Author: Charles Dittmeier

A Friend on the Road…

One of the delights in traveling to Bangkok is staying at the Maryknoll office there with Fr. John Barth. He and I lived together in Phnom Penh many years ago and he is a wonderful friend and a most gracious host. When I stay there, we take supper up to the TV room and eat while watching Aljazeera news and then talk.

Cleaning me out…

I’m sorry for the lapse in postings over the last five days. I went to BNH Hospital in Bangkok and thought I would have a lot of time to catch up on work but that turned out to be not true. Now I’m out of the hospital and at the Maryknoll office in Bangkok. I return to Phnom Penh tomorrow.

In my check-up x-ray three weeks ago, the doctor spotted something in my lungs that couldn’t be identified. I had no illness or symptoms and he decided to do a bronchoscopy, putting a camera down my throat so he could actually see what was in the lungs. Here a nurse is inserting a port into my arm to be used for blood work, anesthesia, and other procedures.

Finally it was time for the gurney ride to the operating room.
The doctor decided to do the full program so he performed the bronchoscopy with the camera down in my lungs and then took a biopsy while there and then finally washed out my lungs with water to be used to create a culture to determine just what it is they would see. Here I am just after coming out of the recovery room.

Sacrament of Confirmation

Today at our Saturday evening liturgy, we celebrated the feast of Corpus Christi according to the universal church calendar and also the Sacrament of Confirmation for 26 young people in our English Catholic Community.

This was also my last day as pastor of the English Catholic Community. Fr. Pedro Emilio (L), from the Quebec Mission Society, officially replaced me as the spiritual leader for our group. Bishop Olivier gave me a warm thank-you for my 25 years with the English community.

A church committee

This is our religious education group working with the children of our English Catholic Community in Phnom Penh. Last Sunday they saw a group of young children receive their first communion. Tomorrow they see older youth receive the sacrament of confirmation. (A super group of people!)

Time for a change

On my trip to Kentucky last week, I arranged to get new liturgical books that we can use on Wednesdays for the mass we have with lay missioners in Phnom Penh. Here Kila holds the old, taped-up books, and Maria has the new ones.

Take a look…

When my sister Ann died, we kept her photo frame for displaying photographs and today I introduced it to the deaf students at the Deaf Development Programme. We take lots of pictures at DDP but the students seldom see them so setting up the photo frame was a big hit! Ann would be pleased!

What’s in a name…

One of the interesting parts of living in another country, another culture is seeing how English words are used in a different way and with different meanings. Notice that this building is a medical clinic and MATERNITY. In US English, maternity is the condition of being pregnant, being a mother. Here the word designates a specific type of medical facility, a building.

Still to come

My flight from Minneapolis to Seoul, Korea was delayed and I missed my Phnom Penh flight in Seoul and had to wait another day to return to Phnom Penh a little after midnight this morning.

I made good use of the day in the airport hotel but didn’t get to the rest of the photos I want to post here. I hope to catch up with some of those tomorrow.

Sacrament of Reconciliation

Tomorrow a good number of our children in the religious education program will receive their first communion. Today, to prepare them for communion and to introduce them to another of the church’s sacraments, we offered the Sacrament of Reconciliation, known as confession in the past.

Fr. Charlie was the presider and Fr. Fel (L) and Fr. Pedro were also ministers of the sacrament.