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Can you imagine a greater encouragement and opportunity for tripping and falling on stairs than these shoes on the church steps at the Carmelite Monastery in Phnom Penh? And this is after half the people have left the church and removed their shoes from the steps! This scenario is repeated a million times a day as people slip off their shoes and sandals when they go into a building.
My major mode of transport around Phnom Penh is my bicycle, here being repaired by a young Khmer man who goes by the name of Jack. He has a little bike shop that fortunately for me is on the way I go from my home to the deaf office. For major repairs like today (getting a new sprocket and chain), I drop the bike off and come back after work. Fortunately also is that Jack is a real good man, a pleasant and caring human being.
At the Caritas Deaf Development Programme, we have leadership training going on as a preliminary step to establishing a national association of the deaf.
This week the Deaf Leadership Training Program had an all-day meeting to finalize a concept paper or proposal to be sent to be considered for funding by the Finnish Association of the Deaf. Here the Cambodian staff members of the training team and the management of DDP discuss whether to approve or not the draft version of the proposal.
After a carcinoma was removed from my right forearm, I needed to change the bandage every two days and it was almost impossible with just one hand. Today I asked some of the deaf students to help.
Today we had the third and final day of training for job coaching for people with disabilities. We got a lot of good information but it will be a major initiative to implement it as a DDP project.
This Caritas Cambodia mission statement is probably the shortest and most power mission statement I’ve seen. I’m proud to be part of the organization.
Today we began a second three-day training on job coaching for people with disabilities.
Not all priests should offer the sacrament of reconciliation (confession). Not all priests should preside at mass. Not all priests should preach. Just because a man is ordained doesn’t mean he has the training or the skill and ability to do those things well.
Most priests (I hope) spend time preparing to preach. But those who do prepare have different styles. I know a couple priests who write out their homilies word for word. Myself, I use bullet points in an outline. The photo above shows how another priest prepared for preaching today, the 1st Sunday of Advent. His notes above would not help me but they helped him give a really good homily. Different strokes for different folks….