Ash Wednesday

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:54:05 +0700

I’m not sure that Ash Wednesday is the most appropriate day to attempt restarting a blog. Yet this day, and the season of Lent, is one of my favorite times in the year and in the liturgical calendar. This may seem counterintuitive that a time known for self-denial, penitence and fasting is something I actually look forward to each year, but somehow the marking of a season that spurs me forward into intentional seeking after God and examining myself is something I have found I deeply need.

Several years ago, I discovered a great book by Walt Wangerin called Reliving the Passion, a daily Lenten devotional following the account of the death and resurrection of Christ in the Gospel of Mark. Wangerin describes Lent as the season “when the Christian is encouraged to think of her death and the sin that caused it - to examine herself, to know herself so deeply and well that knowledge becomes confession.” My prayer is truly that any pursuit of self-knowledge would not serve or promote myself (even in my own eyes), but would create a truer worship of God in my life and a clearer reflection of Him to those I daily encounter. I like to do this more intentional self-examination during Lent, a time that encourages me to strip away all that is false.

The service I attended tonight for Ash Wednesday was different than any I had ever attended. Only 6 of us present at the small Anglican church, but we huddled our chairs closely together and made it a time of both personal and corporate confession. Somehow in that intimate circle, acknowledging together both our mortality and our sinfulness, I could sense all of the crazy stresses of my day become insignificant in a grander story. A story that God has been orchestrating, and I (as a mere mortal!) am but one small piece of the work that God has invited me to be a part of. A story that reminds me that my sinfulness and weaknesses are not the end, but that acknowledging them brings alive all that has been accomplished through the grace that God has so freely given.

Each year, as tradition goes, I try to think of something meaningful to fast from for the season of Lent. Usually I ends up trying to give up TV or some other such vice (and I typically fail at fully fasting). This year I decided to do something different, taking on a challenge presented by the pastor of the church I attended when I lived in Ann Arbor. He has challenged the congregation to take part this Lenten season in 40 Days of Gratitude, through committing to express thankfulness once per day to someone in your life.

Though certainly gratefulness is a worthy character trait, I at first questioned whether this goal got to the heart of the Lenten call to penitence and fasting. Yet I realized that right now in my life, a fast from chocolate or TV or alcohol (all of which I consider essential “self-care” items!) will not get to the root of self-denial in the same way as will a shift of perspective from inward focus and negativism (I’ll sadly admit that I’m a bit self-consumed right now) to outward focus and purposeful focus on all that God is doing in and around me.

Since I don’t have a particular person to whom I would usually share my area of gratitude each day, my plan/hope (don’t hold me too closely to it!) is to post a blog each day with these thoughts. Maybe this will dually serve the role of facilitating a type of confession through gratitude while also introducing you more to my life in Cambodia.

Vietnam

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:57:39 +0700

In celebration of Khmer New Year, when the city of Phnom Penh completely empties as everyone goes to the provinces to visit their families, a few friends and I decided to go on a week-long tour of southern Vietnam. The trip was FANTASTIC!!! I loved Vietnam; though similar to Cambodia in many ways, there are also so many ways that the two countries are very different, so it was interesting to get a bit of variance in SE Asia experience and scenery.

CAN THO
My friends, Naomi and Josh, are really involved in a running group here in Phnom Penh known as the Phnom Penh Hash House Harriers (an international phenomenon in 178 countries.. check out www.gthhh.com) and the group had made plans to join up with the Saigon Hash House Harriers, so it was perfect timing to make that the start of our trip. Of course each trip needs to come with its hassles and adventures, so the would-be 6 hour drive turned into a 13-hour drive, complete with a drive to the wrong border crossing (for some reason, no international citizens are allowed to cross at that point?!), a drive almost back to Phnom Penh to get on the right road, and a hospital visit to help the person our van driver hit (on a moto) while we were in Vietnam (don’t worry, no one got too hurt). Crazy!! We didn’t really have the chance to “sight-see” around Can Tho... they are most known for their floating markets on the rivers, which sounded cool, but we just didn’t have time... but, being a boat person, I loved watching the boats float by on the river with the women wearing their “non la” (the typical Vietnamese cone shaped hat).

SAIGON
From Can Tho, Naomi, Josh, our friend Becky and I packed into a bus to head to Saigon. Officially known as Ho Chi Minh City, most of the residents still call the city Saigon. Though they definitely love Ho Chi Minh- in every city that we visited, there was a statue of “Uncle Ho” (that’s really how they refer to him in Vietnam... I’m not being disrespectful!!) I fell in love with Saigon immediately! I think that part of the reason is that I am so incredibly tree-deprived and the sight of so many trees and parks was just a blissful experience :-) Saigon is also much more clean, progressed, and “fashion-forward” than Phnom Penh, so it was fun to feel like I was in a modern city again! I started out my day with a trip to the War Remnants Museum... a very small museum about the “American War”, but of course hard to see sights of many of the atrocities during that time period. Most of the day was just spent walking around the city and checking out the main market in the center of town, though going to the salon for a hair-wash (which in both Cambodia and Vietnam means a full head, face and neck massage for about $2) was quite relaxing!!

