rya'n'daphne

the long forest

Cambodia is a place of so much beauty and so much pain, side by side. 

I can think of a thousand examples.  The lovely smile and grace of an old woman, who lost her husband and children during the Khmer Rouge.  The crystel clear ocean waters, edging sandy beaches trashed with plastic bags and old syringes.  The hope of one new baby born with better medical care, and the despair of a mother who has no money for a doctor when her baby is sick.  If the doctor is even at his office at all.  This period of peace and economic growth after so much conflict, yet marked by land-grabbing and sex-traffiking and continued abuse of those most poor and vulnerable.  The unfathomably lush and endless forests, and the massive (and often illegal) deforestation of huge swathes of Cambodia's land.

Prey Veng actually means "long forest"...a name that evokes images of endless trees and natural resources.  But in case you haven't noticed from our pics of Prey Veng, such is not the case.  Most of it has been chopped down for rice paddies.  Which isn't necessarily wrong, since folks need space to farm, but it has resulted in more droughts, more floods, more dry wells due to dried-up groundwater.

During a recent trip up noth to Cambodia's Mondulkiri province, we were reminded of what a long forest might be like.  Mondulkiri is ridiculously lush and beautiful, with its "ocean of trees" vista, and a seemingly endless supply of passion fruit, avocadoes, strawberries, mangosteens, mangoes, cashews...

Yet even in Mondulkiri the signs of "development" are painfully evident.  Enormous stretches of once forested land, all chopped down for lumber.  Or to plant foreign investors' rubber plantations.  Tiny new wooden homes errected along the sides of the highway, a reminder of the thousands of Cambodians who have been evicted from their homelands in the past few years.

And just last week, a prominant anti-logging Cambodian activist was shot and killed by military police.  My desperate hope is that this would be investigaed.   That the government wouldn't excuse and ignore such cases as they so often do. 

Sometimes it's very hard to have hope here.  The pain overshadows the beauty, even while they co-exist.  And yet as I look back over our photos of Mondulkiri, and as I see the smiling faces of the ladies back in our Prey Veng market, it's hard to not retain some hope that the beauty of this place can win. 

{ a few photos of our Khmer New Year vacation to Mondulkiri }

odov

One of the main partner organizations I (Daphne) work with in Prey Veng is ODOV.  With the help of another MCC volunteer, we were able to launch their website several months ago!  Check it out to see some of the projects this organization is doing, and read about the impact they're having in rural farming communities...

clean water

Our co-worker Michael recently put together this video about some of the flood relief supplies that one of our partners distributed through our MCC relief funds.  Check it out for a glimpse of Prey Veng, MCC's work, and an old Khmer man with Ryan's voice!

 

getaway

Cambodia really really spoils us sometimes. Which is a good thing to remember when we're irritated by the heat, or the constant garbage-burning smoke (my arch-nemesis during pregnancy). But we also get to enjoy being outside year-round, eat fresh mangoes for every breakfast, bike wherever we want, bring home loads of cheap vegetables from the market...

...and take sweet weekend trips to the beach. Where staying in a little water-front bungalow is the price of 2 beers at home. Not that we do this often, but since it had been quite a while (2 years in fact) since we'd payed a visit to Cambodia's largest beach town of Sihaounkville, we figured it was time for a trip.

And so the list of benefits of living in Cambodia continues: warm ocean water in mid-February, the best shrimp and squid with fresh green Kampot peppercorns, cheap buses and moto rentals to get you where you need to go, and friendly folks all along the way.

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!

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.

 

 

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.

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.

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...