RYA'N'DAPHNE

how to be cool overseas

So you know how missionaries have that reputation as being so un-cool?  I'm talking plaid jumpers and stuff.  I don't really know where I picked up the stereotype, since my own cousins who grew up overseas always had WAY cooler clothes than I ever did.

Anyway, times have changed. Thanks to the internet (and to bootleg movies that show up in our markets before they're even out on DVD) you can now easily keep up with all the latest trends, even when you're living in a rural part of Cambodia. And this we know for sure: the latest trend is ANGRY BIRDS. How do we know this? Every market in Cambodia is filled to over-flowing with every type of angry birds clothing and paraphanalia imaginable.  Seriously, everything: flip-flops, pillows, underwear, jeans, and of course fake iphones on which to play the game.

So our trendy friends Steve and Amie decided to host an Angry Birds party, because what else do you do with all this paraphanalia.  Ryan and I scored some matching angry birds matchy-matchies (pj's) from the Prey Veng market for the occassion. 

We will be ready to return to America in a year for sure!

as if cambodia wasn't interesting enough already...

...this little peanut should provide some entertainment!

*

and now

our top 10 responses to the top 10 questions we've received so far:

(1) the baby is due in mid-july.

(2) we'll go to a hospital in bangkok (with its own starbucks) to deliver.

(3) yes, you read right. the ultrasound pic does say FOETUS.

(4) no, we don't know if it's a boy or girl.

(5) nope, don't know that either.

(6) yes, "morning" (i.e. all-day-long) sickness is miserable.

(7) yep, daphne will likely have the hugest stomach in prey veng.

(8) no, you cannot eat red-tailed fish if you are preggo in cambodia.

(9) we are indeed seeing a doctor monthly in phnom penh.

(10) and that's about all we know, folks.

nepal

how exactly do you summarize a trip that included both the taj mahal and the himalayas? 

and reconnecting with friends and crisp weather and fifty cent plates of momos and spicy chai and ancient cobble-stone streets and pagodas and temples and terraced rice padies and lakes and beads and bangles!

[insert superlative here]

this being my third time back in nepal, and ryan's first, we had an amazing 2 weeks discovering and re-discovering this place i love so much. it remains as intruiging as my first visit. the sacred and the mundane so intertwined that it's impossible to distinguish a tree from a temple. the ancient and the new side-by-side: a 7th century buddha nestled in a side-walk next to a coca-cola vendor. the massive himals and imposing stupas towering over and yet somehow not overshadowing the tiniest most intricate wood carving or bright red drop of a bindi.

a highlight was our short 4-day trek in the annapurna range, which included a morning walk up to Poon Hill ("hill" here meaning 10,000+ feet) to watch the sun rise over the himalayas. ryan and i agreed it's probably the most stunning site we've ever soon!  (and we're hoping that the friendly couple at the top with the nice camera will send us a few photos...)

{ view of poon hill & phewa lake with a dinky disposable camera we found }

and the kathmandu area is a gem...besides all the pollution...and the haze the blanketed the sky most of the time we were there.  other than that, love it!  a few pics we snapped on one of our final days with a new camera...

 { ancient creaky crooked architecture of kathmandu }

{ bouddanath stupa }

{ till next time! }

giving thanks

we just finished up the leftovers from our first thanksgiving feast in prey veng! we are thankful for some awesome phnom penh friends who made the trip out for the weekend, for loads of delicious food, and for the innumerable other blessings God graces us with every single day.  i am also thankful for ryan's delicious turkey, which was oh so successfully delicious and juicy, without an accurate oven temp or thermometer (he guessed) or roasting pan (we made a makeshift one) or string to hold the bird together (we used...thumb-tacks).

