18 September 2002
Trip to Bethany
I left home in Phnom Penh at 4:30 PM Tuesday evening, Cambodia time, and arrived here at White Plains, New York at 7:05 PM on Wednesday evening, New York time. That was a trip of 39 hours, much more than the usual 24-27 hours we expect to make the journey. The problem this time was the connection in Hong Kong. I arrived in Hong Kong Tuesday night at 10:30 PM after a 2 1/2 hour flight from Phnom Penh. Unfortunately my flight from Hong Kong to the USA didn't leave until 12:30 PM on Wednesday so I had a fourteen-hour layover.I could have gone to the Maryknoll house in Hong Kong, but I wouldn't have arrived until almost 1:00 AM and the trip back and forth plus the departure tax would have cost $50-$60 so I decided to just sleep on the floor in the departure area of the Hong Kong airport. Unfortunately again, by the time I arrived, the transfer desks had closed so I couldn't get an onward boarding pass for the Hong Kong to Chicago flight. And without a boarding pass I couldn't leave the transfer area down on the arrivals level where there is no food, no shops, no nothing. Normally the only people going through that area are on their way through immigration into the city or they just go upstairs to the departure area. It turned out I was the only passenger there for the night, just me and a workman patching holes in the plaster on one of the support pillars plus a few cleaning people. It was rather spooky because the Hong Kong airport is literally the world's longest building, more than a kilometer, and they even turned down the lights at 12:30 AM since no one was supposed to be there. I was a bit suspicious of some of the workers going back and forth, so I decided to stay away and I worked on the computer until 3:30 AM. Then I slept on a row of chairs until 7:00 AM when the transfer desk opened up. I was their first customer and got my boarding pass and immediately headed upstairs where I bought some breakfast. Then I found an AC socket for my computer and got some work done during the final waiting hours.
At 12:30 PM, the 747 headed off for Chicago. I had my usual window seat, so as soon as we ate the first meal, I went to sleep for a few hours. I had only about a 25-minute wait in Chicago and soon was on the two-hour flight to White Plains, the nearest airport to Maryknoll. Liz Mach, my Area Representative counterpart from Africa, was there to meet me, and quickly I was at Bethany, the headquarters building of the MMAF where the first people I saw where Kathy Kremer and Lisa Pirie, two of the three women coming to Cambodia in January!
19 September 2002
Thursday
I woke up twice in the middle of the night because of jetlag last night but was able to get back to sleep, the second time after studying Khmer language for a half hour. This morning I discovered the orientation candidates were having a liturgy with their visiting teacher, Anthony Gittings, who was speaking about a theology of mission. I joined the liturgy and got to meet a few more of the new group for the first time.Later in the morning I met with Sue Marble Cuthbert, our recruiting coordinator. We talked about ideas for recruiting more associate priests like me into the Association. In the afternoon I went to the Maryknoll post office to mail some things given me by people in Cambodia, and then went to the grocery story to get a few supplies for the next two weeks.
At lunch the new MMAFers going to East Timor and the three women going to Cambodia and I had lunch to start talking about their future placements, and then tonight Judy Helein, Kathy Kremer, Lisa Pirie (the three going to Cambodia), and I went out to eat and to start talking more seriously about plans for their eventual mission life and work in Cambodia. The Cambodia Mission Team will be very fortunate to receive these three women.
20 September 2002
Friday
Today was another day of unofficial meetings before the real meetings--the purpose of the trip to New York--begin next week.- Meeting with the Midwest Recruiter
Patty Shaw-Driscoll is the new Midwest recruiter for the MMAF. We talked of possible approaches for attracting new candidates for the Association. - Meeting with Admissions
Our two Admissions people, Kathy Wright and Andrea Goicicea, met with me this morning to discuss all the personnel in Asia and the situation for future placements there. - Meeting with the New People Going to East Timor
At lunch I met with Patty La Mothe, and Bill and Eileen Velicky who are our experienced missioners (from Cambodia and Tanzania respectively) who are going to East Timor to open up our new mission site there. We discussed various needs there in the context of preparing budgets for 2003. - Meeting with the Finance Department
At 2:00 PM, the East Timor people met with Renato Abella, Kate Pendzuk, and Gabriale Tai from the Finance Department to discuss some of the larger issues of budgeting and reporting in the Association.