Uncategorized – Welcome to Cambodia, and…..

California Day 2

I am having real problems with photos from the last two days. I think I have it worked out but am going to need some time to fix the problem. Sorry!

Today Charlie’s Angels came to Nazareth Home for a visit. These are women who decades ago began working with deaf people, especially in sign language interpreting. Several of them were students in classes I taught at Angela Merici High School. There were five Angels originally but two have returned to heaven.

MKLM Anniversary/Friday

The first-floor dining room used to be the seminary library but now it has become a large room for meetings and is a dining room for our group.

Kathy and Flavio from Brazil led a meditative morning prayer in the Asia Room.

Then there was a recognition of the anniversaries of earlier lay mission classes, and those present received a memento.

Our former director and one of the founders of the present Maryknoll Lay Missioners, Sam Stanton, is dying, and we had an unscheduled mass before lunch to pray for him and his family.

Bishop John Stowe, OFM, of Lexington, Kentucky, is the main speaker tomorrow and one of my heroes for his strong stands on issues like working for peace and respecting the LGBT community.

In the evening Marie Dennis spoke on hope in the modern world. Marie is one of the pillars of the American Catholic church for her advocacy on issues of justice and peace. She is currently a director of Pax Christi International.

Many members of the larger Maryknoll community came to Marie’s talk along with all of us there for the anniversary.

Last tuk-tuk ride

This morning I got Sambath to bring his tuk-tuk over to my house and I loaded it with stuff that I am giving to DDP. Tuk-tuk drivers are masters at putting all sizes and shapes of loads in their vehicles.

DDP Farewell for Charlie

As soon as I arrived at the Deaf Development Programme, the picture taking started with different group. Here are our barber students and their trainer.

Some of the young women from our Education Project who performed traditional Cambodian dance for the first time.

Our house parents

Some of our Education Project and Job Training Project students

Then I had to take the first piece of an hors d’oeuvres-type dish.

Taiwan–Day 2.2

[I’m having lots of problems with my photos on a new iPhone. Life was much easier with an Android!]

The day started off with a bike ride to a market site along a river through Taipei. Judy and her son Dominique were my guides. The bicycles are a city project, effectively used there to reduce the number of miles driven in cars. Our trip, under 30 minutes, was free.

Another community-living service is umbrella rental! If you’re caught in the rain without one, public buildings have these rental racks.

We bicycled to a subway station and left the bikes there, and then took the underground to a volcanic hot springs that is in Taipei. Very interesting. You can see the steam rising from the 44ºC water.

Cleaning me out…

I’m sorry for the lapse in postings over the last five days. I went to BNH Hospital in Bangkok and thought I would have a lot of time to catch up on work but that turned out to be not true. Now I’m out of the hospital and at the Maryknoll office in Bangkok. I return to Phnom Penh tomorrow.

In my check-up x-ray three weeks ago, the doctor spotted something in my lungs that couldn’t be identified. I had no illness or symptoms and he decided to do a bronchoscopy, putting a camera down my throat so he could actually see what was in the lungs. Here a nurse is inserting a port into my arm to be used for blood work, anesthesia, and other procedures.

Finally it was time for the gurney ride to the operating room.

The doctor decided to do the full program so he performed the bronchoscopy with the camera down in my lungs and then took a biopsy while there and then finally washed out my lungs with water to be used to create a culture to determine just what it is they would see. Here I am just after coming out of the recovery room.

Time for a change

On my trip to Kentucky last week, I arranged to get new liturgical books that we can use on Wednesdays for the mass we have with lay missioners in Phnom Penh. Here Kila holds the old, taped-up books, and Maria has the new ones.

Trip to Kentucky–5

On Saturday morning I met a donor who has been very generous in supporting the Deaf Development Programme. We met at this coffee shop near the retirement home where I will be living. The bicycle is my cousin’s electric bike that I am riding while in Louisville.

On Sunday morning I bicycled over to St. Margaret Mary Church where two of my priest friends are ministering.

Like many modern parishes, they had two technicians in the back to control the projection and the sound system.

Trip to Kentucky–4

On the morning of our last day together, Brian Reynolds, the vicar general of the archdiocese, spoke to us about the research and planning for a reorganization of the parishes of the diocese.

Some photos from the beautiful St. Meinrad campus