One of my favourite Christmas carols is "The Drummer Boy". It is the fable of a poor young boy who doesn't have a gift for Jesus at His birth. Instead he plays his drum to the best of his ability and receives the ultimate response - a smile from baby Jesus.
Here’s a similar but true story that made the news here in Cambodia this Christmas. May you be inspired for a wonderful New Year.
American teen brings new school, Internet to rural village
Hundreds of Cambodian villagers welcomed the arrival of a new school yesterday, a gift from an American teenager who raised $52,000 after reading about the hardships of growing up in Cambodia.
Rachel Rosenfeld, 17, made her first visit to the Southeast Asian country for the opening of the R.S. Rosenfeld School, which brings five computers and Internet access to 300 primary school students in a small village of Siem Reap province, a poverty stricken area that is home to the country's famed Angkor Wat temple complex.
Rosenfeld, of Harrison, New York, said she learned about the village of Srah Khvav after reading a newspaper article last year that discussed the plight of poor Cambodian children who often have no access to education. The American said she was horrified to learn that some young Cambodian girls end up being sold into prostitution by their parents.
The teen said she set out to help after spending most of last year battling a stomach disorder that caused her constant pain. She required months of medical treatment that forced her to miss a year of school.
To raise money, Rosenfeld sent out hundreds of fundraising letters, sold T-shirts and offered naming rights for several structures in the school, a statement said. The $52,000 she raised was supplemented by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, which contributed $10,000 and $13,000, respectively, said her mother, Lisa Rosenfeld.
"It makes me feel great to know that I was able to help so many people," the teen said when contacted by telephone.
"Just seeing everyone so happy. It meant a lot to me."
She was accompanied by her parents, grandparents and her brother and sister.
Children in white shirts and navy pants, the Cambodian school uniform, stood in two neat lines and clapped as Rosenfeld and her family arrived. The students pressed their palms together in a sign of respect and thanks.
"Going to school is very important to everyone's future," Rosenfeld said at the opening ceremony, according to a statement. "If I can build this school, then each of you can set goals for yourselves that you can reach."
"Aim very high, and you'll be surprised what you can achieve," she said.
Ung Serei Dy, an education official from Siem Reap province, said the school was only one of two in the village.
"The school donated by Rachel Rosenfeld is very important to us," he said, adding that she had "set a standard that all of us should learn from."
Source: People’s Daily Online
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Christmas
The guests have left. The kids are in bed. The dishes are pre-rinsed and the house is semi-tidy. Christmas is over for another year. Phew!
I actually had my most enjoyable Christmas Day since arriving here in Cambodia. We are house-sitting for friends who live in an exclusive gated-community attached to an international school. So while we help by caring for their much-loved dog, we can also help ourselves to the school facilities over the holidays including pool and playground, and enjoy the lifestyle we take for granted in Australia.
Breakfast was spent around the pool while we enjoyed bacon, eggs and freshly baked croissants. We then each chose a gift from the TEAR catalogue to send others less fortunate – goats to a family in India, schooling for a child in Cambodia, organic gardening assistance to someone in Afghanistan. Throughout the day I received a number of text messages from family and friends. This afternoon we enjoyed salad, ham and lamb roast while spending time with a group of Aussie friends, laughing, eating, playing games and doing a theatre sports-style nativity play for the kids.
Not bad considering Christmas is just like any other day here in Cambodia. No public holiday, just a normal everyday kind of day… just like the day when God entered the world.
The day that Jesus was born, there were no Christmas lights, except a star only noticed by foreign star-gazers. No carol services, except for an extraordinary chorus of praise sung by a host of angels to a bunch of shepherds. No family gatherings, just some strangers who came to see the new born and his young parents.
No feast. No tree. No presents (the wise men came later). No cards. No last minute shopping trips. No stress (except for the new parents, I guess) … just Jesus.
Each year, I struggle with the inadequacy of our Christmas traditions to reflect my appreciation and joy at the arrival of Emmanuel “God with us”. Most traditions just seem to distract and stress me. Lighting a candle and singing a Christmas carol with the kids each night for the month of December is probably the simplest tradition we have, and it has become the most meaningful.
