June - Aug 08 Update

Well, we’ve had a very busy but rewarding couple months since our last blog entry. We had guests Jason and Fiona (City Life, Melbourne), Jeanette Korporaal (Benkorp, Sydney), Maurice Benington (CCCW, Melbourne) and then Andee Sellman (CCCW, Melbourne) stay with us over this time. In addition, we had visits from Paul Christiansz (business consultant from Melbourne), a team from CCC Rockingham in Perth led by Mark Barham, and most recently a short visit from Lisa Craig and Jane Marquis (CCCW, Melbourne) – who we managed to miss unfortunately as we were in Ratanakiri at the time!.

In the midst of all this – we employed our 2nd Cambodian staff member (Rathana Sek) around the start of June, and have managed to keep ourselves occupied with running the Forum program, the life skills training for the New Life Fellowship church members, holding a seminar relating to Boards and governance in Churches, and running a week of training staff at International Cooperation Cambodia’s (ICC) Ratanakiri site office. Thankfully, after all this - we then escaped the National Election madness to get a long weekend away in wonderful Kep! (ahh…the serenity..).

Over June and July we also continued working on planning for activities scheduled for 2009 and continued with on-going coaching/mentoring of various pastors and kingdom business owners involved in the forum program.

Well…that’s our last couple months in a nutshell…phew…makes us exhausted just thinking about it!!

Some comments re: our journey of late:

- The month before the National Election was quite an experience to say the least - we experienced daily barrages from each of the main political parties – with trucks filled with party supporters running through every street of Phnom Penh stopping traffic and drumming up support through a mix of vocal haranguing and karaoke style music – at full volume. Yes…needless to say…our ear drums are still in tact and we are glad it’s all finally over !!

- Watching the Olympics this side of the world is incredibly boring – with only those sports that China is good at screening on all the cable TV channels. We saw the Chinese table tennis final repeated who knows how many times…too many that’s for sure!! We also started to get over the whole thing pretty quickly due to the Khmer and Chinese interpreters talking over the English speaking commentators (at higher, distorted volume we might add!!)…anyways…you get the picture. FUN, FUN…

- Our Khmer language learning is continuing to hobble along on one leg at the moment….our aim of doing 1 hour a day has completely gone AWOL and we’re probably scratching to get an hour a week these days…Ahhh….if only God could give us the gift of the Khmer tongue…keep praying for us in this area….we need it!!

- Mark’s enjoying watching the occasional AFL match on Australia Network with his beloved Cats doing incredibly well heading into another Grand Final showing (here’s hoping at least!)

- Jo’s enjoying getting the occasional massage from the Blind Massage organisation here in Phnom Penh (..hmm…it must be just about time to go back again she says as I type this!!).

Well, that’s about it from us for a few weeks!

We have provided a collective of entries below with many pics – so, please ENJOY!! Lots of love, Mark & Jo

July Forum and Life Skills Training July

Here are some pics from the July Forum - with Andee Sellman assisting the presentation and workshops (continuing from June's forum on deBono six hats thinking process).


Also in July, we held further life skills training for the NLF dorms guys and girls relating to effective communication. This training was lots of fun and interactive - where most seemed to really get alot out of the teaching. Enjoy the pics!

Ratanakiri Training 21-23 July

From the 21-23 July we provided training for staff at International Cooperation Cambodia's (ICC's) Ratanakiri site office based in Banlung. The training comprised three full days of staff development - presenting training in understanding mindsets and behaviour, introduction to personality types (using the DISC model) and teamwork/communication. We trained approx. 35 staff - of whom half were christians and with a mix of khmer and ethnic/minority group peoples. It was challenging presenting to such a wide audience - but very rewarding for us all to see the teaching being understood by most and all people participating and enjoying themselves (in particular when it came to the games - no surprises there!!)

We all had lots of fun and had some great feedback from the staff in Ratanakiri. The staff were incredibly friendly and easy-going. The scenery in Ratanakiri was fantastic - we all loved it immensely. Here are some pics taken during the three days of the training. Enjoy!

Ratanakiri sightseeing

Here are some more pics of our time sight seeing in Ratanakiri. We were based at Banlung (capital of Ratanakiri province) for the training at ICC - so the photos include those of Banlung township and some of the local tourist sites - Kachanh and Katieng waterfalls, and beautiful Yeak Loam lake (natural crater lake).

Here are some thoughts from Rathana (pictured below) from his time in Ratankiri:

"As a person who loves to the landscape and the nature, I had travelled some place in Cambodia. On 17 of July, I and my team work had travelled to Ratanakiri Province. It the first time for me to spend 10 hour in the car, I’m so tire but when we arrived Ratanakiri , seeing the beautiful forest and take the pure air make me fell so refresh ,wow , It the wonderful place, at that time I start to think about God and what he has greaten. I have very good experience there, I had tested the wild, see the beautiful great lake, waterfall, walk in the forest, see ethnic group, test a good coconut shake, sleep long time in the hotel, for the training, it very good for me, I had learn a new things from the training such as: I can improve my interpret skill, know more about my personality type, know effect communication and I have good relationship with people there. I really love Ratanakiri very much, if I have time I will go there again. Everything is in God love."

Here is some thoughts from Virak (pictured below) from his experiences and time in Ratanakiri:

"Well, what I expect for my trip is so difference. I thought that every thing there will be not so modern or quite old. I don't expect to see many tree and the green there also. The last thing is I thought that the road to reach there maybe really hard to go.

After travel about 10 hours, we can arrived there, every things are difference from my expectation. Every where full of Green, a lot of tree, and the road also not so hard. It's really great chance for me to go there. I really enjoy my time there, even if we have changed the atmosphere of daily life in Phnom Penh. It's a bit quiet there. No more Ethnic Group with black skin and their traditional clothes, because I saw some women from Ethnic are more whiter than me. Well, I have learn many new things there. We enjoy our work group together as a team. We all know each other more and more than before. I don't know that the people there they had a little bit high education, they know English well. Some they are better than me also.

Hmm, I really appreciate that chance to go to visit Ratanakiri. In the Future if I have another chance to go there, It's really great."

Ratanakiri Elephant Ride

Here are some pics of our "non-work" / sight-seeing time while in Ratanakiri for training of ICC staff. In particular, these show our elephant ride (wahoo!!) - much thanks to our good friends Jez and Jacqui (expat managers at ICC who have recently moved from Ratanakiri to Phnom Penh) who arranged this for us as a surprise!. The last photo is a crack up - a classic "funny photo" candidate (look closely at the sign)...you'll see when you get to it..Enjoy:

June Forum and Seminar on Church Boards & Governance

In June we had a visit from Maurice Benington our Missions Pastor from CCCW. Maurice assisted with presentations at the Church Sustainability Forum and also with a seminar discussing the role and nature of Church Boards and Governance. We had approx. 30 people attend this seminar and very positive feedback from all following the session. Some pics are included below:

People in attendance at the Seminar on Church Boards and Governance

Part of Maurices presentation - Seminar on Church Boards and Governance

Part of CCCW's gift to the BKK3 mens dorm - a new stove top for all to use. Fantastic!!


Below are a number of pics taken during the June Church Sustainability Forum - with presentation by Maurice Benington on creative thinking using DeBono's six hats process.