Home Thoughts From Abroad

It is five hours from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. It needn’t be, but the bus has to make a dozen stops in order to maximize its load, and not all of them are on the main road. But the bus was air conditioned and we had the front seat on the second deck with a clear view of the road ahead, so the time was spent taking in the pleasant countryside and chatting about the resort ahead of us. There is only one other staff member at Taylor’s College where I work who has ever been here, and he wouldn’t go anywhere else. Every vacation time he would head back to Sihanoukville. He described the place as paradise on earth. It makes you curious when you hear comments like that.

We have been talking about going to Sihanoukville ourseleves for some time, hoping to wait long enough for them to finish building the airport there. But we can’t wait forever, and the airport is taking its own sweet time, so we decided to come by bus. We weren’t sure what to expect. We had been to Kep, further along the coast, some time ago, and found it to be largely deserted and somewhat sad; another victim of fifty years of war this country has had to endure at the hands of others.

There is a town here, unlike Kep which is just an abandoned shell, but there is not much going on. This hotel, the Independence, built in 1963 and recently refurbished, is almost entirely empty. This is a four star hotel – the kind of place we can never afford, built on an absolutely gorgeous stretch of beach, charging us 50 dollars American, including an all-you-can-eat buffet breakfast/brunch that goes on forever – and the place is deserted. There are six guests in this 150 room hotel. The other four don’t speak English.

The effect is surreal. We walk down to the pristine beach, dotted with thatched cabanas, and we are alone. We sit beside the Olympic-sized pool, surrounded by the pool bar and the massage huts, and we are alone. We sip tea on the balcony in the Sunset Restaurant listening to the waves break gently on the shore and we are alone. Except for the staff, of course, they are everywhere. They hold the doors for us whenever we approach. They stand ever ready as we sit beside the pool, in case we want something. They greet us in the hallways, as if their very survival depended upon our existence, which I suppose in some kind of way, it does.

All the attention makes us a little nervous. We are both used to being ignored, and actually prefer it that way. We are hoping that the airport is finished soon, so that all this investment is rewarded by clientele. Obviously a five hour bus ride from Phnom Penh is not going to bring the Europeans and Americans flocking here in droves. An airport will be good for the local economy and good for Cambodia in general. But I have to admit that having such a gorgeous place all to ourselves has been a quirky little treat.

We breakfasted in the hills..

Explored the gold course for next time..

Travelled over the rain forest by cable car…

Enjoyed a view from the clouds…

Took the tram up the Malawati Hill

Fed the natives…

Made new friends…

Even time for a photo op and a cuddle…

Waited patiently for food…

Experienced some great new tastes…

Watched a beautiful sunset on the river…

Floated silently and marvelled at the fireflies…

Went home happy…

After a totally sleepless weekend and many doses of a major tranquillizer to help settle him, the doctors finally agreed on Monday morning that perhaps it was the drug that was causing the agitation. With the first dose of the new medication, Dad promptly went to sleep and has essentially stayed that way since.

It is such a relief to see him at rest finally. When he is awake, he is fairly well orientated and is able to be up and walk in the hall and you see glimpses of my sweet little dad. Unfortunately, with the heavy sedation he becomes quite confused especially when first waking up, often resulting in his pulling out his various tubes. The major concern right now is that he has not yet regained his ability to swallow, even though the surgeons are quite certain that there should be no impact from the operation and follow-up CT scan on Monday shows no evidence of a stroke.

Yesterday, we began the battle of now trying to convince the doctors that he is over sedated and they did finally agree to a very small decrease in his morning dose in the hopes that he will be awake more during the day. He was actually too sedated to participate in the swallow test or to walk any distance so the therapists requested a medication decrease and they have some pull.

We would appreciate your prayers specifically for his swallowing as this just keeps him in a constant cycle of instability. He can’t regulate his own fluids so he gets it IV or via nasogastric tube until he is over hydrated and his lungs fill up, they give him IV Lasix until he is so dry that his blood pressure drops so low that he is drowsy and confused, he pulls out the tubes so they tie him down which really agitates him and they have to bolus him with fluids and the cycle starts again. We are well aware that at the tender age of 85 any recovery will be slow and unpredictable but there are some very encouraging moments, especially when he starts teasing the nurses. Then you know that his real self is still alive and well.

The CPU staff and students are putting on a musical theatre of songs from Broadway musicals. It has been fun, but like all of these things, exhausting. I have had to wear a number of hats for this production: set design and construction, props, sound and light. All part of the mix when you are in a foreign city wiothout much in the way of community support. I was even asked to do a little choreography; not exactly my strong suit, although Pam and I still enjoy dancing when we can.

