Author: Charles Dittmeier

Water Festival 2022

Today is the first day of the annual three-day Water Festival. It is held in November, at the end of the rainy season, when the Tonle Sap River reverses its flow and starts to empty water out of the Tonle Sap Lake at Siem Reap. There are normally boat races in Phnom Penh with hundreds of boats and tens of thousands of paddlers.

This year, though, the boat races have been canceled because ASEAN is having its annual summit meeting in Phnom Penh and the government decided it would not be wise to try and organize high-level government delegations (President Biden is coming) and a million-plus Water Festival revelers at the same time. We still have the three days off but there are no boat races to watch.

Mission Sunday

This year Bishop Olivier invited the lay missioners working in Phnom Penh to attend mass with him on Mission Sunday. There are not nearly the numbers of lay missioners we had before.

After mass Bishop Olivier blessed the ashes of two veteran lay missioners who died here in the past year.
Then the lay missioners met for more than an hour with Bishop Olivier as he discussed his thought and plans for the diocese and for the missioners.
Before we left we had a group photo.

Siem Reap MKLM Retreat

On the morning of the final day of the MKLM retreat, we had another session with Beth Goldring.
Then we had a closing liturgy. Beth introduced it with a Buddhist chant wishing the well being of all living things and all creation.
We then continued with a simple mass.
The rooms at the center are simple but quite adequate.
The environment cooperated for this retreat. There were a few rain showers but the weather was not uncomfortably hot and we didn’t miss air conditioning. There were some mosquitoes but they were contained by repellent and the mosquito nets.

Siem Reap MKLM Retreat

Friday / 28 October 2022

For this retreat, the Maryknoll Lay Missioners were served all their meals in this dining area at the rear of the property instead of in the big dining hall. This is Friday breakfast.
Jesuit Refugee Services (JSR) is one of the leading actors in the campaign against landmines, both in Cambodia and in 50 other countries. This Metta Karuna Center also provides jobs for people disabled by landmines and so all the buildings are accessible. Here a long wheelchair ramp provices access to the second floor.
Beth Goldring (R) presented in morning and afternoon sessions about precepts and ideas from Buddhism and there was much discussion about how they could apply to our lives and our ministries and how they relate to nonviolence.
These are two of the Khmer-style statues found on the center grounds.
This evening we watched an hour-long video on the peace marches of 300 Buddhist monks walking through former Khmer Rouge territory to support and inspire the people in the aftermath of the Pol Pot regime.