by Katherine Parker
There is a real celebration to be had for the increased empowerment of the Cambodian leadership of the church, especial women leaders. In our CHAD program I was so happy to meet last week with the two clusters of churches in Kampong Speu. While I was visiting churches in the USA on itineration, Rev. (Ms.) Hong Phally had been facilitating the "congregational development for social outreach" lessons which we also sometimes call "mobilizing the church"
Last year Hong Phally had been acting as my translator when teaching these lessons and I'm excited to see her increased confidence in preparing and facilitating the lessons. She has taken on quite a bit of new responsibilities this year. In addition to pastoring her local congregation and working as the chair of the Children's Committee for the past two years, she was also selected to be the assistant District Superintendent for Kampong Speu.
The Methodist Church is unique in Cambodia in that more than 10% of the pastors are women (most churches have few to none), and particularly blessed to have young women in their late 20s and early 30s like Hong Phally who are encouraged to take on major leadership roles. Please pray for her that she will be granted a visa to the USA when she goes for her interview on January 20 since we are hoping that she will be able to attend the Cambodia Consultation at Wesley UMC in San Jose March 31-April 2. I hope that many of you will be able to attend and to meet her and the other Cambodian delegates (I am also hoping to attend). Registration is available at at the CalNevUMC.org or on the event page.
(post script - Rev. Hong Phally was denied her visa, but two other women pastors, Rev. Than Heak and Rev. Ming Hongly were successful.)
Monday, January 17, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
What happened to the cow?
by Katherine Parker
My January and February schedule are filling up fast. My target geographic region has changed a little bit this year. Our new staff member Ms. Sophal will be taking over responsibility for the Kampong Thom region and so I will be traveling up there at the end of January to introduce her and collect our bi-annual project monitoring data.
I have also been traveling for monitoring out to churches in my three target area Kampong Chhnang (where I will be working in partnership with Ms. Daneth who just returned from a year of study at the Asian Rural Institute in Japan), Kampong Speu and my new area in the Takeo district.
We had a great meeting yesterday with the cow group at Trang Tre Yeung, Kampong Speu where I had been confused for the last year about exactly what had happened to their cows and calves. We sorted things out and I am excited to report that from the initial two cows purchased in December 2005 there have been 9 calves born.
One of the benefits of a cow-bank is that it provides increased security for the group members. Chen Han was one of the first care-takers of a cow, and so after passing-on he benefited from keeping the second calf born in March 2008. When he faced some health problem in 2010 he was able to sell the calf in order to pay for his medical care.
Of course we hope that families can experience the full benefit of a cow by rearing it until it is larger so as to gain maximum benefit and additional offspring, but I am also heartened when the cows can serve their purpose to provide security to the family that can be used in times of need such as this situation to pay for medical care.
Unfortunately, one of the original cows in this group was kill in a car accident and her current calf was not able to survive the loss of its mother, but the other cows continue to produce and the group is working well together.
How to measure the "success" of a project is not always clear. Just from looking at the numbers, this group has lost 3 of its 11 cows in the last year, which on the surface is not a good thing. But the loss brings awareness to the dangers of the increased traffic as more roads in Cambodia get paved and also to the hope that comes from individuals having the resources available to make decisions and take action for positive steps in their health care.
There is so much fear and even some fatalism around availability of health care in Cambodia. To see a situation where a man felt empowered to seek medical care and felt confident that he had the resources to do so on his own and then for him to actually improve in his health give me great hope that we are on the right path. This is not an overnight success; this cow project started way back in 2005. But as part of a global church community, we keep walking together, and there are these glimmers of hope along the way.
My January and February schedule are filling up fast. My target geographic region has changed a little bit this year. Our new staff member Ms. Sophal will be taking over responsibility for the Kampong Thom region and so I will be traveling up there at the end of January to introduce her and collect our bi-annual project monitoring data.
I have also been traveling for monitoring out to churches in my three target area Kampong Chhnang (where I will be working in partnership with Ms. Daneth who just returned from a year of study at the Asian Rural Institute in Japan), Kampong Speu and my new area in the Takeo district.
We had a great meeting yesterday with the cow group at Trang Tre Yeung, Kampong Speu where I had been confused for the last year about exactly what had happened to their cows and calves. We sorted things out and I am excited to report that from the initial two cows purchased in December 2005 there have been 9 calves born.
One of the benefits of a cow-bank is that it provides increased security for the group members. Chen Han was one of the first care-takers of a cow, and so after passing-on he benefited from keeping the second calf born in March 2008. When he faced some health problem in 2010 he was able to sell the calf in order to pay for his medical care.
Of course we hope that families can experience the full benefit of a cow by rearing it until it is larger so as to gain maximum benefit and additional offspring, but I am also heartened when the cows can serve their purpose to provide security to the family that can be used in times of need such as this situation to pay for medical care.
Unfortunately, one of the original cows in this group was kill in a car accident and her current calf was not able to survive the loss of its mother, but the other cows continue to produce and the group is working well together.