The highlight of my time in Saigon was actually just sitting in one of the big parks for several hours reading a book... I’m telling you, trees are just so wonderful, especially after not seeing them for a few months! One funny thing in Saigon is that all of the cyclo drivers in Vietnam who are trying to get your business greet you on the road by asking “Where you from?” I got in the habit of responding that I was from Cambodia (or Kampuchea, as both Khmer and Vietnamese people say). The drivers would always get a good laugh out of this!! One of them that I turned away from a cyclo ride ended up later seeing me in the park while I was reading my book and came to chat with me telling me of his experience in Cambodia as a soldier fighting the Khmer Rouge.

I also loved spending my early mornings in Saigon having breakfast at a cafe next door to my guesthouse called Sozo. At first I though that it was just a cool coffee-shop with amazing cookies, but was excited when I found out that it is actually a Christian-run social enterprise for disadvantaged families and youth in the city to teach business skills. It reminded me of several similar coffee shops we have in Phnom Penh.

DALAT
From Saigon, we took a 7-hour bus ride up into the “central highlands” area of Vietnam to the city of Dalat. What a contrast from what I have seen thus far in SE Asia!! There are mountains and lakes and strawberries and artichokes and avacados!!!! And the weather was absolutely perfect... highs in the 80s and evening lows in the 60s! We actually wore PANTS in the evenings! There are a few adventure-tour companies in town that offer fun packages of activities, so we spent our one full day in the city hiking up a mountain and kayaking through a lake, which was fantastic!

The highlight of the trip as a whole, though, was our trip from Dalat to our next destination... the beach town of Mui Ne. The same company that we hiked and kayaked with also leads biking trips from Dalat to Mui Ne, so we took the challenge to ride the 90K from one city to the next. Actually, much of the trip was downhill, which was incredibly fun to see the beautiful gorges and buzz down the mountain. But for the initial uphill climb (on which I thought I could possibly die of being so out of shape!) and the long stretch of flat road, I was definitely at the end of the pack with my own personal tour guide and coach to get me through the ride :-)

MUI NE
Our last leg of the journey was relaxing in beach bungalows in Mui Ne... I know, this is really the hard life ;-) Mui Ne was definitely more “touristy” than I like, but it was beautiful to be by the ocean and just relax with a book on our guest house’s personal beach area. Becky and I decided to rent motos to go see the sand dunes, which are one of the sights that Lonely Planet recommends as a “must-see.” Our moto drivers took it upon themselves to take us to all of the typical “tourist” spots, which included an absolutely gorgeous bay with hundreds of colorful fishing boats, a “red canyon” which was definitely too small to actually be considered a canyon but had some interesting rock formations, and the sand dunes. Throughout our “tour” I definitely struggled with the impact that tourism can negatively have on an area... the children who don’t go to school, but swarm to offer us sleds to go down the dunes... or the fact that sleds even do go down the dunes, or the fact that all tourists see the same 4 sights so they are fully geared for tourists, etc.

Overall, my trip to Vietnam was incredible, and brought some great emotional and spiritual refreshment in addition to some beautiful views and fun sights. It’s neat to be able to take advantage of being in a part of the world that I never would have expected, and therefore see and do things that I never would have expected!

I thought I would end with a list of “this would never happen in America” experiences from my time in Vietnam, just for fun!!
On our border crossing into Vietnam, Naomi had a newsletter confiscated with a shake of the finger by the border guard because the newsletter had a cartoon drawing of a gun on the front...welcome to a communist country! On the bright side, in disbelief over how thoroughly the border guard was going through her purse, I just walked away... and never had my bag checked! It was insanely disorganized!
During one of our “rest area” stops (which ALWAYS includes a full meal for the Vietnamese passengers!), the server was happily buzzing around from customer to customer on roller skates!
For one rest area, we were required to take off our shoes to enter a public restroom... crazy! I mean, I know that taking off shoes is a huge cultural more in this part of the world, but for a public restroom?! They did provide communal croc-style sandals to be used to enter the bathroom stalls, but still...!
At another rest area, the cashier paid me back in gum rather than providing change :-) She apologized for not having any 1000 dong (about 6 cents) notes, but I found it very fishy that the gum was actually found in her cash register where the bills should have been!
In Dalat, the motos and cyclos are all buzzing past on the road, and... wait... is that a man riding an elephant down the road? Yes... yes it is!
It’s only appropriate that this list begins and ends with a border crossing story... on our trip back into Cambodia, we were about 2 hours into the trip when we realized that some live roosters were stashed in wicker bags behind my chair. After crossing into Cambodia, we noticed the roosters were gone, and assumed that, of course, live animals would not be allowed across the border on a passenger bus. But about 15 minutes into Cambodia, the owner ducked into the van bathroom and the roosters reappeared!! Roosters... smuggled across the border :-)

Be sure to go to the Photos page to see more of my pictures of Vietnam with descriptions!

