Asia Area Director in Cambodia
Author: Charles Dittmeier
First or Last?
Asia Area Director in Cambodia
There are four members of the Maryknoll Lay Missioners in Cambodia, and in an odd turn of events, the Asia Area Director is Steve Veryser–who lives in Kenya. Today Steve arrived in Cambodia for an official visit.
60 Years after Vatican II
This week was the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council of the Catholic Church. It’s good to remember what the Council accomplished. And the best summation comes from the late John W. O’Malley, SJ, in “What Happened at Vatican II.” In short, the church moved from “commands to invitations, from laws to ideals, from definition to mystery, from threats to persuasion, from coercion to conscience, from monologue to dialogue, from ruling to serving, from withdrawn to integrated, from vertical to horizontal, from exclusion to inclusion, from hostility to friendship, from rivalry to partnership, from suspicion to trust, from static to ongoing, from passive acceptances to active engagement, from fault-finding to appreciation, from prescriptive to principles, from behavior modification to inner appropriation.”
[From Fr. James Martin’s Twitter]
W.I.G. Presentation
The Women’s International Group (WIG) meets every week for communication, socialization, and learning. At their meeting today, the Maryknoll Deaf Development Programme was invited to present about the work that we do. Here Maryknoll Lay Missioner Julie Lawler spoke about her personal experience as a teacher in a deaf school in the United States. The gathering was a very pleasant one.
Post-Trip Photo
I’m a pilot (although I haven’t flown for a while) and have always loved planes. Now I am especially enamored of the A380 double-decker aircraft. I was booked on one of those on the return trip between Los Angeles and Seoul, Korea, and I chose a seat on the upper deck.
It was really surprising to me how roomy the upper deck was, with more space than many of the single-aisle aircraft I fly. One noticeable difference is the width of the rows. On the wider lower deck, there are ten seats across. On the upper deck there are only eight.
Watch your step…
Musica Felice Concert
Today Ms. Miwako Fujiwara produced another charity concert at the Sofitel Hotel ballroom. Her productions are always wonderful musically and this time she added some rather extravagant traditional Khmer dances.
USA Trip 2022
Thursday / 8 October 2022
I’m used to seeing more and more and bigger and better in-seat screens in airplanes these days but Asiana Airlines had a twist on that that was new for me. This was a smaller A319 aircraft and the seats didn’t have built-in screens for movies and entertainment. The plane had an entertainment system, though. It just used the passengers’ phone and tablets for the display. The seatbacks had a built-in phone holder that popped open so passengers could watch movies, etc., from the plane’s system on their own devices. The holder was a first for me.
USA Trip 2022
Wednesday-Thursday / 5-6 October 2022
These two days are together because that’s how they happen when yoh are on a long (12.5 hour) flight from Los Angeles to Seoul, Korea. I left LA at noon Wednesday and arrived in Seoul at 5:30 PM Thursday. Now I’m at Gate 18 at Inchon airport waiting for my final flight to Phnom Penh.
The Asian airlines and airports seem to have an edge over US counterparts. For example, the Asian planes seem to have more electrical outlets at the seats and they are marked better and easier to use. And here at Inchon I just saw bank of food delivery robots. A passenger scans a QR code for a menu, makes an order, gives his gate number, and goes to the gate, and then the robot picks up the food and delivers it.