{ featuring: michael & lisa's stuffing and babaganoush and tropical sangria, steve & jodi's corn casserole and sweet potatos with roasted marshmellows, aimee's pumpkin biscuits, ryan's turkey and mashed potatoes, mok & seyha's cambodian rice wine, lisa s.'s cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie, alex's salad, my apple crisp, and caleb's nuts&choc ice-cream }

{ final family foto thanks to steve chee }

india

After months and months of looking forward to our trip to India and Nepal, it is suddenly over.  Normally at this point, I would be obsessively looking through photos and selecting just which ones to load on the blog or facebook or whatever.  As you may have heard, our camera was pick-pocketed while we were in Nepal, so we just have a few pics of our last day or so in Kathmandu.  And none of the India that I had so much wanted to see again since my family lived in Pune when I was just 5 years old.

And so, instead of madly sorting photos, I suppose I now have the opportunity to actually reflect on all we were able to see and experience.  To paint some pictures with words (thanks for the reminder, Andrea).  To appreciate beauty even when it can't be captured in a 4x6.  As if it could be anyway.

India.  What I remember from when I was 5 is: spicy smells, garbage smells, bright colors, dirty streets, women with hair so long it dragged on the ground, different people, different religions, cow dung, train cars, bells ringing, incense burning, tiny shacks, and the one time I vomitted in the middle of the street and a woman walked right through it barefoot (sorry, graphic, but it's one of my most clear memories).

Our first morning in Delhi was surprisingly chilly.  I even got a runny nose and sore throat (which maybe proves more about how hot Cambodia is rather than how cold India is).  We stepped out into the littered street and - SMELLS!  If you know me well, you know I have a pretty good sniffer on me.  Probably too good of a nose.  Anyway, I've heard that your sense of smell is the first sense to fully develop, so I suppose it's no surprise that the smells of India are what I most remember from when I was a child, and what first struck me returning as a 30-year-old.

Our noses led us to an incredibly delicious warming spicy breakfast of aloo paratha at a nearby stall.  Hot spices first thing in the morning?  Yes, please! 

From there we had a whirlwind tour of Delhi (thanks to an awesome gift from Rachel & Shane).  What a wealth of history and diversity.  The mingling of ancient Islamic floral inlay and script, of Mughul architecture, of Hindu temples, and even a Bahai place of worship in the shape of a lotus flower.

Day two of our 3-day transit visa consisted of a trip out to Agra.  You may have heard of the Taj Mahal?  Even after seeing it in so many photos, Ryan and I concluded that the Taj Mahal is definitely not over-reated.  It is breath-taking.  Which sounds cheesy, but it really is that stunning.  You must see it for yourself.

(By the way, we were pretty popular at the Taj.  Approximately 13 different groups of people approached us to have their picture taken with us.  So, I suppose someone out there has a pic of us at the Taj.  If you are friends with any groups of Indian teenagers on facebook please look for our photo.)

India is as intense as I remember.  We definitely got *almost * scammed a number of times.  But no money lost, no detour trips taken, and all in all we had a fabulous time.

The morning we left we enjoyed another delicious spicy breakfast of puri, served up in a leaf bowl.  As our one souvenir from India, we took a rikshaw to Asia's largest spice market, and bought one bag of hot hot chilly powder.

Which we are now enjoying in Prey Veng.

the wrong funeral

Last week we went to the wrong funeral. 

Our national staff began arriving at the office friday morning, sharing the news about a Christian woman who had just died in a moto accident, "the woman who sold things in front of your old house", they explained.  My heart ached.  This was such a sweet woman, a Christian, but whose husband wouldn't allow her to go to church.

In Cambodia a loudspeaker announces deaths shorly after someone passes away, day or night.  And a funeral is held almost immediately.  So an hour after receiving this bitter news we changed into white shirts and dark pants and went over to join the mourners.

The room was filled with members of our church, holding hands and weeping with the woman's daughters.  But wait a minute, was that her daughter??  If it was, we'd never met her.  And where was our woman-who-sold-things-in-front-of-our-house's daughter that we knew and often visited with?  Someone lifted the light sheet covering the woman's body and I barely glimpsed her face.  A face I didn't really recognize, although I suppose...