Here I am leading a couple of students through the steps for “16 Going On 17” from Sound of Music. Like most young people they learn to breakdance long before they can foxtrot or waltz. But they are fast learners. The routines for “Fame” and “He Had It Coming” were fantastic. Another teacher is conducting a student band for the performance, so all the music will be live.

I just secured a technician for the sound and light portion of the show this weekend, a nice Christian fellow that I met through the church, who is doing the three days for a reasonable price. And Jamie, my student teacher, has taken over the props and is helping with set design, so my load has been lightened considerably is the last few days. With most of the construction – including a stage thrust extension – behind me, I should be able to enjoy the next couple of weeks leading up to the show.

Although this was a trip that was not intended to happen and was pulled together in pretty short order, it turned out to be very full and fruitful.

TWR staff met me at the airport on Wednesday morning and we went directly to the office to finalize a document that needed to be emailed to our Dutch partner by the end of the work day in order for us to have some input into a context analysis for a national HIV/AIDS proposal.

Thursday morning I had the privilege of preparing the hotel rooms and providing a welcome for a short term missions team from our son’s home church in Ontario. From there it was out to spend some time catching up with Trully, a dear young Indonesian friend who is leading the work at the Cambodia Training Center where we have had some opportunity to teach and minister.

Back at the airport early Friday morning to meet Annelies, a physician from Singapore who has extensive knowledge and experience in public health in several Asian countries. Together we went directly to a meeting with Cambodia Global Action and then to RHAC. Both meetings were extremely positive with CGA expressing a willingness to provide training and RHAC excited about the potential of training their 20,000 village health volunteers in moral issues, emotional health and family and interpersonal issues. We finished the day with a plan to return and spend several days getting to fully understand RHAC’s program and strategy so we can design a unique approach that will meet the needs of their staff and volunteers.

Friday night and Saturday morning was spent giving Annelies a whirlwind tour of Phnom Penh and eating way too much food. Prior to seeing Annelies off to the airport, we had lunch with Veasna, our TWR ministry leader to talk about media involvement in our approach to RHAC. Saturday evening I was able to join the Ontario team for supper at a “typical” Cambodian restaurant which means lots of food eaten while sitting on the floor. Our tuk-tuk driver had fun showing the group his skills in negotiating the traffic in the downtown, much to the delight of his Canadian passengers.

I was happy to be back in our little apartment on Sunday and am excited about the next steps in this wonderful opportunity to work with some wonderful Cambodian friends and friends of Cambodia.

President Barack Obama showed his mettle and determination in pushing through a health care bill despite the most virulent opposition America has seen for decades. His legacy will be established on that basis alone, if he accomplishes nothing more. But if you think he is done, I think you have grossly underestimated the man.

The opposition came from a number of directions. First there was the knee jerk reaction of Republicans who were opposed on the basis of the fact that Obama was not a Republican. Such thinking naturally has engendered a lot of contempt for the Republican Party. We’ll see how that attitude works out for them this November, although it is always safe to keep P.T. Barnum’s maxim in mind in these things. Barnum, famous for appealing to the lowest common denominator in public entertainment, once quipped, “No one has ever gone broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” I didn’t say it folks, it is part of the public record. Look it up if you don’t believe me.

The second factor here is the Religious Right in America, the ideological offspring of the Pharisees in Christ’s day. Christ called them whitewashed tombs, and His series of woes levelled at their righteous indignation would peal paint. The kind of invective our Lord used would be sin in any other mouth, but Christ was speaking as the Lord of Creation, so those who would dress themselves in His garb when speaking to others are doing more than forgetting their Christian responsibility to think no ill of others, they are enacting blasphemy, for which one of us has the right to speak as if we were God?

I would think no ill of my Christian friends and brothers in the Lord, but I would caution them to examine the political motives of those who would seek to rally their allegiance by giving lip-service to patriotism on the one hand, and a facile nod to the complex issue of abortion on the other. Saint Ronald Reagan, he of the charming smile and the Hollywood hair, gave less than one-half of one percent of his vast income to charity in his lifetime, and authored the assassination of at least three properly elected leaders of Latin American democracies whose policies he disagreed with, while funding right-wing coups with money raised by selling arms to Iran. Such is the character of politicians who gather the faithful to their cause on the Right. Please don’t slander my Lord by suggesting He would side with such as these.

