Church – Page 22 – Welcome to Cambodia, and…..

Mission in Cambodia

Every two months I write an article about life and mission in Cambodia for The Record, the weekly newspaper for the Archdiocese of Louisville. Here is an article published in this week’s edition:

https://therecordnewspaper.org/living-mission-life-in-cambodia-is-improving/

Every year the bishop invites leaders of the Phnom Penh parishes and of the diocesan offices to a gathering on the feast of the Epiphany. Click here to see photos from this year’s gathering at the pastoral center.

Christmas Eve at St. Joseph Church

Our English community had our Christmas Eve mass at 6:00 PM because it was a work day and people needed to get from work to our chapel. At 7:00 PM, Bishop Olivier had his Christmas Eve liturgy (above) for the Khmer community. They met outside to follow the rules for distancing in large groups. Their big flood lights and our air conditioners in the chapel were too much for the church’s electrical service and the lights went out two times.

Sign of the Times

It’s an interesting indicator of the tumultuous times we live in when our Phnom Penh archbishop, at a priests meeting, gives us all a Christmas gift–a hand sanitizer, complete with his coat of arms! We also got some candy in the bag.

One step at a time

This is the same crane that was silhouetted Saturday night but is now in the Sunday morning daylight. It is still moving the large concrete blocks used to put pressure on the soil to measure its density before they build a church on it.

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.

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.

Thinking ahead….

If you need a simple little gift to give students or coworkers at the office at Christmas time, these little bags of cookies might be what you want. Bishop Olivier has a social enterprise, CoCo de Takeo Cambodia, that employs the poor and people with disabilities to create all sorts of things to eat and to use from coconuts and all sorts of natural materials.

These cookies are 500 riel a bag and they are actually good! Bishop Olivier gave us some at the last priests meeting.

If you would like to order some, contact Mr. Miek Son at +855 10 956 250 (phone, SMS, WhatsApp). I’m going to order some. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Category: Church