JS-CAMBODIA

July 17, 2006
Father Matthias, the new Major Superior for the Jesuits in Cambodia was welcomed at the airport on his arrival on 17 July 2006. He will spend a week meeting with team members.

July 12, 2006
The Catholic Church celebrates 450 years in Cambodia too and many of us joined the pilgrimage to the sites of the early Churches Long Kanya and Seng Cheatta were delighted to know that were they helped flood victims in 1996 was the site of one of the earliest Catholic communities. We followed the trail to a wat which was the former home of a i600 church and non the nearest wat to where we have just built a primary school in a "new village". This school was funded through a Mercy E-Mail by British and Irish children associated with the Sisters of Mercy. It will be opened in the presence of the people Buddhist monks and Catholic religions on July 26, 2006.

July 10, 2006
SIEM REAP Gathering: Our Metta Karuna teams met in Siem Reap to celebrate 15 years of service, to share insights from our education, social services and development programmes and to thank Father Nicholas sj for this care for us in the past two years. We reflected in lessons learns asked questions and pondered strategies.
Tun Channareth built a model house, Sisophon produced a book, and many creative ideas emerged. Francis Xavier might have been surprised at what evolved from his journeys in this area 450 years ago. [read more in project news]

Meet our new friend Hap who was injured by an explosive remnants of war in June 2006. He asks our help.

We ask your prayers and if possible a small donation towards helping him and other UXO/Land-mine survivors.

06 July 2006
To celebrate thet visit of Father Adolfo Nicholas, his last as the Major Superior of Cambodia we organized two exhibitions of our projects. One will be in Phnom Penh and one will be in Siem Reap.
People from all our areas of work will come to see the work of one another, ask us questions and we will think about the future of our work.
We will celebrate lunch together and give thanks for all the gifts we have received.
As well we celebrate today 450 years jubilee ofthe founders of the Jesuitse
- Ignatius of Loyola
- Francis Xavier
- Peter Faber

In the afternoon Father Nicolas will give a talk on"Contemporary Mission, drawing on the insights of Ignatius, Francis Xavier and Peter Faber . This will be attended by guests from many Catholic organzations.

METTAKARUNA TMOR KEO
OPENING NEW SCHOOL
26th July: The children of Tmor Keo have a new school, given to them through the Mercy Sisters and the children of Ireland and England. It was a marvelous day! The people of the village treated us with real rural hospitality by climbing to the top of the mountain to pick delicious bamboos shoots to make soup for us to eat.
After the ceremony we invited an ancient reservoirs and a Buddhist temple that has been built among very tall volcanic rooks.
The education ministry representative and the district governor spoke of the importance of education. Sr. Denise hoped that all the children who learnt there would have hearts of compassion and minds of wisdom.

Youth to Hong Kong
Students from the Catholic Student hostel left for Hong Kong to attend an Asian Youth meeting, helped by our team member Ms Wendy Liu.

Visitors
The Jesuit Service, responsible for the foundation of our work here in Cambodia, Fr Mark Raper of Australia visited this month. So too did the newly announced Major Superior of the Cambodia mission, Fr. Matthias from Korea.