Home Thoughts From Abroad

While Pam goes to Phnom Penh to plan for the upcoming moral values workshop, I am in Chiang Mai, Thailand doing a cram course in CHE teaching technique. CHE stands for Community Health Evangelism, and it is a loosely based organization that was originally developed by Medical Ambassadors International for use in the rural villages of Africa. However, it has long outgrown its parent organization, and to use internet-speak, has gone ‘viral’, being dessiminated now in 90 countries by many who add to its lesson database in much the same way that Wikipedia grows through its contributors.

Its lesson structure would be familiar to anyone practicing modern pedagogy: the teacher is a facilitator; there is no heirachy but rather a collection of colleagues; everyone sits in a circle, no one stands; the emphasis is on relationship; and empowerment of the learner is a priority. Lessons rely on small group interaction and are developed through role-play, stories, and discussions that rely on the knowledge latent in each learner. Learning materials are deliberately restricted to what you would be able to use in a village with no electricity and few resources other than shelter.

My trainers for these two days have been David, Leslie and Andrew, who have graciously adapted their week-long training model to just the few hours that I have had available before I have to teach next week. I am grateful for their expertise and their flexibility. Lessons and discussions have been lively and productive, and the setting – one of Thailand’s more historic and lovely cities – has been an added bonus. I only regret that my compressed timetable has not allowed me to see more of the city and the surrounding countryside.

Tomorrow I will fly to Phnom Penh to join up with Pam, Bill and Sharon to put the final touches on the material that Sharon has prepared for the coming week. I am looking to putting into practice what I have been learning and making a positive impact in the lives of ordinary Cambodians.

It is Chinese New Years so Steve has a week off from school, which we intend to put to good use. Steve flew up to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand on Tuesday right after school. He is doing a two day crash course on the strategies and teaching principles of CHE so that he can join us in the training and also assist with the writing of new lessons and stories. This project is growing very rapidly and we will clearly need all the help we can get to keep up the pace.

Today I will head to Phnom Penh to ensure all is in order for the second week of Moral Values Training for RHAC and get the new manuals printed. Bill and Sharon are enroute from Canada via New Zealand and will arrive in Cambodia early Friday for a day of meetings and planning. Steve will join us in PP Friday afternoon in time for us to meet up for supper with some Canadian friends from Rattanak Foundation with whom we hope to collaborate in the future. We will have Saturday to finally sit together and go over the lessons and schedule for next week. I will try to get in a visit to the TWR office to attend a farewell party for Paul and Kathy, TWR missionaries who have served in Cambodia for about eight years and are now moving on to Guam.

On Sunday Su Min and Sing Yu will arrive and we will meet up with about thirty doctors and program managers from RHAC for a five hour bus ride up to Seim Reap. This will be a whole new group who have had no exposure to the training and we are looking forward to this informal opportunity to build relationships with these amazing Cambodians who have a desire to change the moral fiber of their country.

This time we will hold the workshop in the field on the terrace of one of their clinics in Siem Reap. They asked if they could have one day right in Angkor Wat, as a symbol that they want to see the very roots of their cultural values transformed! Interesting isn’t it, coming from secular Buddhists? We don’t know if that will happen due to logistics, but it certainly shows some deep thinking going on. They have begun to change the leadership style of the organization and want to ‘permeate’ it with this teaching… pray they will be drawn as well to the Source of all that is good and who also gives us the power to live it in real life through His transforming Spirit within us.