People whispered about the family as we waited for the songs and prayers to begin.  We asked a few questions to the friends around us and by that point were about 90% sure that we did not, in fact, know this woman.  Even though she was our old neighbor, and even though she attended our church.

As we left the wooden house, the elders at our church thanked us so much for coming.  Our presence was appreciated, even expected as members of the church.  When someone is in pain, you are all in pain.  You mourn together.

We stepped out of the front gate, and our dear woman-who-sold-things-in-front-of-our-old-house was smiling and waving at us from across the street.  Yep, this was the wrong funeral.  And yet the right one to be at as members of this community.  A reminder that in Cambodia a funeral isn't some personal, private thing for those you know best, but rather a gathering of an entire community no matter how well you recognize the face beneath the white sheet.

Oh, and the "woman who sold things in front of your old house" was actually "the woman whose house is in front of the woman who sold things."  Oops.

patience

One of the things I really appreciate about a lot of people we've met in Cambodia is their patience.  Sometimes it throws me off.  ("That person's about to get hit by a truck on their moto and he doesn't even flinch?!")  More often, I am challenged by the ability to wait and extend understanding of circumstances beyond one's control, rather than being so quick to resort to crisis-mode.  On our bus ride out of town last week the bus literally circled the station for 1 hour until we finally, slowly, started making our way out of town 1.5 hours late.  We demand an explanation, immediately!!  And yet the Cambodians in the seats in front of us and behind us just laughed and joked, "coming and going, coming and going!"

Prey Veng is what I would currently be quick to call: crisis mode.  The flood waters are covering 90% of the province.  Almost every village that we've passed is accessible only by boat.  The cows and water buffalo that normally reside below peoples' houses (which are built on stilts) are tied up along the very edges of the road, gnawing at any remaining grass.  The water reaks of the sewage within.  Vast expanses of rice fields are totally submerged, and I'm worrying even though our food supply is not at all dependent on one field of rice.  Like most of Prey Veng's rice farmers.

Over the last few days people gather regularly along bridges and waterways to watch the flow.  To comment on its rising or receding.  But more often: to fish!  Food carts selling steamed cobs of corn and little baked breads suddenly have appeared along stretches of water.  People gather, laughing, eating, fishing, swimming, stuffing sytrofoam down their pants to float in the water.  Boys yanking snakes out of the water and tossing them on screaming girls.  Back flips out of trees.  Mobs of people enjoying some family time.

I know there are discomforts and anxieties.  People are quick to talk about those as well.  But rather than resorting to complaint and anger, I am again challenged by the grace to accept circumstance and make the best of it while still smiling.

 

 

29

celebrating my wonderful husband's birthday last week...

water

Updates from Prey Veng: flooding.  And updates from East Coast friends at home: more flooding.  Basically there is A LOT of water right now.  This is what it looks like here:

Fishing at the Prey Veng water-front.

Families along the edge of town built hand-drawn ferries out of innertubes and wood to float their way into town.

Making fishing nets for sale.

bethie

The past few months brought with them many visitors...including my wonderful friend Beth!  Beth and I studied biology together in college, and she's one of those awesome friends who graces me with her visits even when I'm on the other side of the country, or the other side of the world.  As one of those types who would rather get to know the "real" Cambodia biking around Prey Veng rather than hanging out at a beach resort, we had a great time doing just that.  And just plain catching up with each others' lives.  Thank you SO much for visiting, Bethie!!

Eating my favorite noodle soup at Central Market.

Biking through Prey Veng rice paddies.