It is still early to say what Bush’s legacy might be, but certainly both he and his father, along with Reagan, are at least partly to blame for the polarization that has gripped America. Who would have thought a mere twenty years ago that we would once again hear Black American legislators being called ‘niggers’ and spat upon as they walked into Congress to cast their votes in favour of the health bill. James Clyburn, one of those congressmen said, “A lot of us have been saying for a long time that much of this is not about health care at all. And I think a lot of those people today demonstrated this. It is about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful.” What in his discretion he omitted was that a lot of those disadvantaged people are Black and Hispanic.

There are at least two sides to every issue, and I am certain that many of you will disagree with this assessment. As you do, please keep in mind that America has the worst infant mortality rate in the Western world. Singapore has 2.2 infant deaths per thousand births, France has 3.3, Germany has 4.0, Canada has 5.0. Even the much despised and economically blockaded (for 50 years!) Cuba has 5.8. The good ol’ U.S. of A. has 6.2. I am not in favour of abortion any more than you are, but surely better health care will ensure that more children get to live, not less. And that is worth voting for.

This week is March break for Steve and we thought we were content with the fact that although we had not booked a trip away, we both had plenty of work to do to fill up our week.  However on Saturday morning, realizing that all of our colleagues were off on great adventures to China, Myanmar and Borneo, we were feeling a little cheated.  So we rented a car for the weekend to do a few things locally that can’t be done without wheels.  Saturday night we got to practice our ballroom dancing and after church on Sunday we took a drive out in the country to see the fireflies at Kuala Selangor.

In spite of the fact that we have wanted to do this for almost three years, we really weren’t expecting too much.  We have after all seen fireflies before.  In the afternoon we visited the Kuala Selangor Nature Park a combination of mangrove swamp and forests.  A trolley ride took us up to Bukit Melawati, a hill on which you can see the remains of a the fort built in the eigthteenth century to protect the tin trade of the region. 

Along with the cannons and a lovely lighthouse, the hill is inhabited by hundreds of silverleaf monkeys who survive by using all of their charms on tourists.  It was amazing to watch them jump from branch to branch with their little babies holding on for dear life.

As we had eaten lunch at a rather questionable roadside stall we decided supper at Pizza Hut was in order.  As dusk approached we headed out to Sungei Selangor a narrow river along the banks of which, grow berembang trees amongst the mangrove swamps.  We watched a beautiful sunset as the flatbottom boats lined up along the dock to prepare for the evening of ferrying visitors up the river. It was raining slightly but our boatman provided us with umbrellas and the evening was lovely.

As we floated silently down the river we were treated to the most amazing sight. Glittering fireflies filled the bushes that hugged the river and glowed like delicate little Christmas lights. We had heard that they blink in synch with each other, but we didn’t see that. Given the myriad thousands of lights, some of them undoubtedly do, but there were too many to notice such subtleties. What we experienced was an ineffably charming ride through a most delightful display of nature. We thank the God of Wonders who designed such a unique and beautiful little creature to have a role in His creation.

Photo by: Erin Pettengill

After the Earthquake- Port-auPrince, Haiti

Women of the Harvest Picture Praise www.womenoftheharvest.com

Pam’s Dad was admitted into hospital again this weekend, now in congestive heart failure. Following so closely after his heart attack, we are understandably concerned. Apparently there is a lot of fluid on his lungs and his breathing is very laboured. Clearly there is another obstruction, and the heart is unable to clear the lungs. This could be a valve or it could be a failure of the muscles of the heart (myopathy). We don’t know at this point if Pam will have to fly home. It depends on the results of some tests that will be done within the next twenty-four hours.

If Pam had nothing on her plate at the moment then our decision would be an easy one: she would simply fly home. But the situation is not that simple. Pam has an awful lot on her plate and her role at the moment is pivotal. Essentially the plans for a new initiative in Cambodia depend upon her connections with the various players who do not yet know each other. Pam is working to bring that meeting – or series of meetings – into being. Once those meetings have taken place, Pam can step back into a supportive role once again. But at the moment she is the lynchpin for this initiative; hence our dilemma.

Obviously if Dad takes a turn for the worse, she will have to come home immediately, there is no question of that. But if Dad is able to recover, and Pam could delay coming home until these Cambodian meetings take place, then the work here could go forward. We know that the Lord’s will and timing are perfect. But our undertanding of the Lord’s plans at present is a little uncertain. Would you undertake to offer a prayer on our behalf so that we would do what the Lord would have us do? We would ask that you undertake to pray for Pam’s Dad as well. He is a dear man, and as faithful a servant of God as one could ever hope to meet. May the Lord’s gracious will be done in his life.