They’re here!!

The three wise men made it to our Epiphany mass at the World Vision auditorium this evening!  Liturgy at World Vision is a bit of a challenge because we just rent their hall every Saturday evening and have to set up everything, hang banners, etc.  It’s not like walking into your own church and flipping on the lights and you’re ready to go.  And then afterwards World Vision we have to take everything down and pack it up (for another year for the crib figures).  I took this picture because next year Fr. Bob (who does most of our creative environment work, like the crib) will be gone and I’ll need to remember where everything is and how we arranged it around the altar.

Aquaponics in Boeung Tum Pun

The Sisters of Providence have a residence and programs for children with disabilities near the Church of the Child Jesus in Boeung Tum Pun.  In the really heavy rains in November, their aquaponics project was severely damaged.  Aquaponics combines aquaculture (raising aquatic animals like prawns, snails, or fish in tanks) with hydroponics (raising plants in water) in a setting where both environments support each other.

The sisters teach the children a valuable form of organic farming while producing healthy food for their center.  The heavy rains caused the fish tanks and other structures to collapse so the sisters asked for help to rebuild, putting down a concrete pad that would support the heavy weight of tanks and troughs in future storms.

During Advent our English community had a Giving Tree from which we invited parishioners to take an empty envelope and insert a donation and then drop it in the collection.  In the four Sundays of Advent we collected $1,475.  Thank you very much!  The sisters and children thank you for getting them set up again and we thank you for your support for the work of the gospel.

Out of Time!

I had planned to post a larger spread of pictures today but events didn’t work out even though today was technically a holiday.  There were too many people in the hospital I had to see and then I had to finish a report due tomorrow morning.  Maybe in the next couple days I can follow up on my plan.

New Year’s Eve 2017

Today was a busy day with Holy Family Sunday masses this morning in two places and then dealing with St. Vincent de Paul Society cases in the afternoon.  Then this evening the Maryknoll Cambodia community got together for a new year mass and dinner together.  It was a quiet and enjoyable evening and everyone was gone by 7:00 PM.  Here Ann Sherman and Russ Brine talk with a visitor, Beau Blank, who works with Maryknoll in Thailand and has spent the last four or five days with us.

Visitors from My Past

This evening at the Saturday night mass at World Vision, I met a group of twelve people from Hong Kong who are finishing up a service trip in Cambodia.  They have been working in a parish in Kampong Cham Province.  In talking to them I found out that these two young men went to the Bishop Ford Primary School in the Tung Tau Tsuen area in Kowloon.  I lived at the Bishop Ford School for twelve years before coming to Cambodia, but I was gone before these two started the first grade there.