JS-CAMBODIA

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL OUR FRIENDS

Good Friday Reflection and a Simple Easter Story

Christ shares with us the agony of his heart
as we encounter his most vulnerable friends
the blind, the lame, the deaf,
the child orphaned by AIDS,
the old, the friendless,
the refugee, the beggar.

We hear Christ crying beneath the rubble in Iraq and Afghanistan
behind the barricade
in Palestine
thirsting in the desert of Sudan
mourning as the locusts devour the crops in Dubbo.

Where did Christ share the agony
of his heart with you, this last month?
What did you feel? How did you respond? Say to God?
What did God say to you?

Perhaps you would like to share some of this with others.
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A SIMPLE CAMBODIA EASTER STORY

Thida is nine. Trying to cover her legs with her skimpy sarong she sat there intently listening to twelve other children telling the story of their accident with "explosive remnants of war". They were sad stories and her eyes glistened with empathy.
But there was something about Thida. We began to talk and as she talked I noticed a small foot protruding from just below the knee, possibly an effect of Agent Orange. Perhaps we can ask the International Red Cross to make you a leg. Would you like one? A vigorous nod.

After the mine awareness ceremony we bumped the car along an unbelievable road to the village looking for her mum. When we were nearly there two shining eyes were peering out through the palm fronds. Running in her lopsided way, with one leg half as long as the other, she had seen our vehicle enter her area
and followed.
Mom was not home but we left the address if they wanted to visit us in the next province. Some days later Thida appeared again. Now she has an orthotic device that helped her to walk, and returned home with shining eyes and heart. Thida is a Buddhist and knows nothing about the Easter story but through her the resurrection comes alive once again for us.

12 March:
Hidden in mind, heart and soil explosive remnants of war lie throughout Cambodia. The weapons in the soil brought misery or death to 88 Cambodians in January alone. Yesterday a sixteen you old girl stepped on a mine and is now missing a leg. Twenty years ago her father did the same thing. These ashes of war in the earth are symbols of social sin; man's inhumanity to othre women men and children. They represent too, the potential for greed and power and hatred that can lie dormant in each of us waiting to explode; threat within us that calls out for transformation.

The explosive remnants in the hearts can also trigger revenge, bitterness and despair. However yesterday I met Song Kosal lamed by a mine, now 20 years old, who has just returned from Canada where she stirred Canadian youth to action for peace. Klieng Vann, another " victim" runs a training center for disabled, Sokha charns with her craft and mobile phone calling tourists to solidarity with the poor.

May Lent 2004 release the explosive remnants in our hearts so that the fire of justice and flame of compassion shine forth from us and that the ashes of bitterness and hate disappeas.
Sr. DENISE

Lenten Reflection

" Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."(Jn 4:14)

After four years of working in Cambodia, my well had run dry and empty. It seemed as if my daily interaction with people after Marginalized and hurt by years of violence and deprivation left me with almost nothing. I left so emotionally and physically tired. It was as if I had nothing to give anymore not even a smile. The faces of villagers I met have become a burden, a yoke too heavy for me to carry.

It was time to pause. I had to struggle against my guilty thought that I was resting in comfort while the poor are getting sick and hungry. But Still, what could I give if I myself was empty?

I spent a few days sleeping in Luang Prabang in Laos, far away from my work. Early one morning, I climbed up to the middle section of Kung Si Falls. I was along there for four hours, soaking in cool streams of water gently falling on rocks. It was only nature and me: water, moss, forest, birds, and sky.

Suddenly I found myself bursting in a song in praise of God. I felt deep joy and peace. As a gentle stream fall onto my body, I felt like God was filling me up with so much energy and life. As my feet soaked in the running water, i felt like I was being washed of everything unpleasant with me.

It was a spiritual encounter, a graced moment. God was healing me through the water. As I went down from the falls at moon, I felt like my rest was complete. God, the source of living water, has filled my well again-and has put back a smile on my face.
Fr.TOTET

Lenten Reflection
"A bruised reed he will not break..."

That was a sign on the side of an NGO pick-up I saw along Monivong a few days back. It is from Isaiah 42:3, and I have always been quite moved by the image. It is a powerful image of our compassionate God, who came to serve and not be served. This image was foremost in my mind when I met a Vietnamese asylum seeker this morning.

Her refugee application had been rejected by the UNHCR, and she has been referred to JRS on appeal. I reviewed her case and interviewed her, and have come to the conclusion that the UNHCR decision is correct, and that there is nothing more that, as a lawyer, I can do for her. With Sony translating for me, I tried to explain to her that this was how the system works, and that many Vietnamese like her are in truly unfortunate circumstances here in Cambodia, but sadly there is not much that the refugee system can do for them. As I expected, she had a difficult time comprehending this, and she repeatedly begged me do try to do something so that she could still hold on to the UNHCR protection letter. Even while I sympathized with her, I knew that I must fulfill the responsibilities of my position and stand by the system, no matter how unpleasant it may be. And most unpleasant it certainly was, breaking the news to a poor, weeping, 47-year-old mother of two.

Here was when Isaiah's servant image came once more to mind. The Vietnamese lady had many questions that begged to be answered, but nothing I could say could possibly assuage the fears she had in her hearts-of more suffering, of being arrested once again, by the Cambodians, or by Vietnamese secret agents. So I sat there with her and allowed her to ask as many questions as she felt she needed to ask, and to let her feel somehow that I did care for her feelings, and that I was ready to listen and to be with her, at the same time keeping firm to the duties imposed by my position. As I looked at her weeping silently, I felt compassion in my heart, and I imagined myself as that servant who would not break a bruised reed. I realized that the more bruised the reed, the more gentle we should be.

After about an hour, she probably began to understand what Sony and I were trying to tell her, and she stood up from the table and left quietly, with Sony by her side, accompanying her. And I reflected about how we are all called to serve our sisters and brothers in the same gentle way that the prophet Isaiah had foretold about Jesus Christ. While I am sure it will often not be easy to be so gentle and compassionate, I am also more sure now that I am capable of such a gentle loving, and that with God's grace I, too, can serve as He came to serve.

Mr.Raymond

9 March:Map Meeting

5-7 March: Teachers Visit
In Cambodian villages, many people live in extreme poverty and have no chance to travel to see the cultural wealth of our country in Angkor Wat. They have only seen pictures and long to see the real thing at least once in their lives.

5-7 March were wonderful days for 19 teachers and mobile librarians and the Metta Karuna villlage team from Ponhear Leu. They left early in the morning from their village in the south and travelled to see Angkor Wat, Bayon, many temples, Banteay Srey, Phnom Kulen and Baray. They returned home gloriously happy with renewed strength to teach the children who go to school under make shift thatch roofs in their villages.
KANYA, CHEATTA