Outreach

Love is The Seventh Wave

By Stephen on Apr 20, 2013 in Outreach

If you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share it One of my most powerful (and pleasant) experiences on this trip was to chance into the acquaintances of a couple of young Spaniards who are volunteers for what is called (if a bit lugubriously) ‘The Apostolic Prefecture of Battambang’. Henceforth I’ll just refer to it as ‘The Mission’ (as opposed to ‘My Mission’!). They are on the Right Bank (as, I suppose, you might expect) of the Sangkter River just North of the town of Battambang. As elsewhere in the world, these Catholics have found the nicest piece of real estate in the region; and it’s not small. But here the tongue-and-cheek stops because, and, mind you, I’m a soap-box atheist, the GOOD they do is formidable. And not once in my multiple visits here, was I hit with a bible, see a crucifix or, for that matter even hear the words ‘saviour’ or ‘sin’. They are just simply and effectively all about the very hands-on business of helping downtrodden brothers and sisters. It’s so CLEAR, and these guys get it. There’s plenty of proselytizing in Cambodia, and it pisses me off to no end. But these people are faithful, but soundly and quietly good. Sadly, a rare combination. The Grand Poo Bah there is an actual Bishop nicknamed ‘Quique’ for Enrique, I believe. I also believe he’s been running the prefecture in Battambang for over twenty years, despite the fact that he’s now only in his fifties. He’s totally, and it seems joyfully, devoted to improving the lot of Cambodians. Chapeau! They run a bewildering number of programs out of the mission in Battambang. The one young Spaniard, a volunteer by the way, is Yago and he runs a school for disadvantaged kids within the mission. Among the students are 39 handicapped kids who live there. Maybe half to 2/3s polio and the rest amputees, from a variety of causes. All these kids are schooled, tutored, counseled and loved and finally encouraged into either college schooling or a vocation and then set free, in most cases, with an education and, for sure, a sense of pride or destiny. ‘Outreach ‘ another program and another young Spaniard, Ramon,...

Cow machine

By Stephen on Apr 20, 2013 in Outreach

If you enjoyed the read, please feel free to share it Just 5 months ago 7 local men were riding a ‘cow machine’ – a goofy Chinese-made tractor across this very terrain. It was the wet season, so landmines are a little more exposed, tho still underground. They had the terrible fortune to drive a front wheel directly over the center of a 30 year-old anti-tank mine. It takes 150 kilo of downward force to trigger one of these, but they managed. Anti-tank mines don’t take prisoners. 7 guys vaporized just 5 months ago for a 30 year-old...