Merry Christmas, Jesus. I love you.
I actually had my most enjoyable Christmas Day since arriving here in Cambodia. We are house-sitting for friends who live in an exclusive gated-community attached to an international school. So while we help by caring for their much-loved dog, we can also help ourselves to the school facilities over the holidays including pool and playground, and enjoy the lifestyle we take for granted in Australia.
Breakfast was spent around the pool while we enjoyed bacon, eggs and freshly baked croissants. We then each chose a gift from the TEAR catalogue to send others less fortunate – goats to a family in India, schooling for a child in Cambodia, organic gardening assistance to someone in Afghanistan. Throughout the day I received a number of text messages from family and friends. This afternoon we enjoyed salad, ham and lamb roast while spending time with a group of Aussie friends, laughing, eating, playing games and doing a theatre sports-style nativity play for the kids.
Not bad considering Christmas is just like any other day here in Cambodia. No public holiday, just a normal everyday kind of day… just like the day when God entered the world.
The day that Jesus was born, there were no Christmas lights, except a star only noticed by foreign star-gazers. No carol services, except for an extraordinary chorus of praise sung by a host of angels to a bunch of shepherds. No family gatherings, just some strangers who came to see the new born and his young parents.
No feast. No tree. No presents (the wise men came later). No cards. No last minute shopping trips. No stress (except for the new parents, I guess) … just Jesus.
Each year, I struggle with the inadequacy of our Christmas traditions to reflect my appreciation and joy at the arrival of Emmanuel “God with us”. Most traditions just seem to distract and stress me. Lighting a candle and singing a Christmas carol with the kids each night for the month of December is probably the simplest tradition we have, and it has become the most meaningful.
Merry Christmas, Jesus. I love you.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
My ecological footprint
In the September issue of TARGET magazine by TEAR Australia, I found out that if every person in the world lived like the average Australian we would need four worlds to sustain it. Maybe this statement doesn’t mean much to you, but it grabs me to the core and shakes me, shouting “What are you doing?!”..
A quick survey on my ecological footprint from the Victorian EPA website gave me little comfort. It told me…
It seems that I need 4.6 global hectares of the 1.9 hectares that would be environmentally sustainable. Of the four areas measured (food, transport, shelter and goods/services), the largest slice was food (!!!) being a staggering two thirds of my total consumption. It seems that I am already taking some significant steps in the other areas like limiting use of my car by walking to school… and it didn’t even ask about my electricity usage which would be significantly lower than average as we have no hot water or air conditioning.
With limited alternatives for slimming down my environmental impact, I must consider my diet. OUCH! It seems that my love of animal products, including dairy, is my downfall. Also, I am using far too many pre-packaged foods. To consider major change in this one “sacred” area of my life, I had to go back to some other core values.
Micah, a minor prophet in the Old Testament, encouraged the Israelites to “Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”. To me, it would only seem just that I humble my lifestyle and take only that which is sustainable for us all. My life is an example to my Khmer friends (whether I like it or not) of what can be achieved through development… and it needs to be sustainable or else I am a hypocrite at best.
The EPA web-site had a number of simple ideas for change which can actually have “multiple improved benefits including economic savings”.
Steve has made more progress than me so far. He has bought a bike and is riding to work. He is also cutting out dairy, switching to soy milk instead. We already eat vegetarian 2 nights a week.. and the thought of more is a little difficult for my carnivorous appetite to swallow. For me, change needs to occur through baby steps.
Friday morning last week, I stopped by a neighbour’s road-side food stall on the way home from dropping the kids to school. She was selling little soft round rice flour cakes called “noum groouk“. They were delicious, cost only $0.25 for 6 and I even got a chance to chat with another neighbour who had stopped also (multiple improved benefits!). If I remember to take my own container next time instead of using the polystyrene takeaway box, I might even reduce my footprint a little further.