Trying out a Cambodian cyclo.

culture & change

The topic of our MCC retreat this year was servant leadership.  I suppose leadership isn't something I've given a whole lot of thought to here in Cambodia, since we're not in leadership positions.  And yet the characteristics of a servant leader are so precisely how we should be engaging with our Cambodian partner organizations (or really with anyone, for that matter).  Among the many characteristics I would love to better emulate, one that sparked the most conversation among our group of Cambodians and Laotians and Americans and Vietnamese and Canadians was: the humility to admit our wrongs and ask for forgiveness.

Did we as a group respect a leader who is able to admit mistakes and ask for forgiveness, or didn't we? 

I'll back up first.  While studying at Fuller, a concept that I particularly struggled to get my head around was cultural change.  On the one hand, an awareness of our (this is me, speaking as a white American) privilege and power makes me uber-conscious of any hint at change that I might suggest within another culture.  I want to empower others, value others, see the beauty in their culture, affirm.  And despite these values I hold so dearly, it is easy to abuse my position of privilege by being the first to suggest an idea, instead of patiently waiting to hear the great ideas that God has entrusted to another.

On the other hand.  Aren't all cultures in need of transformation?  Just read the news.

So back to forgiveness.  What was interesting about our group discussion was that certain people absolutely admired the ability of a leader to confess and ask for forgiveness (myself included).  Other people would absolutely lose respect for a leader who admits mistakes - a sure sign of weakness!

As I discussed this idea with some other Cambodian friends over the last few days, I am starting to see that this idea of forgiveness is something quite new for many Cambodians, especially as it pertains to people in authority.  A cultural shift seems to be happening.  One friend explained to me that growing up her parents never asked her for forgiveness if they wronged her, but now they are teaching the concept to the next generation of children in their family.  Another explained that while it's not really their cultural tradition, it makes his heart happy to hear a leader ask for forgiveness.

I've really struggled in Cambodia, especially initially, with the fact that no one seemed to apologize for anything, or admit when they were wrong.  On occassions when I was particularly upset, I've so badly wanted to point fingers and declare: that part of your culture is just wrong! 

Then again I come from a place where "sorry!" is so often used that perhaps its lost any meaning at all.

What strikes me is that Cambodians themselves are recognizing the need for something different in their families and in their leaders.  It doesn't take someone pointing fingers.  I remain unsure of what is actually provoking this cultural change.  It could be TV and other media that allow the ideas of the rest of the world to show up right in our homes.  It could be Western donors and money and aid organizations demanding something different.  For Christians, it may be reading about the things Christ calls us toward and recognizing the need for our own transformation. Or it could be simple friendships and conversations comparing cultural differences. 

Whatever the cause, my hope is that these discussions with God and with our Cambodian friends can continue to transform my own way of thinking as well.

mcc regional retreat : picnicking laos-style

luang prabang

It's a total tourist destination, but we may have found the most ideallic town in all of Southeast Asia: Luang Prabang.  Sure, the whole city is a UNESCO heritage site, which means no trucks, and no weeds, and garbage collected in picturesque baskets.  What you end up with is a gorgeous city dotted with slopping-roofed temples, and plenty of cafes and sidewalks lining the rivers that converge in the center of town, and wateralls and caves and amazing amazing food all served up with a basket of laotian sticky rice.

Our MCC regional retreat this year was in Laos, so we spent a few days along with friends in this fantastic place.  Please go there if you get a chance...

beth + choeun

For all you ECHO peeps, here she is, our very own Stitch: engaged!  Yep, she even wore a dress : )  Check out this gorgeous couple:

check-ups & cheesecake

On the way back from our retreat, we made a pit-stop in Bangkok for our annual medical check-ups.  You know how at home a medical check-up consists of the doctor tapping on your knees and filling out some forms? 

This, dear friends, is what happens during your medical check-up in Bangkok:

(1) Arrive in grand atrium of hospital, ushered to 4th floor Check-Up Center.

(2) Enter Check-Up Center, surrounded by outdoor lawn with orchids.  Have a seat on a leather couch, rather snobbily.

