Moving In

Saturday morning we moved the chairs and vestments and other things to the St. Joseph chapel, the new home for the English Catholic Community. In the evening we began moving our members to the chapel! It’s one of those occasions worth a mention in our parish’s history!

The congregation for the 4:00 PM mass on Saturday. The priest is Fr. Glenn Diaz who concelebrated with Fr. Charlie.
The congregation for the 5:30 PM mass on Saturday.
The congregation for the 10:00 AM mass on Sunday.

New chapel, new priest

You never know whom you are going to meet up in the choir loft. When moving chairs and other equipment to the loft, Sr. Regina ran into a new face, Fr. Glenn Diaz.
Fr. Glenn Diaz is a priest of the Mill Hill Missionary group. He is from the Philippines but is part of his mission group’s new initiative to work in the Battambang Vicariate. Fr. Glenn is now staying at St. Joseph Church while he is learning Khmer.

Still Wet

The heavy rains continued until about 11:00 PM last night. Most of it drained away by this morning–thanks to the Japanese-financed sewer updates–but this street still had some flooding.
In another neighborhood nearer our deaf office, this man was trying to clear some drains in order to avoid such significant flooding the next time.

A Whole Lot of Wet

We’re definitely in the rainy season now, and today was exceptionally wet. It started raining about a half hour before I was due to leave in the afternoon and I didn’t think much about it but just put on my poncho and got on my bike. About a block away, though, I started encountering streets like this and decided it wasn’t worth it and went back to DDP and called a three-wheel tuk-tuk like these above.

Say what?

First there was the “Clobber” clothing store that recently opened. But now I’m wondering about this “bakery cafe.” Where did they get the name “85º Bakery Cafe”? I’ve been trying to figure that out since it opened last year. Is 85º a proper temperature for making coffee or something?

Time for a Haircut

As part of the DDP Job Training Project, we have a barber shop where young deaf men learn to cut hair. Of course, I have to go there. It gives “face” to the trainees that I trust them, but it also can make them quite nervous to be cutting the “boss'” hair.
The young man in the top photo was doing quite well with my hair. He was just slow, and the trainer (dark shirt above) told me that was because he was frightened to be cutting my hair and would cut just a little at a time to be sure he didn’t make any mistake. I really upset the trainee, though, when I asked him to trim the odd hairs in my bushy eyebrows. He had never done anything like that and handed the clippers over to the trainer who also took the opportunity to even out the long hair on top.

First Day at Work

Today Maryknoll Lay Missioner Julie Lawler (C) came for her first day on the job at the Deaf Development Programme where she will be an educational advisor. Julie arrived in Cambodia in January but has been in language school up to now, learning both spoken Khmer language and Cambodian Sign Language. With her is Touch Sophy, the Education Project manager, and Russ Brine, another Maryknoll Lay Missioner, who is DDP finance manager.