Category: Mission Journal

It’s a matter of perspective

Today I went to the dentist for teeth cleaning and a check up, and during the cleaning, I was wondering if bottom teeth get cleaned better than top teeth because the dental tech can see the bottom teeth better. That started me wondering about dental work in space where a dentist could be upside down (like these astronauts brushing away) and so could look at the patient’s top teeth like they were bottom teeth.

A good friend’s funeral…

Last night, Cambodia time, a funeral was celebrated at the Maryknoll headquarters in Ossining, New York for Fr. Ed McGovern. Ed was a former prosecutor for New York City courts but made a career change and became a Maryknoll priest and was assigned to Cambodia in 2004. He and I lived together until 2008 when he was elected to the General Council for the Maryknoll priests and brothers group. Good guy. I’m going to miss him.

In the photo, Fr. Ray Finch, the Superior General of the Maryknoll priests and brothers, incense’s Ed’s coffin at the beginning of the funeral in the main chapel at Maryknoll, New York.

Sad day….

This is my 1984 IBM clicker keyboard that has been going strong for 35 years. But today it suddenly stopped lighting up! O sorrow! This is one of the real things, not one of the six-ounce plastic jobbies that come with desktops today. It weighs about six pounds and in its day, this clicker was worth $600. I’m hoping I can find some repair geek around here to take a look at it. I’m suspecting the problem is in the cable.

Hong Kong, too…

Our Asia superior in Hong Kong reported today that John Clancey was arrested under Hong Kong’s new draconian state security laws. John was a Maryknoll priest in Hong Kong right before I came. He left Maryknoll but stayed on in Hong Kong as a lawyer working for civil and human rights. He must have been doing good work to get Beijing riled up. Hang in there, John!

This is the way the BBC reported his arrest.

New Cabinets for a New Year

A big problem in the tropics is termites and we had them big time in our kitchen cabinets and in the door frame to the right of the man standing on the left above. Finally the landlord decided to tear out the old cabinets which was great except for three days of thick dust when they also jackhammered off the wall tiles.
We had no cabinets for almost three weeks and then suddenly on New Year’s Eve a work crew shows up and installs the cabinets above. That’s a simple sentence but the work wasn’t. The top photo shows them making the cabinets on the kitchen floor–more dust!—and the bottom photos shows them on New Year’s Day after they finished sanding and staining them. Now maybe we can get back to normal in the kitchen.