Feb 08 post script

Now, I can't believe it's been well over a month since we've been back! We knew we were back when we arrived home to no electricity and then the 2nd day, we had a flat tyre on our moto!Our first week or so was getting our place organised, both home and office and settling back in (the couple who house-sat our place had stayed in our place longer than we had lived in it before we left)! We also caught up with some of our friends here and had our first Church Sustainability Forum on the 26th Jan and started back running expat cell group. Coming back was definitely so much easier than when we first came over in Sept '06, particularly coming back to having a place already set up and having a clearer idea of what we're doing over here!!! Mark was more eager in coming back and thus took less time for him to settle in whereas I think I was enjoying Aus too much to prepare myself in coming back!

Feb saw Chinese New Year with lots of fire crackers going off and mounds of burning incense and fake money outside people's homes whilst Mark and I decided to join with our church back home in fasting. For us it it's been just fruit and vege - I've been well and truly challenged on how to cook a range of vegetarian dishes, particularly since not all the vege are the same or taste the same as back home! Ironically the time of when we started the fast was also when Mark and I both got a bad bout of gastro - unfortunately I got it slightly worse with it affecting me both ends! (I'll spare details!) Fortunately we were both better by Valentine's Day, although we have joked about how we may be allergic to having too many fruits and veges!! Interestingly, Valentine's Day here is amazing. Come Christmas and Easter, you wouldn't even know it existed here but Valentine's Day there's roses sold everywhere and it's the one time you will publically see males and females showing physical signs of affection!

There's construction going on constantly here - even in the time we were in Oz, it's been noticeable - a 'Gold Tower' comprising of a 42-storey building in the making (there's nothing really above 10-storeys here), several new restaurants and art/craft shops and even a KFC is being built (who would have thought they've beaten Maccas to it but then again we do already have 'Lucky Burger')!

Re. some current affairs in Cambodia:
- Mia Farrow (actress) was here on a quiet protest with some local NGOs as part of her travels to other countries where genocides have occured, to protest against what has been happening in Dafur. However, the police and army on behalf of the government blocked their way both at 'The Killing Fields' and at Toul Sleng museum. One of the newspapers here wrote along the lines of that 'the government didn't think Cambodia had anything to do with this'.
- Khmer Rouge Tribunal - there have been 5 people charged as to date. It is uncertain how many others will be put on trial as money to run the tribunal is running out!
- The elections are coming up in July this year - the prime minister, Hun Sen has been in power since after the civil war and Khmer Rouge period and has been quoted as saying that he wants to stay in power for another 30 or so years.

Anyways, I hope my essay here has made up in part for the time we haven't written! We would love to hear from you so, please drop us a line when you have time!
Take care till next time,
love Jo

Some recent pics of Phnom Penh city - a city in transition with the property boom fueling development:


One of the many new high end housing developments - this one on Sihanouk Blvd near the Independence Monument

...a bit of the old and a bit of the new....these old slum apartments are now few and far between around the city

New commercial development at the Naga casino site near the Riverside

The monument celebrating good Vietnamese relationship - a newly established park area

A new commercial shopping outlet on the rise on Sihanouk Blvd on the way to Goldiana Hotel

A sign of a rising middle class for sure - Hummers on sale !!

At the corner of Monivong and Sihanouk Blvd - this proposed 50 storey Korean development is slow to sell its luxury aparments

Near Toul Kauk (over the railway line near Boeung Kak Lake) yet another multi storey development sign posted

Some young people enjoying a game of volleyball amidst the sprawl of urban development

...a novel small business outlet - unlikely to secure long term tenancy I'd say !!

Nov 07 - Jan 08

From 10th of Nov 07 to 14th Jan 08 - we came back home to Australia for an awesome time with family and friends. We arrived back to be spoilt in attending the Graeme Cooke conference at our church in Melbourne - it was truly a great time of impartation. For those who don't know, the last time Graeme was at our church he shared on 'walking off our maps' and at that time Mark and I had agreed upon coming to Cambodia although it was not yet officially known - so it was an amazingly incredible time to come back to here him again. Besides having to sort through all our stuff in storage, I could go on about our time in Aus - being with family and friends, going to the beach, breathing fresh air, walking in green grass, being in normal traffic, going camping, having Christmas with family and having lots of BBQs and roast lambs - it was all fantastic! Over this time - we were blessed to have a couple from New Zealand who were coming back from furlough with no place to go to come to house-sit for us - great timing really. In Australia, we were also blessed with our amazing church family loaning us the use of their cars and places to stay - so thanks again!!! In particular - a huge thanks goes to: Maurice B (for organising it all for us!), to Neil Campbell, Arthur Bithell, and Jonathon & Kate Rodwell for loaning us their cars, ...and to Wayne and Ann-Katrine Knapman's and the Sellman's for housing us adhoc ! We are so grateful to you all.

Pic of the Petronas Towers at night (stopover en-route to Melbourne)

On top of a peak at Halls Gap - part of Mark's family retreat in November

Jo holding the newest addition to the extended Dennert clan - our first great niece, very cute !!

...just having some fun on the ferris wheel at Luna Park, Sydney (Yah!)

