Category: Maryknoll

Happenings in the Maryknoll world, especially in the Cambodia Mission Team.

Farewell to Ann

Maryknoll Sr. Ann Sherman returned to the United States today after ten years of ministry in Cambodia. She regularly attends the masses I have with the Missionaries of Charity and today at the end of mass we said goodbye and took a group photo–with some of the orphans who come to the mass.

Sr. Ann Sherman (C).

Final Meeting

Standing: Sr. Ann Sherman, Kylene Fremling, Charlie Dittmeier, Julie Lawler, Sr. Helene O’Sullivan. Seated: Sr. Regina Pellicore, Sr. Mary Little, Fr. Kevin Conroy. Missing: Hang Tran.

Since 1991 when Maryknoll first came to work in Cambodia, all the Maryknollers in the kingdom have met on Wednesday afternoons for a meeting, a liturgy, and then a dinner together. When I first came in 2000, there were 25 to 27 people gathered in the living room of the Maryknoll house every Wednesday.

Everything has changed now and Maryknoll Cambodia, the International NGO, will cease to exist in a couple weeks, and today we had our last Wednesday meeting forever. The Maryknoll priests and sisters just don’t have the personnel to send to Cambodia. The Maryknoll Lay Missioners will continue here with four members. A sad day.

Closing Time

Today Maryknoll Cambodia, the legal entity authorized by the Cambodia government so that Maryknoll can work in the kingdom, had a closing celebration. In December Maryknoll Cambodia as an NGO will cease to exist.

We had a Maryknoll meeting and then a closing liturgy. Here Maryknoll Lay Missioner Julie Lawler passes out papers for one of the mass songs.
Julie and Sr. Regina Pellicore planned this gathering. Here we viewed photos of our activities over the years, recalling the various ministries we’ve been part of.
Former members of Maryknoll Cambodia were also invited to offer their memories and reflections, and quite a few did so. Here Sr. Ann reads one of the reflections we received.

Early Thanksgiving

Because we have a weekly Wednesday meeting for Maryknoll Cambodia and we have a cook on that day to help with the meal, we moved our Maryknoll Cambodia Thanksgiving celebration to today. In the past we would have 30-35 people attending. Today we had 13 who gathered after work. Here the group is participating in an opening Thanksgiving prayer.
There was plenty of good food that our members prepared. Here Sr. Ann and Bro. Tony take some of the chicken we prepared rather than turkey.
It was a pleasant evening with good food and old friends.

MKLM Retreat Days

Side Trip

In the national park is an actual school basically built of rubbish. The Coconut School is a popular destination for tourists to the area and probably gets some of its operating funds from the visitors.

The story is that this school was established by a Japanese man without a lot of money who used what he could find and scavenge to provide learning for children in this remote are.
The setting of the school is quite a visual spectacle of creativity run wild.
Elephants made from old tires line the access road to the school. Notice the designs made from the caps of plastic bottles beneath the elephant.
On weekends the Rubbish Cafe is open to serve visitors.

MKLM Retreat Days

Addendum

Our MKLM retreat went well and was a good experience. There were also a few other interesting things that were part of that trip to Kirirom National Park.

The center where we stayed had three beautiful dogs, something like a sheepdog, and then there was this horse that I believe thinks he’s a dog. He just wanders around poking into everything like the dogs.
Day and night he just appears and wants to interact like a dog or cat.
The problem part of that is that not all our group appreciated all the animals, especially the BIG ones, and especially when the horse would come up on the porch and stand in front of the door and keep one of the women from getting in or out of her room. Hang Tran here in the photo made friends with the horse.

MKLM Retreat Days

The first part of this past week was spent at Kirirom National Park where the four of us members of Maryknoll Lay Missioners gathered for an annual retreat.

Each morning of the retreat was filled with discussion of ideas about community based on Pope Francis’s encyclical Fratelli Tutti. There were not many people present at the center so we used a convenient table located near the restaurant.
After our morning discussion, we had an activity to help us express and integrate what we had been talking about.
Kylene and Julie returning to the residence building where we had our rooms.
The meals were quite good and we had many settings to choose from as places to eat.
The final evening we had a simple celebration of the eucharist on the porch outside our rooms.

Kirirom Retreat / Sunday

Every year each MKLM group plans a retreat for its members. This year MKLM Cambodia arranged a retreat at a center at Kirirom National Park, a beautiful setting with hills (unusual in Cambodia) and trees.

Because I had the Sunday morning mass with the English Catholic Community, we left Phnom Penh at 2:00 PM for the 2 1/2 hour drive to Kirirom. Here Kylene and Julie, who made most of the arrangements, check in at the center which was quite nice.
Because of our late afternoon arrival, we planned no activities but just walked around to explore the center which had a real variety of activities and settings to investigate. First we located the restaurant, next to a pool, where we would eat all our meals.
Our rooms were in this building which is set in formal garden which would not be out of place in a European palace setting.
The center has a variety of accommodations, from tents and tree houses to hotel rooms and cabins like this one with its own kiosk on the lake’s edge.

CACD: 1st quarterly meeting

The Catholic Alliance for Charity and Development (CACD) is the social outreach arm of the Catholic Church of Phnom Penh. Maryknoll participates because of our projects with deafness, mental illness, and education. Today the topic was the role of technology and digitalization in serving the poor, and an amazing presentation was given by Mr. Sok Sopheakmonkol who demonstrated what artificial intelligence can do to assist NGOs like ours.
A second presentation about software and technology in monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning in NGOs was given by Mr. Art Kirby, the director of Catholic Relief Services in Cambodia.

It was quite and interesting and informative afternoon!