Sorry this posting is late, I know many of you like to read it on Sunday, but you will see I was travelling most of the weekend and then there was a lot to write about and many pictures to upload. I hope you will enjoy it when you get time to read it.

Saturday 29^th November

Ratana had some time today, so about 10.00 she picked me up and we went to the Pho de Paris restaurant to talk about my birthday party. We got on really well, they do a set menu of six dishes for $4 per head, we added some spring rolls for the starter and some beef, rice and tea will be included. They showed us a private room big enough for about 22 people, which is just right, so we booked and will let them know the final number the day before. It is a very nice restaurant and the people were most helpful. Then we went to the market to look for fabric and found the lady very helpful and chatty, she started showing pictures of her trip to Europe. We found some nice fabric for some friends and also for Ratana and then I bought some cotton for a dressing gown. After the price was settled for all of that we went in search of a tailor and found a very quiet and peaceful lady who was happy to help us. Designs were made and measurements and the price agreed. On the whole it was a very good morning.

I said evening Mass as usual and afterwards Ratana and I went for a pizza and a little walk in Pub Street.

Sunday 30^th November

              

I concelebrated at the Khmer Mass this morning and then afterwards stayed around and signed the books of those attending catechism classes and preparing for the sacraments. 

These are pictures of the catechism classes that happen at the church at Siem Reap after Mass on Sundays.  It is a good time to see the community and to chat with many of the young people. 

At about 10.30 I set off with Fr Panus and some visitors to go to the Jesus Farm. In the group were some visitors from Singapore, one man with his nephew and two sons, they are on a two week visit and brought 400 tee shirts with them. 

They distributed some yesterday at Kompong Cliang and the rest today at the farm. They are lovely people and the three boys have just finished high school and now have to join the army for 2 years.









Also with us was Elizabeth from the Jesuit Service and a friend of hers from New Zealand who is working at marketing for the Khmer Circus, she is here until March and came to experience something of the small community at the farm. Fr Panus said Mass and we served rice soup, had lunch and returned to Siem Reap.

Last time I was at the Farm I met a family of five sisters, the oldest one looking after the other 4 and also her niece, her sisters child, this sister had already died, the mother of all the others was in hospital. I took a picture of all of them in age order. I met some of them again today, mother is out of hospital and doing well, the older sister was not there today, but the three younger ones all got a new t shirt, so I took a picture of them, they were delighted and had remembered the previous time. 

We delivered the guests from Singapore back to their 5* hotel and I saw my first Christmas tree and Santa being erected outside the hotel. I stayed home and had a simple supper, finishing off some stuff in my fridge.

Monday 1^st December

               I went to Mass as usual this morning ready to concelebrate with Fr Panus, but he did not show up, so I said the Mass in Khmer and then stayed for breakfast with the sisters. I went home and about 9.00 Ratana arrived and we sat and chatted for a long time, waiting for the taxi to take me to Kompong Tom. It was lovely to chat with Ratana and to share some of her concerns and her life, she is worried about her future and is trying to work out what to do.

The river at Kompong Tom

The taxi came at 11.30, it was due at 10.00, but this is Cambodia! We had a good journey and stopped half way for lunch, where we had stopped on the previous visit. The driver and other passengers took care of me and I ordered fried rice and chicken and a beer, as before the food was excellent. I arrived at the Church about 3.30 pm. Soklin was on her way back from the work she does some distance away, but I was made most welcome and shown to the same room I had before in the Presbytery. 

I had a rest and did some reading. Some of the young people arrived and wanted me to teach English, so I taught from 5.30 – 6.30, about 10 of them came to the class, Soklin came and interpreted for me. We just did some sounds for tonight. 

This is the English class in Kompong Tom.

Sr Jeeranun make friends with the younger dog who is still into fighting!

I went for supper with the sisters and the girls and had a very enjoyable evening. The girls are mostly from traumatised families, orphans or parents who cannot parent, the community, sisters and other girls, give some stability and love for them and the results are amazing. 

 

This young lady tried standing on her hands, with quite some success.

I got back to my room about 8.45 which is too early for me for bed, so I did some reading first, there is no wifi here, so I could not check anything on the internet.

