On the last weekend of March, we had Raju Devis here in Phnom Penh for the Bible study weekend that the Phnom Penh Ecclesia were holding.
Brother Raju led us in the studies, which were about Serving in the Ecclesia. Throughout the weekend there were workshops for the brothers and sisters to hone their skills. We held most of the studies at the Lucky Star Hotel, about 5 minutes walk from BEC. We had an introduction on the Friday night at the BEC talking about who is in the ecclesia and who our friends are, and how to get more involved with those we don't know.
Saturday commenced with breakfast at Lucky Star, but David and I missed out on that and the beginning of the first lesson, as we went out to the airport to pick up the new fieldworks that arrived. So now we have Luke and Jessica Mansfield here with us, from Adelaide, Australia. God willing they will be here for the next six months. They have come to take over from David and I, so we have a bit of overlap with them as they have never been here before.
The studies for the weekend were centred around improving ecclesial worship, meetings and serving one another. In the talks, I think everyone ended up reading out quotes, as Raju would select a row at a time and say you read these verses. We looked at who the presider represents and what he does, the exhorter and who he represents and what he does, and the importance of preparing before presiding or reading or exhorting. Also we looked at the different roles that there are in the ecclesia and how some roles even though they get done and are important, people don't always get acknowledgement for doing them.
In the workshop after luch Raju selected groups of people to practice reading, exhorting and presiding. They went out of the room and went to practice and prepare, while the rest of us learnt how to read out loud, with confidence in front of a group of people. When the others came back in, we had two people read and then we commented on what they could do better. The Bong So Veasna gave a short exhort too. The workshops really helped to get people to concentrate on practicing their skills and taking care about how they do their duties.
On Sunday we had the memorial meeting, Raju had picked some of the people from the day before to prepare and organise and lead the meeting. It ran so smoothly, and it was great to be warmly greeted at the door. The only hiccup was the wedding ceremony that was happening in the dining room below us. Vitou asked them to kindly turn the volume down... but was told because it was a wedding ceremony that couldn't be done! So between the intermittent crashing of cymbals and the ongoing rumble of the celebrant through over-powered speakers to contend with we had the meeting!
That afternoon after lunch we had games and Khmer dancing and lots of talk and chatter, for maybe two to three hours. Then for the evening the ecclesia was split into groups of people who didn't know each other very well, and were told that each group would be given money and they had to choose where they wanted to go for tea. I'm not sure how our group was worked out as we seemed to be with mostly very familiar faces, Loy, Sokun and Moriss, Channa, and Nirath, and Sreyvann (Nirann's wife) and her baby daughter.
But as far as I know the weekend went off really well, and everyone enjoyed and learnt a lot.
A big thank you to Raju for the great studies and the time and effort and love that went into them.
Anna
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