Category: Mission Journal

This week, today and tomorrow, I am leading an online retreat for the Maryknoll Lay Missioners in Cambodia. We are using Zoom and getting it set up took some doing:

• My desktop computer has no microphone but I needed to show a PowerPoint from there so I made one Zoom connection with that computer. (I have an external mic for the desktop but it stopped working.)
• Then I used my smartphone for a second connection for speaking and listening to the group.
• I needed good background for my presentation so I moved to the end of my desk for the blank wall behind me, and then turned the monitor a bit sideways so I could see it. I couldn’t face the monitor because it put bright reflections on my glasses.
• Working sideways on my desk, I had no place for the keyboard and mouse so an ironing board became a credenza.
• I added the table lamp on the desk to help balance the light coming from the windows.
• Our office wi-fi connection went out so I had to use the data connection on my phone to connect to the Internet. Luckily my data connection here only costs $5 a month.

The setup had its quirks and problems, but in the end we basically got through the two-hour session and hopefully tomorrow it will be easier and smoother.

Stay Home!

My sister-in-law Hope Dittmeier is connected with an organization in Louisville, Kentucky called WaterStep which provides equipment for disinfecting surfaces and for water purification. This afternoon I received a shipment of four sets of disinfecting supplies to use in Maryknoll projects here, especially in the hostel for our young deaf adults. It took more than two weeks for the boxes to get here by courier because of the few aircraft flying routes to Cambodia now. Thank you, Hope!

There are many poor people who live in the Boeung Tum Pun area around the Church of the Child Jesus. At the St. Ambrose Center at the church, the Maryknoll Sisters work with some of these children and their families. These families had little money before the COVID-19 pandemic, but now because of the closing of so many small shops and because of the economic downturn, these families are in very difficult situations.

The sisters sometimes give rice to families to help them survive, and, knowing the families’ problems, the sisters developed a plan that will give more help to the families without anyone knowing about it or without the families feeling they are beggars. The sisters know the owner of a small rice shop in Boeung Tum Pun. Many poor families go to her to buy rice. To make sure that they get enough rice to feed their families, the sisters buy a 50-kg bag of rice and leave it at the shop. When the poor people come to buy 1 kg of rice, the owner of the rice shop doesn’t say anything but gives them 5 kg of rice instead of 1 kg. The sisters check with the rice shop each week, and when their bag of rice is empty, they buy another one.

The poor family is happy, the rice shop owner is happy, and the sisters know that these families will have enough to eat.