Another three monkeys, a little younger this time and full of fun.

Tuesday 2^nd December

               I went to Mass with the community at 6.30. the community here is much smaller than at Siem Reap, there are three sisters, two priests and one brother and some parishioners and a few of the young people who have not gone to school. After Mass the sisters, priests and brother have breakfast together, this is their community meal each day and keeps them in touch with what is happening in their different areas of work, the food is good too.

Soklin and I left for Kompong Ko at about 9.30. it is 15ks, we went on the moto, it was a nice drive all along the river bank and quite rural. It took about half an hour to reach the church which was a very Catholic centre before the Pol Pot era, their lovely church was knocked down and most of the community murdered. After the war they got back the same piece of land and built a simple church. It is in a lovely setting, next to a small lake, they also have a kindergarten for about 50 children. 

We visited the children and they sang some songs for us and I took some photos. One of the teachers had had a baby during the night, another is heavily pregnant, so they are struggling a bit at present. 

After visiting the school we went to visit the mum and new baby. This involved finding a boat and crossing the river. Soklin set off, with me following, wondering what was going to happen.

We found a boat and the man who owned it, he helped me down the bank and into the boat and Soklin paddled across the river, a passing lady on the other side helped me up the bank safely. 

We then walked a little way and found the right house and the new born baby. This was a very simple, poor bamboo house on stilts, basically they had nothing.

We climbed up into the house and sat with the girl and her baby, dad was around outside. Soklin chatted for a while and then I said a prayer and blessed the baby boy, who does not have a name yet, and then blessed the mother, she was very pleased.

The baby was a little premature, so was very small, also came rather unexpectedly, so the girl was at work yesterday teaching at the kindergarten, the baby was born at 1.30 in the morning. The baby does not yet have a name.

This the house where we met the new born baby.

We successfully crossed the river and went and had a simple lunch in the church house and then returned to Kompong Tom, on the way I took a couple of photos of lotus flowers and water buffalo. In the evening I taught English again and then had supper with the sisters and girls and enjoyed some cabaret from the smaller girls. When I returned I sat and chatted with Fr Jinyot and Brother Rakesh, who is from India and is in charge of the boys.

  

The Church at Kompong Tom, very simple and so noble and dignified.

Wednesday 3^rd December

               Today is the feast of St Francis Xavier, founding Jesuit and apostle of the east, it was also pouring with rain, so no one could go to work, so we celebrated the feast at lunchtime. The picture below shows the group who usually attend weekday Mass in Kompong Tom.

We all met at the sisters house and Deacon Ros and his mum had also been invited. It was very good to meet him, he is being ordained priest on Saturday in Battambang. He is Cambodian and his mum does not speak English, he has been training for 10 years and is about 35, he speaks very good English, he is a lovely person, very peaceful and full of joy, he should be a great priest. After lunch I had a rest and then did some work on the diary and taught English, this was the last class as I am going out with Soklin tomorrow evening to see her work.

Thursday 4^th December

               After Mass and breakfast I managed to connect to the internet for a while and did some emails. We had an early lunch and left for Tangkok at 12.30. it is about 70 kilometres down National Road 6 towards Phnom Penh, but the road is terrible and it takes about 2 hours and is very bumpy.



We finally arrived at a very small church and gathered about 5 people for Mass.







This is a very historic site with a stone recording 450 years of the Catholic Church in Cambodia, there is house where a previous bishop lived who was killed by the Khmer Rouge and they have large gatherings there to celebrate the martyrs of Cambodia.

The house were the bishop lived who was murdered by the Khmer Rouge.















Fr Bongbong suggested that I go with Tim, the driver, to deliver a couple of wheelchairs as we also had a later Mass in another village, so I did. We set off to deliver a chair to this young boy whose chair had broken, we found the family and duly delivered the chair, the young lad was delighted and so were his family. We then set off to find the other person, but discovered he had died the day before, so we returned to the church as Mass was continuing.

The picture above shows the outside of the Church at Tangkok and to the right the small community gathered for Mass in the upstairs room which serves as the Church.











