Eating at Home

Three Things you all always see at mealtime in a Khmer home.

Rice: lots of it piled high on your plate if your host / hostess has their way. If there is no rice at a meal, then it’s like they have never eaten their meal.

Soup: it won’t have another name to add specificity to the contents thereof. It could be clear, it could be cloudy. It will have leafy greens in it of some form (may be morning glory or something of that nature). Each of these will have a specific and pleasant taste of its own. 98% of the time you’ll see chunks of a ‘fish’ floating in it. Enough said.

Fish: Ponds, lakes, or farms give a plethora of fish. Fish can be dried, fried, boiled, porridge, or pasted. So many types of fish westerners would think of as trash fish or maybe an invasive species. Each variety has its own special appeal.

Long term being here and eating locally, one has to adjust and adapt out of respect to those sharing their food with you. It has always been good, just an adaptation of its own.

Rice has a good flavor here.

The photos below:

The fish is a small snakehead according to Mr. G.

The rice in the dish is a single serving if you desire.

The meal was eaten on the floor of a home on a mat with everyone in a circle. It was Christmas day and we were in Siem Reap. I guess you could say that this was our Christmas meal. It was very delicious. 

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Traveling in the Kingdom in December

Let’s start traveling along the month of December way back on Sunday December 6th. I promised you, our readership and prayer warriors, that I would be stepping back into December when all the traveling started, to dig out my journaling during that month. This is the first one.

We appreciate your encouragement, your prayers, and your love sent this way. I can hardly comprehend the days of Jesus when he walked so many miles to share God’s love people just like us. It was probably hot and dirty. Yet he persevered.

Some days during that month we all had to pull up our hip boots and persevere. As an example in the middle of a road between point A and B the car would stop and drivers would change positions. Most often the driver who switched out didn’t sleep but the stress of such and the responsibility played heavy on everyone to stay the course. Once or twice we landed for a bit near a river, stream, or pond to be quiet and relish the cool breeze and fresh air.

Anyway, this is the first episode in the series of the month of those road days. Yup, they are still titled as before ~ Traveling in the kingdom.

Psalm 67

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah
2 that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.
3 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!
4 Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Selah
5 Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you!
6 The earth has yielded its increase; God, our God, shall bless us.
7 God shall bless us; let all the ends of the earth fear him!

Today’s message in church was about our trip over the next six days and related back to psalm 67. As I look at a map now I see our destinations are all north of Phnom Penh, up the middle, (Preah Vihear), then east, to Stoeng Treng and Ratanakiri. At least for this week. The last two stops we will be celebrating Christmas with these churches.

If you are reading this, I’m presuming that you are a regular here and you have heard us previously go on about the disintegrating roads and a gridlock transportation situation in the city. Today after church we’ve left that behind for my favorite part of this country. The further away from the hubbub you get, the more rural and somewhat ‘old type western’ you can feel. It’s a rough terrain from which juts out communities sprinkled around the rice fields, golden or nearly so as it’s harvest time. I never tire of the breathtaking scenery, not withstanding the red dust fogging up our vision on non surfaced roads. I’ve never heard anyone embrace city life as it is here. It’s just for some necessary at this point. As with most big cities of this nature, they are hot, dirty, smelly, and trashy.

Yet to step outside all of those modern conveniences in the city gives us the opportunity to do what God has sent us here for, to meet the masses in the villages, to share Jesus with them, and to encourage and pray with and for them.

We first need to get there, which will take us almost eight hours. There are two cars with bibles and songbooks to hand out, and our bags of clothes for the week. Even with the AC running as we travel, the heat and rocking motion lures us all in and out of dozing time during the day for short spells.

Daily life continues as we bounce thru the settlements. Cattle grass is being hauled home as feed by a pair of water buffalo or white cows pulling a cart. People are hosing down the dirt on the road in front of their home or business. Children ride their bicycles to and fro, carts and motos are laden with cargo and families moving along, motos are repaired on the side of the road. In the distances cows and water buffalo graze as folks hand harvest their rice fields and lay the rice on bags in front of their homes to dry in the sun, along side the hanging fish and the cricket traps (that are used at night). Trucks move thru the communities carrying their cargo. Clothes dry on fences, poles, lines, or the ground. To me this is Cambodia and what has brought us back here.

