre, 197?

This book was written during Pol Pot time about the first half of the 1970’s when many Cambodians became Christians.

Killing Fields, Living Fields, by Don Cormack, Monarch Books, 1997

History of the church. Spans

Remember Cambodia


The 1990’s in Cambodia


Gecko Tails, by Carol Livingston, Phoeix, 1996


Written by a journalist who was here during United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). Writes about life, especially the political scene, in the early 1990s. I’m amazed that things were so different here such a short time ago.

Off the rails in Phnom Penh, Amit Gilboa, Asia Books, 1998


Written mostly about a particular group of ex-pats (“adventurers” and “misfits”) who lived in Cambodia in late 1990s. Includes the author’s experience of the coup in 1997.


Pol Pot Period

Movie: The Killings Fields

When Broken Glass Floats , by Chanrithy Him, W.W. Norton & Company, 2007


First they killed my father, byLoung Ung, Harper Collins, 2000

These two books are both written by Cambodian women who were about 5 and 9 years old when Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. They tell us about their families being forced out of the city, and the years that followed of hunger and fear and death.




Year Zero, Francois Ponchaud, 1977


A short history of Cambodia, by Francois Ponchaud , 2007

Hun Sen, Strongman of Cambodia, by Mehta, Graham Brash, 1999
Sihanouk, Prince of Light Prince of Darkness, Milton Osbourne, Silkworm Books, 1994

Christmas and What Next?

Recently I was in a shop and I saw a Christmas tree right next to a spirit house and here is the photo I took. Most shops and homes have spirit houses. It’s a place to give incense, food and Coke to various types of spirits- local ones, big ones, ancestors ones. Food is given to appease and/or worship them. For Christians the Christmas tree is for celebrating Jesus birth, so I thought it was interesting to see them right next to each other. In this case the tree is more to do with Western culture and commercialism, but it made me think about the Cambodian churchgoers who also go to visit Buddhist temples.
My language tutor was practising to be an angel in the college Christmas play, so before Christmas I learnt the word for angel (DAVE-id-DAH). So every Christmas play and service I went to I listened out for this word.

The most entertaining angel was the one I saw at an orphanage. The kids acted out the Christmas story to a sound track for that purpose. Whenever an angel entered the audience heard clanging Chinese music and saw a little boy jumping, spinning and kung fu kicking in the air! It was hilarious!

KS’s church celebrated Christmas on Dec 23rd. They also acted out the story, but to a song KS wrote.

Christmas Day, KS had the day off. We belatedly celebrated our wedding anniversary as well as Jesus’ birth. In the evening we went to a dinner for Cambodian church leaders.

Here are some photos from the day we went on a picnic out of town. You can see fish with lemongrass shoved down their throat, and Soeun in front of a field.

We’re glad December is over. I guess it’s always a busy time at church leading up to Christmas. This year as well as working at college has taken on role of co-leading the church. Among other things this means preaching about twice a month, so weekend are often busy anyway. Adding Christmas preparation to that mix made it even busier! It would be good if the church had more people on the preaching roster.

The Friday before Christmas I had my last language class at the university. I studied Khmer language there for nine months, this month I’m beginning a new phase of language study. Although I won’t start properly until next month, this month there are a few other things happening.

Did you know...?

“If Cambodian cuisine could speak, it would be a polyglot hybrid of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Thai, with a smattering of French and a heavy Indian accent.”

(Paul Brisby, SE Globe, Dec 2007)


There are at least 10 words for ‘carry’ in Khmer language. Each word is for a different way of carrying. For example, one word is used when you carry something on your shoulder, another for when you carry something on your hip. There is a word for when you carry things that are hanging from a long stick that is resting on your shoulders, and another one for when more than one person carries something.


Only about half the primary schools in Cambodia have toilets. As well as all the other reasons I think this would contribute to less girls finishing school.

(Phnom Penh Post Dec 14, 2007)

The annual roll toll in Cambodia is going up…
“RTAVIS reported 2,140 casualties in October alone, of which 136 were fatalities. Another 616 were severely injured compared to September, during which 121 died and 537 were seriously injured out of a total reported 1,818 casualties.”

(RTAVIS=Handicap International Belgium’s Road Traffic Accident and Victim Information System)
(The Cambodian Weekly, Dec 23 2007)

Christmas goes for 2 months in Cambodia! As Dec 25 isn’t a public holiday each church will decide which Sunday to hold their Christmas service. It could be anywhere from late November to early January. And as some services are in the morning and some in the afternoons a person who wants to visit different churches can go to many services. One year KS went to 4 churches in the same day and ended up sleeping the night at the last one.

“72% of the 1,016 Cambodians interviewed said they paid a bribe to receive a service in the previous 12 months, according to Transparency International’s 2007 Global Corruption Barometer released December 6. Only Cameroon … had a higher corruption score.”

(PPPost Dec 14, 2007)

“Inflation rises to 6.5% in Sept”
“While the complaints about gas prices soaring to 4,450 riels per litre continue, another crescendo of worries is coming from consumers about the hikes in the cost of food and other commodities.”
A food seller was interviewed and said she had to put the cost of her meals up as inflation was eroding all her profit.
(PP Post, Dec 13, 2007)

WAT PHNOM

“Phnom” means “hill”. Ironically Phnom Penh is quite flat.

There is one hill which now has a “wat” (temple) built on it. Wat Phnom as it is called was apparently built in 1373 when an old lady called Penh found some Buddha statues near the river. From there a city formed around Wat Phnom of Penh.

Today its used as a temple, and is also a popular place to visit for fun.

Last year, when I first got to Cambodia I found I really missed beign able to go for a walk. The weather, traffic and roads are really good for strolling around. I lived near Wat Phnom though, so it was a nice place to walk, lots of greeness and shade as you can see from the photos.

Although, there are lots of monkeys jumping around everywhere. On the ground, in the trees etc, so it doesn't make for a very restful stroll.

Most of these photos I took around the bottom of the huge round-about like thing. But you can also walk up the hill and see the temple at the top. But I was more interested in the greeness!

There are many people sellings all kinds of things.

At the front there is a huge clock in the grass. You can kind of see it in these photos.