Fun Play Group at Christmas

A group of parents in the English-speaking Catholic community have formed a Fun Play Group to allow their children to meet and be friends with other children in a fun atmosphere with a little prayer and reflection to help the children grow in a positive setting.

The group met Saturday night after the evening mass and a good time was had by all!

Many of the children–basically from 7 to 12 years old–knew each other from the religious education program on Saturday mornings.  As is the norm in our church community here, no two families came from the same country.
In this pre-Christmas season, the group shared the different Christmas traditions and practices from their home country. Here Marta offers the group a Polish Christmas food.
Ann then invited everyone to sample a fruit salad that is served in the Philippines at Christmas time.
The children enjoyed getting together but so did the big kids. Here a group of mothers from five different countries get the chance to talk about Christmas and what it has meant for them and their families.

New English Missals

Because we have a multi-cultural congregation in the English-speaking Catholic community, we provide a paper missal that allows people to read the scripture readings when they are being proclaimed by the lector at mass.  For 95+% of our congregation, English is their second, third, or fourth language so sometimes they don’t catch the full meaning of only the spoken word.

The new English Missals for the church’s new liturgical year got lost this year.  They were shipped from Ho Chi Minh City on 14 November but we didn’t pick them up here until last Wednesday.  Then today I took 400 of them in a tuk-tuk to World Vision where we have our Saturday night mass in their auditorium.

Another Farewell

Today Jonathan Hooker (black shirt), a really fine advisor to the deaf program at Krousar Thmey, came to say goodbye to us at DDP as he finishes his volunteer term.  Jonathan has been instrumental in linking Krousar Thmey and the Deaf Development Programme and in arranging financing and keeping our sign language committee functioning.  His replacement will be Juliet who came with him today.  On the right is Keat Sokly, the co-director of DDP.

IDPD 2018

Today was Cambodia’s official celebration of the International Day for People with Disabilities.  The UN-designated day was 3 December but the government here transferred the celebration to today.  The annual event is rather a charade.  No person with a disability spoke or had any role in the planning or enacting of the celebration.  No person with a disability was even on the stage except for Mr. Veasna, in a wheelchair, who is head of the National Center for People with Disabilities.  We were required to be in the hall 1.5 to 2 hours before the starting point, the deputy prime minister spoke for 1.5 hours, they gave $1.25 to each person with a disability, and that was it.

The deputy prime minister spoke an hour and a half, the only event of the celebration.
This was the reaction of the people with disabilities sitting beside and behind me.
This our DDP sign language interpreter. Notice how many of the deaf people are following the interpretation she is giving of the speech.

Musica Felice 2018

Musica Felice (Happy Music) is a choral group organized and directed by Ms. Miwako Fujiwara, a professional keyboard player and music teacher.  Many members of the choirs at our two English churches are musicians and singers with Miwako.  Last Sunday they presented a first-ever outdoor concert at a five-star hotel, along with the 9th Harmonics, a male filipino choral group, and a jazz group.

Before the concert, Miwako was on stage arranging music.
The Sunday afternoon was bright and clear and sunny–and hot! 900+ tickets were sold to benefit charities but because of the heat the early arrivals opted to stand back in the shade of the tree line while they waited for the performance.