A quick survey on my ecological footprint from the Victorian EPA website gave me little comfort. It told me…
It seems that I need 4.6 global hectares of the 1.9 hectares that would be environmentally sustainable. Of the four areas measured (food, transport, shelter and goods/services), the largest slice was food (!!!) being a staggering two thirds of my total consumption. It seems that I am already taking some significant steps in the other areas like limiting use of my car by walking to school… and it didn’t even ask about my electricity usage which would be significantly lower than average as we have no hot water or air conditioning.
With limited alternatives for slimming down my environmental impact, I must consider my diet. OUCH! It seems that my love of animal products, including dairy, is my downfall. Also, I am using far too many pre-packaged foods. To consider major change in this one “sacred” area of my life, I had to go back to some other core values.
Micah, a minor prophet in the Old Testament, encouraged the Israelites to “Act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God”. To me, it would only seem just that I humble my lifestyle and take only that which is sustainable for us all. My life is an example to my Khmer friends (whether I like it or not) of what can be achieved through development… and it needs to be sustainable or else I am a hypocrite at best.
The EPA web-site had a number of simple ideas for change which can actually have “multiple improved benefits including economic savings”.
Steve has made more progress than me so far. He has bought a bike and is riding to work. He is also cutting out dairy, switching to soy milk instead. We already eat vegetarian 2 nights a week.. and the thought of more is a little difficult for my carnivorous appetite to swallow. For me, change needs to occur through baby steps.
Friday morning last week, I stopped by a neighbour’s road-side food stall on the way home from dropping the kids to school. She was selling little soft round rice flour cakes called “noum groouk“. They were delicious, cost only $0.25 for 6 and I even got a chance to chat with another neighbour who had stopped also (multiple improved benefits!). If I remember to take my own container next time instead of using the polystyrene takeaway box, I might even reduce my footprint a little further.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Happily odd
My friend gave me a great compliment the other day.
We were running some errands in my car, when I began having trouble seeing through the dust covering the windscreen as the afternoon sun dropped in the sky. (My car is constantly dusty, even after a wash it’s only a matter of hours before it again looks like a red matchbox car that’s been lost in the garden for months.)
So while I waited for her to collect a box of veges, I hopped out grabbing the green and pink feather duster which was fortuitously hidden between the seat and the door. I gave the windscreen a good rub and then moved to the rest of the car, rearranging the dust as best I could.
At that moment, my friend returned with her purchases and exclaimed, “You look like an eccentric”. I gripped my feather duster triumphantly while she shook her head at me. I was so pleased by her playful tease. I have lived far too long concerned by what others think.
Being a foreigner here has helped me to start to grow up. I am an outsider, an odd looking stranger who talks funny (and therefore must be stupid) and has bizarre habits (like chewing with my mouth closed). I am hugely different from those around me and so I am not so worried by what people think of me anymore.
However, the litmus test will be when I am able to wear green teddy bear pyjamas to the market like many young Khmer women … without fear of being caught by a foreign friend.
We were running some errands in my car, when I began having trouble seeing through the dust covering the windscreen as the afternoon sun dropped in the sky. (My car is constantly dusty, even after a wash it’s only a matter of hours before it again looks like a red matchbox car that’s been lost in the garden for months.)
So while I waited for her to collect a box of veges, I hopped out grabbing the green and pink feather duster which was fortuitously hidden between the seat and the door. I gave the windscreen a good rub and then moved to the rest of the car, rearranging the dust as best I could.
At that moment, my friend returned with her purchases and exclaimed, “You look like an eccentric”. I gripped my feather duster triumphantly while she shook her head at me. I was so pleased by her playful tease. I have lived far too long concerned by what others think.
Being a foreigner here has helped me to start to grow up. I am an outsider, an odd looking stranger who talks funny (and therefore must be stupid) and has bizarre habits (like chewing with my mouth closed). I am hugely different from those around me and so I am not so worried by what people think of me anymore.
However, the litmus test will be when I am able to wear green teddy bear pyjamas to the market like many young Khmer women … without fear of being caught by a foreign friend.
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