I just don’t understand...

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:21:30 +0700

Yesterday I had a day off of work, and decided to take the opportunity to go visit Toul Sleng and Choeng Ek (The Killing Fields). Since arriving here in Cambodia, I have felt that going to these sites were important as a way of remembering the recent and brutal history within Cambodia as well as to remember the tragedy and trauma that is still greatly impacting the society. Until this point, however, I just had not been emotionally prepared and knew that I needed to wait until I had a full day dedicated to this purpose so that I could process my experience and not just treat it as a “tourist experience.”

Toul Sleng (which is now a genocide museum) is also known as S-21, which was one of the primary security prisons used by the Khmer Rouge, and a place of intense torture for the approximate 17,000 people who were imprisoned there.

I arrived to the museum in time to see a documentary about S-21 that is shown a couple times each day. The scene that most impacted me and that I just could not get out of my head while there was of an elderly lady who lost her daughter and son-in-law during the genocide. After telling their stories, she keeps repeating, “I don’t understand, I just don’t understand. I can understand the love between a mother and child; I can understand the love between a man and a woman, but this... I just don’t understand.”

And truly...what else can be said about such cruel torture inflicted by human beings against their neighbors, family, friends, fellow countrymen? For those of you who know very little about this tragic part of Cambodian history, as was the case before I came here, the Khmer Rouge and their leader Pol Pot were seeking to turn Cambodia to a fully agrarian and self-sustaining country. As a result, those who were educated or had lived in the cities were seen as threats, and were either killed or forced into hard labor in the fields. About one quarter of the Cambodian population was killed, whether through physical torture, starvation, or other means during this time period, but almost all inflicted by their fellow countrymen. I just don’t understand...

Two things struck me the most while visiting both S-21 and the Killing Fields. The first was the contrasts of environment that were so evident. Before the conversion of Tuol Sleng into a prison, it was a high school in Phnom Penh, and somehow the central location in the city with houses and businesses surrounding it makes the cruelty that occurred even more unbelievable. There is a courtyard in the center that I’m sure was once a beautiful setting for children to play, and still the trees and flowers that are present make the peaceful setting a strange dichotomy from how it was once used.

Similarly, the Killing Fields, which is where prisoners were transported from Tuol Sleng and murdered into mass graves, was once a orchard and has an eerily tranquil feel to it. As I silently walked around the fields, I watched a woman on the neighboring property tending to her rice fields. And directly adjoining the property on the other side was a school where children were laughing and playing. I had read in several guide books that remnants of victims’ clothing can be seen where some of the mass graves still remain, and sadly I found this to be true. Somehow, hearing the joyful laughter of children and the normalcy of life surrounding the area while seeing this scene was really difficult for me.

The day’s experience also had me reflecting a lot on the nature of self-protection and the lengths to which we will go as human beings to protect our own lives. As I walked through Tuol Sleng, a few exhibits were dedicated to documenting and telling the stories of individuals who had been recruited into the Khmer Rouge army, or who had participated in torture of others as a means of protecting themselves from being killed. While I recognize there are many dynamics that bring an individual to the place where they can commit such atrocities in the pursuit of saving their own life, I was saddened to see that many people (I’m sure as a way to cope with their own trauma from this time period) still felt very justified in the actions they took in order to live... and it made me wonder where in my life do I justify the actions that I take that may harm others, whether knowingly or unknowingly, with the pursuit of protecting my own sense of self. Truly... there but for the grace of God go I.

Having visited these sites on the day after Easter, my mind was also drawn to the poignant contrast of this sense of self-protection to the way that Christ modeled His own life. Rather than seeking to preserve His own life, or His rightful position as God, He purposefully laid down His own life in service to others. “Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death- even death on a cross!” Philippians 2:5-8. Lord, may you transform me from following after my natural human tendencies to instead living my life as Christ lived His!

Starting work

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:27:01 +0700

Since I’ve arrived in Cambodia, I have had multiple people ask me... how is life there different than you expected? I have found this to be a very difficult question, particularly since I had very few solidly formed “expectations” before I came, knowing that I had never been to this part of the world before. Yet I do think that my first two weeks of working with IJM have exceeded my expectations in many ways.

