Cambodia Bible Education Centre

We ran our most recent seminars at the Townview Hotel in Phnom Penh. The hotel has a nice upper conference room and breakfast area we could use for lunch and discussion. We made all the normal preparations, putting an advertisement in the classifieds of the ‘Cambodia Daily’ and the ‘Rasmei Kampuchea’. The latter is a Khmer newspaper, but the advert in English stands out amongst the Khmer text for those who can read it. We emailed our list of contacts and called their mobiles. With over a hundred contacts, that can be time consuming, but it’s not as ‘telemarketeresque’ as it sounds. In Cambodia, people are actually glad to receive your call, especially about a Bible subject. Maybe that will change after they have been assaulted by constant ‘free’ holidays, phone companies and surveys. But so far, you almost always receive a polite and interested response. Most of our contacts come from attendees to previous seminars or those who call/email and ask to be kept informed. Our biggest proble...

Recently, we took a trip down to Sihanoukville, the beach resort of Cambodia. When I say recently, I’m referring more to about a month ago. But time is passing very quickly here. It only seems like yesterday we were being savaged by bird flu carrying rabid chickens. What’s a bit of rabies between friends. Anyway, we toddled off down to Sihanoukville by luxury bus. It was quite a pricey trip at $6 a ticket, but they gave us a cold chicken and mayo sandwich, a little cake and a bottle of icey water, so that was ok. Of course, I didn’t eat the sandwich. I don’t care if they are a luxury bus company, eating cold meat and mayo in a pre-packaged meal is almost applying in triplicate for a virulent case of salmonella. The trip was lovely, the hostess was friendly and could speak her scripted lines in English in a mostly decipherable accent. Despite a quick stop to offer sacrifices to pagan patron saints on behalf of our bus, we found ourselves in a cloudy but still reasonably beachy Sihanoukv...

On Monday the 11th of June, Toby had his first birthday. I know I’ve recently written a blog about our wonderful little boy (please don’t gag), but here’s some more. Those who don’t want to read any more smushy stuff about Toby can tune out now….. We had a small party for him on Sunday. A bit early, but most of our Khmer contacts only have one day off a week and that is usually Sunday. In preparation for this, I spent some time going to several western supermarkets trying to find foodstuffs which would make a birthday celebration seem like home. It was a depressing exercise. Most of the stuff I would buy back home was not available and what was available was hideously expensive. Worse was the fact that none of these western supermarkets stocked cocoa powder. It seemed bad enough to me that I would have to make a dodgy cake in the microwave (owing to the fact that our kitchen does not contain an oven) let alone having my hopes of it being a chocolate cake dashed! Oh well – so be it. Sur...

Time’s getting away and the things I can write about are mounting up. Sadly I only have the stamina for one massive post every couple of weeks. The dreaded lurgy descended upon me in the last week and I was reduced to a wretched ball of coughing goo surrounded by boxes of tissues. Most unpleasant and not something I’m hoping to repeat, so I’m trying not to expose myself to the elements. That’s why I sat on the back of a moto out to the village of Kandal yesterday. Sunburnt on the way out and wet by rain on the way back. But I’m on the way up now, God willing, and back on the wheel after a brief stint of leaving everything to James (sorry!). There’s nothing like the sore bum that comes with spending an hour or so on the back of a motorbike. The driver, a contact named ‘Meng Him’ (from here on, I will simply refer to ‘Him’ as ‘him’ or ‘he’ as the case demands), informed me that my bottom was obviously made in Vietnam and not Japan, where quality non-painful bottoms are produced. His Chi...

We were welcomed into the village and quickly ascended the stairs into Dike’s Mother in Law’s house. The music had already started and we could look out of one of the windows down at where a large tent was sitting next to a tower of large speakers. It was truly magnificent..Worthy of a rock concert. The equipment had been hired by the village for the very event (it seems that audio equipment is readily available. If one takes a trip down to the market, shop after shop is piled high with amplifiers and large speakers.) and they were going to get their money’s worth. The inside of the house was ‘open plan’. This means that there were no walls at all. Despite the concrete formed staircase, the floor of the house was made of thinly cut bamboo which gave that ‘This floor is going to give way and I’m going to fall down onto the horns of that water buffalo that lives downstairs’ sort of feeling. It flexed a little with each step and I wondered whether it had been made for ‘Michael’ weight. F...

I admit I was somewhat nervous about our intended visit to Cambodia – not that for one moment I thought I was in any imminent danger of being blown up by a mine. It was based on my age group and was more in the nature of … “what if I can’t find a toilet when I need one?” After waving goodbye to Jon and Maggie and little Elijah as they dropped us off to run the total and utter chaos of Hyderabad airport, our advent at Phnom Penh airport was a calming and pleasant surprise. Everything was so ordered and quiet and visas were processed conveyor belt style through a line of officials and paid for over the counter when your passport was held up for you to identify your own visage. Miriam and Michael met us and we were whisked away to their flat some 30 minutes drive away in a rattly van belonging to the guest house cum hotel in their street. The flat in which M&M and Toby live with James and Miranda is the first two floors of a building, typical of a certain style of city dwelling. It is...

Dear readers, We are over our halfway point and the time is counting down until our return to Australia. But that’s no reason for us to descend into complacency. There is much work yet to be done. In some ways, the work we are doing here has barely begun. Our contact list is large and growing slowly, although the initial growth in contacts has slowed down to a steady trickle. We are finding now that certain contacts are committing more time to studying with us whilst others attention has petered away or never really taken root. One is reminded of the parable of the sower in Matthew 13. Some people hear the word and take hold of it with both hands, making their future sure. Others do not hear or allow the cares of the world to entrap them and so their hope is obscured and they venture forward into an uncertain life with a very sure end. The house is rather loud at the moment with Toby sitting on James’ lap as Miriam feeds him, Nirann in the corner chair and Matt sitting against the wall...