(3) Receive information on the 30 or so tests that will be completed during check-up, including blood tests, an EKG, chest x-rays and the actual doctor check-up itself.

(4) Blood sample requires fasting for an agonizing 10 hours amidst Bangkok street food; thus, immediately after blood is drawn, one is ushered to yet another gorgeous waiting room for juice and pastries and the morning newspaper:

(5) Wait one hour for all test results, during which time one is offered a voucher for breakfast at the hospital restaurant.  Which typically means a row of silver buffet trays, right?  Not in Bangkok.  In Bangkok when you enter the hospital restaurant what greets you is rows and rows of CHEESECAKE.  And delicious lattes with foam art.  Forget the rest of the menu; here was our free breakfast:

(6) Meet with doctor.  Confirm that blood pressure isn't high.  Eat more pastries in waiting room.

(7) Return to the real world, with sweet memories of apple-pie-cheesecake...

hope!

We are ridiculously blessed with friends.  Like Jon and Beth.  Who not only followed through with their desire to visit us here in Cambodia, but brought their 3 children (who, coincidently, just happen to be 3 of the world's cutest kids), and a whole team of fabulous folks (Sherry, Brooks, Phil, Becca, Julie) from our home church in California.

Watch out, because with this group these are some of the things that can happen in just one week in Prey Veng:

- A thousand smiles from kids

- Expert advice for physical therapists serving disabled people

- A freshly painted church in bright green + blue

- Training for our church as they launch small groups

- Hard ground transformed into vegetable beds

- Tasting: dog, red ants, tarantulas, snake, frog, and chilli-pepper ice-cream

- 60 hand-made sock puppets

- Successfully bungee-cording a small child to the back of a bike

And also sharing so much encouragment with Ryan and me.  We are challenged, inspired, and a million times blessed.

...and now to him

who is able to do

immeasureably more

than all we could ask or imagine...

she transplants

We also welcomed Joanna back to Prey Veng a few weeks ago!  Yep, Joanna managed to win the prize as our first second visitor to PV.  (Thank you World Vision for sending our friends to meetings in Bangkok!)

Joanna accompanied me on a trip out to visit some model farmers at my partner organization, and EVERYBODY was out transplanting rice seedlings that day.  And so how could we resist when they motioned for us to join them in the mud?  

 

comings and goings

Whenever there is an airport run to be made, MCCers are quick to sign up.  Because Cambodia's only Dairy Queen is located at the Phnom Penh airport. 

But.  These last few weeks our airport visits have been a bitter-sweet mix of welcomes and farewells.

We bid farewell to Bud and Shari, who have provided leadership to our MCC team here over the past 3 years.  Few folks are able to share the commitment and care and determination of Bud and Shari, and we are so grateful to have served with them here.  If you think of it, you can pray for the hunt for new Cambodia leaders.  Or apply for the job yourself ; )

[ Bud, Michael & Lisa, Shari, Mok, Ryan & Me ]

favorites

a few favorite photos from cambodia...so far > click here

church

One of the deepest and most unexpected blessings of our being in Cambodia is being part of a house church.  Given that this group meets in Phnom Penh, we are only able to join them once or twice a month.  But still, friendship & fellowship with other like-minded expats serving in Cambodia has brought so much refreshment to Ryan and me.  Yet another of God's graces.

I sometimes feel almost-guilty for receiving so much of my spiritual support from a group of other foreigners.  As if I "should" feel fully integrated in our Cambodian church here in Prey Veng.  Or perhaps it is simply a different sense of community and connectedness in each of those groups, that together provide an even greater understanding of church.  In one, we can understand everything going on, and eat a huge declious meal together, and ask questions and wrestle with scripture.  In anther, we can understand only part, and yet we are weekly reminded of just how big and powerful God is in upholding His people.

We are doubly blessed.

So, meet our house church.  And given that we just joined a small group at our Prey Veng church, we hope to introduce you to them in a few weeks as well.