I certainly did not expect that I would have the chance to “jump right in” with work, yet I found myself on the first day of work (2nd full day in country), heading about 5 hours out of the city to Sihanoukville (on the coast of Cambodia) for 2 days for some work being done there. We got back to Phnom Penh just in time to jump into a lot of busyness, and within the past 1 1/2 weeks I have met and toured the majority of our aftercare centers; been to Ministry of Social Affairs (equivalent to CPS in US), been to the police station for child interviews, observed a court hearing, observed a community training (which I may be able to be involved with in the future), and just general orientation to the office!! (Do you see why I feel like I’ve been here for a couple months and why I haven’t been blogging so much?!)

My introduction to all of the aftercare centers was done in a concentrated manner because we had an aftercare team from another IJM office in SE Asia visiting along with staff from their local social services in an attempt to learn how to develop a model aftercare program for victims of sex trafficking, which they have found to be quite a challenge in their area. Because I was able to learn about all of the centers in the context of hearing answers to both my own questions and theirs , I felt that I learned so much more, particularly since they had many questions about the practical challenges that they have faced in doing this work. I never would have expected in coming here that Phnom Penh would be “the place to go” to find model aftercare, but after their visit, I can truly see why it can be! The level of professionalism and high quality care within these centers has given me so much to think about as I continue to learn about the dynamics of combatting sex trafficking and services that can provide rehabilitation and reintegration for survivors.

One discussion point that I found very fascinating was the consideration of how so many NGOs are thriving here with very little direction or restrictions (or oversight, in some respects) from the government and what the positives and negatives are of this dynamic within Cambodia. The positives are clear... people and organizations (like the many I have seen over the past couple weeks) with amazing vision and passion for the work they are doing (whether in the field of sex trafficking, education, medicine, etc) can come into the country and set up incredible programs that serve thousands of families and children within the country and can provide really quality services that boost the level of education, child protection, health, etc. While this all sounds fantastic (and in many ways is), what has occurred in Cambodia is that NGOs have become the infrastructure of many of the necessary social services, education, etc for the country. The risk, however, is if an NGO loses funding or shifts passions and decides to pull out of the country, the only safety net is other NGOs in the area, rather than a safety net or infrastructure of a government that is also providing these necessary services. I have been so inspired by the foresight and wisdom of coalitions and large NGOs (as well as IJM) that have considered how they can partner more with the government and help to build capacity within the government (an example being the IJM police trainings and working closely with the government) so that a long-term and more sustainable infrastructure model can be established. I have so much to learn!!

addictions

Sat, 8 Mar 2008 09:08:44 +0700

Well, I’ve only been here two weeks, and already I have found a number of guilty pleasures that I easily justify for myself as a “need” for part of my emotional adjustment :-) For those of you that know me, you won’t be surprised that they all pretty much relate to some sort of sugary sweet goodness.... gelato, amazing fresh squeezed fruit juices and shakes (this is tropical fruit paradise here!), and my personal favorite... iced coffee sweetened with sweetened condensed milk! It’s fantastic... why didn’t I ever think of that before?!

Aside from my unhealthy food choices, I have found eating here to not at all be a challenge as I expected. I had heard from so many people that the food in Phnom Penh was fantastic, and I really have to agree. I am still experimenting with many Khmer foods and discovering what I like and don’t like. There are lots of stir-fry types of dishes with veggies and meat (chicken, beef, seafood) and LOTS of rice. One dish that I particularly like is Amok, which is a fish dish well known in Cambodia... it has some curry flavors, though it’s not a typical curry dish. What I’m not sure that I will like is some of the seafood dishes like squid, eel, seaweed in soup, etc which are all pretty common. And of course there are lots of dishes with “mystery meat” that I end up just pushing around in the bowl :-)

My food options are certainly not limited to Khmer food here in Phnom Penh. There are amazing Vietnamese places, authentic Italian, French, Indian, Lebanese, and lots of Western-style restaurants with sandwiches and salads and even hamburgers. I have only tried a few spots, but I have a list going of all the places I need to try, and it will probably take me a year to get through them!! In some ways, it is cheaper and easier in Phnom Penh just to go out for every meal (especially if I was just going to Khmer local dives- about $2-3 for a full meal), but it has been fun starting to cook as well. Our kitchen consists of one “camp-style” stove plate with propane gas, so it is a fun challenge to figure out how to cook with no oven, only one stovetop, no measuring cups, etc. And learning what Western foods are just too expensive to be worth it (like cheese!!! That will be hard to live without!) My roommate and I want to start a regular “invite-everyone-we-know” dinner on a weekly or biweekly basis, and had our first one last Thursday. I made a homemade spaghetti sauce from the cookbook of my good friend who is an amazing cook and it turned out great!! (Thanks Christina!!) I look forward to trying out a lot of new recipes, having friends in our home, and just finally putting cooking skills into practice!