After Mass and a short chat we set off to go to Pumpang, a village about 11 ks away. This was well off the main road and a very traditional village, no power or water and the houses all gathered in a circle. When we arrived there were lots of children, so we went for a drive round the village and picked up some more and then gave them all sweets, they then disappeared, it was all very good fun.







































There is a small school there and the church is upstairs. We had dinner first and Mass was about 6.45, after the people have all eaten and finished work. About 10 people gathered, they are all one family, the grandfather also arrived, from whom they are all descended.








Thus the statue of Our Lady at the Church in Pumpang.



Mass was lovely and they sang very well, after Mass Fr Bongbong did a little session on confession, so I went downstairs and taught some children to sing “He’s got the whole world in his hands”. After chat and drinks we left. On the way home we collected 15 sacks of rice from Tangkok to take back to Kompong Tom, we arrived home about 10.30.

Friday 5^th December

               After Mass and breakfast I went to see Soklin’s great aunt, the old lady I met last time I was here and gave her a blessing. We had an early lunch and then when all those travelling had arrived we set off by coach to go to the ordination in Battambang. We were 32 on the coach and had a five hour drive, through Siem Reap to Battambang, arriving just after 6.00 pm. The whole compound was full of people gathering from all over the province, the atmosphere was great. I had been booked into a hotel, one of the priests from Phnom Penh took me to check in and get rid of my luggage, he waited while I did a quick change and then brought me back for supper with the priests.






I met Bishop Kike for the first time since I arrived here and he was delighted to see me, Fr Peter from Tunbridge Wells is also here, so we sat and chatted for a while and then went to the end of the Taize prayer evening in the Church. This was packed with young people from many different parishes and the singing was beautiful.







After that finished there was an evening performance by some of the young people. This was traditional dancing, but also some modern disco dancing and some tae kwondo, it was a great atmosphere and about 600 people were there, including three bishops. I went back to my hotel when it finished, most people had a bed, but I am sure some slept under the stars.

Modern disco type dancing, many of the clergy were dragged up to join in!














Tae kwondo moves, also very well done and with great dignity and pride of their skill and training.









Saturday 6^th December

              Fr Ros, ordained priest, 6th December 2014

I had a good night in a very nice hotel, sadly they did not serve breakfast, but I checked out, surprised to be charged only $15 and Thon picked me up at 8.00 am. We went back to the Centre and there were more people arriving all the time, I managed to get a bit of breakfast in the priests’ room and then wandered and met a few people, including several from Siem Reap. All the priests got vested in Bishop Kike’s house, all had matching stoles and those with chasubles also all matched, lovely simple vestments, the good Samaritan on one side and Jesus washing the feet on the other. Mass started at 9.00 am.

The procession was led by children in peacock feathers doing a traditional dance, we all left our shoes at the back of the assembly and had to walk on a gravel path for our sins to get to the altar. There were about 2000 people present in the open air Cathedral and 56 priests, out of a total of 65 in the whole of Cambodia.







The Mass was lovely, beautiful singing and dancing at the Holy, Holy and again at the Lord’s Prayer and some wheelchair dancers at the very end to bless the new priest.


















































Each parish brought symbolic gifts from their area, a miniature Angkor from Siem Reap and a basket of pineapples from Kompong Tom, pineapples because they have many eyes, Fr Ros will need many eyes to see the poor.








I sat next to Fr Jinyot who explained to me what was being said, which was very helpful. The whole event was beautifully thought out and it was real privilege to be part of it. Afterwards I met Ratana and her sister and children, everyone got some food and eventually we left to go home, we got back to Siem Reap at about 4.30, so not much time before evening Mass.





Ratana stayed for a few days with her sister, so after Mass I went and did a quick shop and then cooked a simple supper. I told Bishop Kike that St Nicholas (feast today) had given him a wonderful present and he agreed. It was a truly wonderful day.

This is Jesus washing the disciples feet, this was the gospel reading and was also the emblem on one side of the vestments that we all wore.



















This the Good Samaritan tending the wounded traveler, this was the emblem on the other side of the vestment.

Fr Peter from Tunbridge Wells, twinned with Kompong Tom, who came especially for the ordination and who returns to England on Tuesday, I have met him several times here in the past.

Ratana and her sister and the children were also there, good to see them again.

You see this was a very eventful week. Take care and do drop me a comment if you have time.