How to measure the "success" of a project is not always clear. Just from looking at the numbers, this group has lost 3 of its 11 cows in the last year, which on the surface is not a good thing. But the loss brings awareness to the dangers of the increased traffic as more roads in Cambodia get paved and also to the hope that comes from individuals having the resources available to make decisions and take action for positive steps in their health care.
There is so much fear and even some fatalism around availability of health care in Cambodia. To see a situation where a man felt empowered to seek medical care and felt confident that he had the resources to do so on his own and then for him to actually improve in his health give me great hope that we are on the right path. This is not an overnight success; this cow project started way back in 2005. But as part of a global church community, we keep walking together, and there are these glimmers of hope along the way.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
UMCOR helps Social Concerns Committee respond to drought
by Katherine Parker
On January 6 and 7th we had a meeting of the Social Concerns Committee (SCC) where Rev. (Mr.) Pho Phala is the new chair (last year missionary Ken Cruz was the chairperson). This is another exciting area of increased Cambodian leadership.
The Social Concerns Committee was awarded a grant from UMCOR this winter in order to respond to anticipated food insecurities in the coming year due to drought during the 2010 rice growing season. As I have been conversing with various congregations it is apparent that this is a real concern since there has been a decreased harvest this December, in some cases 50% of the previous year yield. This is due in large part because of the variability in the rain we had last year. Some rains came early but then they stopped and so many seedlings died before they could be transplanted and heavy rains came very late in the growing season when it is typically time for the grains to be ripening. As you know from my other writing and sharing, food insecurity is already a problem in Cambodia and many families are not normally able to produce enough rice to eat for the year so the end up borrowing rice at exorbitant rates (50%-100% interest).
The Social Concerns Committee plans to use the UMCOR grant for three purposes, one is to provide rice-aid to highly vulnerable families who face severe shortfalls this year, a second is to provide rice-seed to farmers that suffered significant loss the previous year and would benefit from access to improved varieties and the other is to start about 100 new rice-banks (at about one-ton each rather than our typical three-tons), which will double the amount of rice available through rice-banks for low-interest community loans in the communities where the Methodist Mission Cambodia is working.
It is a big job for the pastors of the Social Concerns Committee to set up all of these and I have continued to meet with pastors in the districts where I am working to coach them and discuss the details of how we can quickly achieve this plan. One of the challenges to this kind of work is that the pastors will need to travel to visit communities in order to facilitate the planning meetings to initiate the new rice-banks. There are funds in the UMCOR grant to support travel to the initial meeting (about 100 meetings conducted by 18 different pastors over the next 3 months), but I am worried that there will be insufficient funds left for the pastors to travel to visit the rice-banks for the 6 month and 1 year monitoring visits, so there is a need to raise additional travel funds to support the pastors of the SCC to monitor the new rice banks. The next SCC meeting will be on February 3rd.
On January 6 and 7th we had a meeting of the Social Concerns Committee (SCC) where Rev. (Mr.) Pho Phala is the new chair (last year missionary Ken Cruz was the chairperson). This is another exciting area of increased Cambodian leadership.
The Social Concerns Committee was awarded a grant from UMCOR this winter in order to respond to anticipated food insecurities in the coming year due to drought during the 2010 rice growing season. As I have been conversing with various congregations it is apparent that this is a real concern since there has been a decreased harvest this December, in some cases 50% of the previous year yield. This is due in large part because of the variability in the rain we had last year. Some rains came early but then they stopped and so many seedlings died before they could be transplanted and heavy rains came very late in the growing season when it is typically time for the grains to be ripening. As you know from my other writing and sharing, food insecurity is already a problem in Cambodia and many families are not normally able to produce enough rice to eat for the year so the end up borrowing rice at exorbitant rates (50%-100% interest).
The Social Concerns Committee plans to use the UMCOR grant for three purposes, one is to provide rice-aid to highly vulnerable families who face severe shortfalls this year, a second is to provide rice-seed to farmers that suffered significant loss the previous year and would benefit from access to improved varieties and the other is to start about 100 new rice-banks (at about one-ton each rather than our typical three-tons), which will double the amount of rice available through rice-banks for low-interest community loans in the communities where the Methodist Mission Cambodia is working.
It is a big job for the pastors of the Social Concerns Committee to set up all of these and I have continued to meet with pastors in the districts where I am working to coach them and discuss the details of how we can quickly achieve this plan. One of the challenges to this kind of work is that the pastors will need to travel to visit communities in order to facilitate the planning meetings to initiate the new rice-banks. There are funds in the UMCOR grant to support travel to the initial meeting (about 100 meetings conducted by 18 different pastors over the next 3 months), but I am worried that there will be insufficient funds left for the pastors to travel to visit the rice-banks for the 6 month and 1 year monitoring visits, so there is a need to raise additional travel funds to support the pastors of the SCC to monitor the new rice banks. The next SCC meeting will be on February 3rd.
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