Category: Mission Journal

Bicycle Surprise

Today I got the surprise of my life! Because of macular degeneration in my eyes, I am not going to drive any more and was looking for an e-bike to get me around Louisville. I had borrowed my cousin Julie’s bike and today she asked if I could bring it back. I rode it over to her house and when I got there she announced that my cousins had collaborated to buy me a new e-bike! I was stunned–and most appreciative of their caring and generosity!

Nazareth Home Clifton

Office/Living Room
At Nazareth Home Clifton, this is my office and living room. I posted an earlier photo and it looked much neater but that was because I hadn’t unpacked anything. Now a lot of things, especially papers, are waiting to be sorted and a place found for them. One addition in this picture is the large monitor connected to my laptop. Previously I used two monitors but this one is wide enough to accommodate two pages side by side so I can still copy and paste.
This is a view from the window toward the door that leads to the hallway. The white folding doors on the left are a large walk-in closet. There is a similar closet in my bedroom so I have plenty of hanging space and some shelves in them.

Nazareth Home Clifton

Kitchen
This is a little common kitchen for the twelve priest rooms on the first floor of Nazareth Home Clifton. We eat meals in a larger dining room for those of us in the independent living section but this kitchen gets used for breakfasts and pick-up food.
It’s a quite small room but is perfect for us. I always eat breakfast here–we eat breakfast at different times–and occasionally grab a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a Coke Zero.

Now, tasks at home….

Now that I am at Nazareth Home Clifton, my permanent home, i am starting on my list of things to do. One immediate task was to provide some transportation for myself and I borrowed my cousin’s e-bike to get around the neighborhood. Fr. Roy Stiles rides a bike almost every day. That’s his bike in the rear.
My borrowed e-bike is an assisted e-bike, i.e., the motor only kicks in if your are pedaling. That is great because I can still get some exercise while I am also able to increase the distance I travel and lessen the travel time. Roy and I keep our bikes inside our residence, in an unoccupied room.

The final push….

The owner of the apartment that I am borrowing asked me for some photos of it to see if he needs to make changes. When taking pictures of the living room, I noticed the difference in color in the chair on the left and its matching sofa on the right. I had the chair cleaned when my backpack leaked on it and that may have lightened the color. Now I think I’ll need to clean the sofa to see what that does.

Start of the final push

When I moved to my present room, it was a rush and instead of sorting and throwing away a lot of stuff, I brought it with me. Now as I face leaving Cambodia on August 11, I had to do something with all that I brought with me from the old house. Sorting through it all takes a lot of time and Maria Montello, a former Maryknoll Lay Missioner, came today to help me open boxes and dig through them.

I think my room is going to look like the aftermath of an earthquake for the next two weeks because we just had a start today. Maria estimates we processed 20% of the task. I hope it was that much!

New Clothes

Clothing is much cheaper here than in the US so I am getting some things to wear when I get back. Today Sophy, a very competent and practical member of our management team, took me on a DDP moto to a small tailor shop located by our DDP barbershop. Sophy helped me with Khmer, to make sure the tailor understood what I wanted him to do.

The young tailor has made some clothes for me before so I trust him for this relatively big job. I take him clothes that fit, to copy, and pick out some material from a swatch book, and then he checks measurements as a precaution.

I ordered a black suit, three clerical shirts, and two pairs of pants, and he is charging me $232. The clothes will be ready in two weeks.

A Friend on the Road…

One of the delights in traveling to Bangkok is staying at the Maryknoll office there with Fr. John Barth. He and I lived together in Phnom Penh many years ago and he is a wonderful friend and a most gracious host. When I stay there, we take supper up to the TV room and eat while watching Aljazeera news and then talk.