Today there were 25 present for church. While the locals sang in Khmer, we sang along with them with the same hymns tucked in our heads and sung for so many years. This church family has totally embraced our arrival far more than we could have ever imagined. While they are certainly not overbearing, they make sure we are safe and taken care of and have incorporated us into their lives to benefit the church family in so many ways.

Tomorrow we are going to a military base near the Thai border in Preah Vihear province. We are told the men will come dressed in their uniforms and will bring their families with them. This is a first time for this very occasion, that ELCC will have the opportunity to share the gospel message and the Christmas story and give them bibles to read all about our Jesus too. As I spoke with Dalis earlier, I shared with her how my heart was filled with so much excitement and humbleness because we were here in this time and place to witness the power of the Holy Spirit amongst these people. She graciously smiled and acknowledged my explanation to her. She too I hope will grow thru this experience to see what can happen. We all need to be there to see, hear, and feel. God is so good!
1-dry dusty roads
2-rice field
3-working duo
4-rice stalk stacked high
5-sugar cane juice
6-gas station restaurant for the locals
7-George and church planter Daniel with serene pond behind looking into Laos

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Behind the Scenes

We’ve now accumulated two English classes every day with a total of 10 students in various levels. It’s been very interesting to watch them work together to pull each other along and not leaving anyone behind. Two of our more advanced students have naturally stayed for the beginner class to learn how to ‘teach’ and to help the newbies. Amen! Today, because so many are on the way to Siem Reap to finish the land details for that church plant, our class was smaller. I also had spent the morning reviewing all my white board photos on my phone and writing a notebook of what’s been done thus far so that if anyone misses, they can see what they’ve missed and ask questions. (We’ve all learned to take photos of what’s on the board since it magically disappears).

Additionally our morning devotions have taken on a wonderful twist as that has brought out an easy English bible with two other regular versions and each day they can learn two or three words there too. Also they now want to take ownership of the devotion time with us and rotate amongst all of us so that they can learn how to do their share as well. So much of this is new to them, so in this new year we are so grateful that they all are now ready for some responsibility to grow spiritually and advance themselves with English and new business practices while we are here.

We see the beginning of a community here in the office.Today I had one humbling realization that one student has never been exposed to English except thru her interaction with us. She has dutifully sat in class with a determination that could perhaps move a mountain. Others have translated for her and she has taken notes. Also she just arrived on the scene, which tells me she had no clue the class was a choice. But her voice of praise in church does move mountains and she one day be seen as a powerful church leader. But I must admit here that she is not like the usual meek and mild Khmer we see every day. This girl has Jesus spirit that does not quit.

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Epiphany

Today is January 6^th, Epiphany or Three Kings Day. It isn’t a holiday that is celebrated very much any more, but it is still an important day for us. Webster gives two definitions of epiphany. The first is a moment of sudden great and sudden revelation. The second is that revelation of the birth of Christ to the non-Jewish world as recorded in Matthew 2:1-12.

Now, we don’t know if there were really three wise men or magi as we often sing. And we also don’t know where their journey originated. We see them depicted in Nativity scenes or around the creche, but the truth is that since Herod ordered the killing of all the Jewish males under the age of two, they probably came a great distance. It could have been as close as Mesopotamia in the valley between the Tigress and Euphrates Rivers, an advanced civilization since 3000 BC. Or it might have been from India, or China, two great civilizations even farther east. For all we know, it could have also been a pre-Angkorian civilization here in Cambodia.

But, the bible does tell us that they came to worship THE King, bringing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. This leads to speculation that they were wealthy and educated men who studied the stars and could finance an extended scientific search for the origin of that bright star. While magi is the origin of the word magician, we can again speculate that these men were able to show very uncommon knowledge. We can also speculate that the magi visiting Christ were only representative of a larger body of astronomers, a delegation if you will.

But what is Epiphany to us? Epiphany to us is not the day on which we stop celebrating Christmas. It may be the day that the Christmas tree comes down because the needles are brown and dropping, but it not the day that Christmas comes to an end. Epiphany is the revelation of Christ, true God, and true man, to the non-Jewish world. Epiphany is to us a day of thanksgiving for Christ finding us in all our shame and guilt. Epiphany is the start of a new life!

Have a Happy Epiphany! God is still searching for wise men and women who will accept Him into their life.

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