..chillin' out at a local cafe at the Rocks, Sydney

Sept - Oct 07 post scripts

Over the months of Sept and Oct our main focus was in preparing for the Intercessory Prayer and Worship team coming over from our church in Oct. The aim was to provide training to a small group of local churches that we've built relationship with in the area of prophetic worship and prayer. During this month in particular, we faced some opposition from a few of these local churches however regarding unrealistic expectations (mainly in the area of money). This was a struggle for us both - just learning how to navigate through this issue. Tackling the money issue here is quite difficult given many other expats that come to Cambodia (missios, foreign churches, NGO's, etc), in particularly those from other Asian countries, believe it is more than ok to give money as a means to open a doorway to partnering / relationship. What we've experienced though, is that this only further fosters a dependency / handout mentality - which we have seen in many areas of the local church since being here. Not uncommon is for local churches to find themselves in difficult situations though when they accept such money from foreigners - as they soon realise that there were conditions with the giving that they weren't first aware of, such as in some cases being requested to sign over the name of their church to the name of the foreigner's denomination name or the like. Hearing these stories - really makes you angry with the way some people go about building the kingdom.

Towards the end of Sept, Mark and I moved into our new house that has so much more natural light, more air flow and has different levels to separate the office from the rest of the house - yah! We were so happy to have a new house to move into that really was exactly what we had been looking for. We asked some of the guys from the NLF dorms ('Next Step Houses') to help us out lifting furniture, etc and treated them to a wonderful lunch. They thought they were really strong and I willed myself not to look when they kept crashing into the walls with the furniture after my many attempts to tell them to be careful! We also had to hire a crane truck to lift some of our furniture as it didn't fit up the tight stairwells, so over the balcony the furniture did come (mmm, we were too busy to get any photos but it sure was a sight)!

In October we had the Intercessory Prayer/Worship team come and whilst we ended up only running training at two local churches, it was an amazing time in the Spirit. Words can't describe the impact of these two days - but to say there was a significant breakthrough in the area of worship in both these churches as a result. It was fantastic !! The team consisted of Lyn McHugh, Nel Dekker, Karen Wilson, Marg Easton, Ursula Cettolin, Tim Coghill, Joel Dowling and Tavis Wardlaw. The rest of the time, the team explored some cultural sights and a range of non-govt organisations (NGO's) including the HIV/AIDS hospital for babies and young children and then on the Sunday, splitting into 2 teams, going to 2 different provinces and sharing with the local people in a local church, which was fantastic!

As Mark and I had managed to double-book ourselves during the week of this prayer and worship training - we missed one of the two training seminars in Phnom Penh. Our time was spent in training a selection of staff from International Cooperation Cambodia (ICC) up in Kratie (one of the provinces up north). We taught on 'mindsets' which is one of the topics that we have shared on in the Church Sustainability Forums and since had been asked to share this with their staff and also various churches and other NGOs here. This training was interesting for us as this particular NGO works primarily with the minority ethnic groups in Cambodia, so we got to learn a bit more about Cambodia.

Late Oct was when one of my sisters came and visited us on her way back from visiting Japan. It was really great to see her and for her to experience a bit of Cambodia. To top it off, my youngest sister came for a few days (on her way from her month break in Aus to Laos where she works) while my other sister was still here, so that was really great! It was really good to spend time with them both and in particular since my youngest sister would not be home for Christmas.

July - Aug 07 post scripts

In July/Aug - we saw the 30 Days of Hope in Cambodia, which included Joyce Meyer, Hillsong Uk and Hillsong Aus and Delirious!, John Maxwell Equip Leadership Training plus over 100 people coming from all over the world throughout the 30 days to help in children's ministry training, as medical teams, and outreaches in various provinces.
There were mixed reactions amongst the local churches and as a result there were 2 different committees and thus different programs allowed. In addition, apparently while there was approval from the government to run the various outreaches in Phnom Penh, it ended up being opposed through more subtle means. Typically, venues were changed at last minute by the Government, then either totally shut down completely or rescheduled for the next day after prolonged negotiations only to be cancelled again !! We witnessed a classic example of this in person - when given the thumbs up had finally been given to the Phnom Penh Delirious and Hillsong concerts only to have the electricity turned off whilst the Delirious! and Darlene Zschech were leading the building full of people in worship! Incredible really - but we did enjoy a great unplugged (and unplanned) set from Delirious that night with our mobile phone lights being on the lights in the building !

Mark and I also did some training for the teachers at New Life Fellowship International Christian School (NLFICS) over this period which was lots of fun. At this time we were asked to volunteer to help teach English once a week at a 'university' that NLF is reaching out to (we did this until the start of Oct). It was quite an interesting experience, particularly having some monks in my class and also making me realise how appalling my own English is!!! We also had Andee Sellman and Jamie Hunt come over to share in our Church Sustainability Forum and at the first Christian business and professional leaders lunch (aimed at both locals and expats) with a great turn out of about 40 people. Andee and Jamie also spent time individually with each of our business guys who are involved in our Forums to encourage them and give advice.
Jamie Hunt in a small group discussion in July Forum

Andee Sellman speaking in July Forum

Joyce Meyer speaking at one of the Hope Cambodia events in Phnom Penh


Delirious doing an acoustic set at the Hope Cambodia event

Response following Delirious' request to pray for all the youth at the Hope Cambodia event