The last quarter of the year may be the busiest period for World Renew in Cambodia. Our partners are finishing all of the activities in their annual plan. With the elections and the planting season making it difficult to plan events in our communities from June to September, these last three months have been packed with action.

Baseline Study: As we begin a new five year plan with our Norwegian partner Mission Alliance, we also prepared a new plan with each of our partners. To monitor results in areas such as governance, health, education, and livelihoods, we need to determine their baselines. We hired consultants to work with us to conduct household surveys and focus groups in 30 of our 95 target communities. They helped us determine the status of our communities in these sectors. The tasks were the focus of both our staff and our partners for several weeks.

Forums: It was exciting to see more than 100 people gather to discuss and debate their mutual concerns relating to the development of their communities. They were local government authorities, police representatives, commune council members (a locally-elected body), and community-based organizations that provide community leadership for the development work we support. The forums provide opportunities for open and often animated exchanges about common concerns such as land deeds, birth certificates, death certificates, road construction, and school management.

Signing New Memorandums of Understanding:
World Renew has a good relationship with the government of Cambodia. It is essential to our work. We depend on this relationship for visas, driver’s licenses, and importing vehicles. We recently signed a new MOU with the government and met with the responsible under-secretary who, pointing to his white iphone, assured us that he would be available 24/7. We saw this as an opportunity to sign MOUs with our NGO partners. We prepared a detailed code of conduct as a means to seek agreement with our partners and their boards on issues that include conflicts of interest, human resource practices, and professionalism.

Disaster Relief to Flood Victims in Benteay Meanchey:
While some of the communities with which we work have had poor harvests this year as a result of drought, other areas of Cambodia had debilitating floods. Rain destroyed crops, flooded homes, and made roads impassable. Many families were without food and uffered health risks.

World Renew responded to the urgent need expressed by Living Waters Church and distributed rice, salt, and water filters to nearly 300 families in Benteay Meanchey.

Office Renovations:
Anyone who has lived through a renovation has probably asked the question we are asking in the Cambodia World Renew office: “Will it ever end?” We have had a crew painting the exterior of the building, including all the grill-work, walls, and gates, for most of the last three months. We have updated our 40-year-old toilets and sinks with new ones, replaced some of our interior lighting, covered exposed wires, and hung photos from our communities on the interior walls. It looks SO much better, but it will be nice when the workmen leave us and our workspace is clean and quiet.

Asia Team Meeting in Bangkok and Time with Tom Post:
In late October, World Renew international staff from Bangladesh, India, Cambodia, and Laos met with our team leader, Tom Post, in Bangkok for three days of very useful sharing of information and ideas, and for an enriching one day workshop on nutrition.

After the meeting, Tom Post spent a week with us in Cambodia. It was terrific to draw on his experience and wisdom to guide our work. It was fascinating to join him in several of our communities to meet with farmers who have participated in our experimental work and explore the impact of replacing chemical fertilizers with ‘legumes’ to put nitrogen into the soil and improve rice production.

What 'Settling In' looks like after Four Months of Life and Work in Cambodia

As a country consultant for World Renew in Cambodia, it seems like I reach new milestones every week. Each milestone makes Phnom Penh feel more like home. If I were to paint a picture of my time here so far, it would look like this:

  • Sharing Sunday potluck lunches and devotions after church with a long-established home group. About 15 years ago, mixed Asian and Caucasian couples from International Christian Fellowship, who have chosen to raise their families in Phnom Penh, formed this group. It has become an extended family for their kids, who now have new cousins, aunts, and uncles in their adopted homeland. I feel very lucky to have been accepted into this warm and caring group.
     
  • Getting the hang of the ‘art’ of driving in traffic in Phnom Penh. Driving here means moving with confidence into any open spot on the road which is generally in the direction you want to go, without running over a dog, moto, bicycle, pedestrian, tuk tuk, or food stall which is sharing the road.
     
  • Welcoming each working day and enjoying the way my relationships with each staff member are deepening.
     
  • Playing the piano for others. I played the piano at the wedding of a young Khmer couple whose mom was a former country consultant in Cambodia. It was a treat to be able to contribute to that event with some classical pieces and a rousing rendition of “Here Comes the Bride.” It was a truly beautiful evening that combined Khmer and Christian traditions. It was also fun to accompany a group of carolers who sang Christmas carols by candlelight in the garden of a local restaurant to an audience of about 80 or 100 people.
     
  • Enjoying the beauty and peace of Kep where the good hiking, views of the sea, and the natural tropic beauty are hard to beat.
     
  • Coming home to my apartment which now, with a few little personal touches in place, is the oasis I was hoping to make it.

Prayer Items: 

  • Thanks for the cooler weather in Phnom Penh, which means living with fans instead of air conditioning in my apartment and comfortable temperatures for sleeping.
  • Thanks for a visit from my daughter, Lee-lin and friend, Catherine, from Canada over Christmas.
  • Thanks for the way the office building is being transformed and updated—and that we will soon not be working in a construction site.
  • Prayers for resolution to the political tensions in Cambodia, and for the almost daily demonstrations to be peaceful. With large groups of citizens gathering and calling out for the prime minister, Hun Sen, to step down, and with the current government refusing to budge on most of the demands of the opposition, it is hard for us to see how peace will prevail.
  • Prayers for the 110 participants expected to arrive in Cambodia for the Regional Assembly to be held in Siem Reap from January 27-30, 2014. Please pray that they are enriched by the event. Pray that, through their participation, the lives of the people served by World Renew and Christian Reform World Missions in Asia are improved.
  • Prayers for the visits of the Norwegian Mission Alliance Board and World Renew director and constituency relations team leader in the first week of February. We pray that all of our visitors gain a good understanding of the impact of our work in Cambodia and offer useful insights and ideas to support the staff and our partners in the continual quest to increase the impact of our work on the communities we serve.

Kathleen Lauder

Country Consultant
World Renew Cambodia