Author: Charles Dittmeier

Preparing the ground



After laying the cornerstone last week, construction of the new church at St. Joseph parish has continued, especially assessing the firmness of the soil and the beginning of driving piles into the ground. Tonight when we finished our evening mass, the workers had departed for the day and left this crane silhouetted against the evening sky.

A birthday

Today was Soknym’s first birthday as a member of the DDP staff and the rest of the staff provided a cake for celebrating together with him this afternoon.

Farewell

At our Maryknoll liturgy today, Clara Biswas said goodbye. She is with a Christian missionary group but now after many years in Cambodia—and with us–she is returning to Bangladesh. We had to say goodbye to a good friend.

Sr. Lucita

I celebrate mass with the Missionaries of Charity on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and so today, when Sr. Lucita celebrated her 25th anniversary, I concelebrated with Bishop Olivier for a very happy occasion. Sr. Lucita is assigned to the Missionaries’ orphanage in Phnom Penh and we had the celebration in a hall on the top floor.

A group of the children at the Home of Love, getting their first chance to perform traditional Khmer dance.
Bishop Olivier gave out gift bags to the children after they danced.
Sr. Lucita is from India and was given many flowers
and the traditional garlands used in her home country.

Sunday afternoon….

For many months our Deaf Community Center could not have any activities because of the Covid regulations. Now Cambodia is officially “open” and groups are allowed to gather again as long as they wear masks, use sanitizer, and maintain distances. The past two weeks DCC has started organizing games and activities on the weekend, and there has been a good response from deaf people who felt very isolated in their homes.

This afternoon at the Deaf Development Programme office grounds, one group–mostly DDP staff–played volleyball while another group, mostly students, chopped up ginger for meals this week. Yesterday teams of deaf people cleared brush from around our fish pond so a new fence can be installed, and this morning the DCC staffed taught everyone how to make a traditional Khmer dessert.
For most of the deaf people who came by this afternoon, it was just a quiet time to be with friends and to chat and rest up from a busy week.