The story behind the bronze...

My name, bronze medal and 8km run should not really appear in once sentence. But add inaugural, 36-45yo women and Phnom Penh and maybe it begins to make sense. With very few women here running (or even playing sport in general) beyond their teens, a 37 year old woman pounding the pavement is very rare indeed. Then add school holidays and you’ve lost half the foreigners who might compete, and there you have it - me on the podium. Ha!

Our Christian Care for Cambodia team must be an oddly active bunch because we cleaned up the entire medal count for the women’s 36-45 category – Becky Sussex coming in first, Catherine Rogers coming in second and me. Pip Miner, our running legend from Poipet, took out first place for the entire 8km women's event and Dave Painter (later interviewed by tv reporters because of his impressive run and obvious “age”) ran a great half marathon.

Each place getter took home money (I got $12.50), a great basket of fruit and foodstuffs, two coffee mugs, 5 pens, two notebooks, a bunch of brochures, and of course, the medal. While standing on the podium was a buzz, the highlight of the morning was being asked by some local girls to have their photo with me - a place getter.

Still laughing…

Bronze

A bronze medal with Olympic rings on it is something I never thought I would see in our house. Stay tuned for more photos and the full story...

How hard can it be?

Steve often arrives home from work exhausted and flakes out on the couch until dinner – woe to anyone who disturbs the couch rest (ok, that’s an exaggeration but it sounded good). For the last four months, he has been treating patients four days a week in a room at Mercy Medical Center on the other side of town and it has been draining the life from him.

Really, you ask. Only four days a week? How hard can that be?

I must admit that I’ve wondered that too. But over the months, the stories come out and now I think he’s a bit of a champion (even if he is a growling bear at times).

Picture this.

Each morning Steve rides half an hour across town on his chugging old Dealim motor scooter, trying to avoid the other motorists who seemed determined to kill him. As he sits at a set of lights alongside a beat-up truck belching smoke, he tries not to think of the research that shows that Phnom Penh air is five times more polluted than Bangkok – heck even the air is trying to kill him!

Arriving at work without any signs of outward harm, he has no idea what the day will bring. Although he has a number of patients already booked in, the hot-house of a room at Mercy Medical Center comes without air-conditioning but with a condition to also treat patients referred by the doctors there. As these patients are often from the countryside, he must see them immediately before they make the long journey home.

Did I casually mention patients from the countryside? These patients are the most difficult Steve has even seen. Not only are their physical complaints compounded by years of neglect, they are often illiterate and poorly educated. For Steve this means that their spoken Khmer does not resemble anything we’ve ever been taught and their understanding of concepts of tendons, ligaments and other fanciful physiological imaginations is zip. Symptoms are often masked also by the general complaints of dizziness, headaches and full body aches which more than likely relate to dehydration or years of MSG use, but can’t be ignored by a physio. And rather than exercises, these patients would much prefer a cure-all tablet (wouldn’t we all) so as Steve sends them back to the countryside he has serious doubts about the productivity of his last hour or so.

While he probably won’t see these patients from the countryside again, he has many regular patients who have really grasped onto the value of physiotherapy and his appointments are in demand. He frequently has patients calling at all hours demanding, begging and clamoring to be seen. It’s enough to cause the normally gentle Steve to speak harshly and refuse treatment for those who continue to pressure him.

However, physiotherapy in general is a poorly valued service in Cambodia. Steve estimates that there are only around 350 physiotherapists in Cambodia (approx. one for every 30,000 people) and these have been only trained to a Diploma level. Unlike Australia, physiotherapy does not attract the best and brightest but ranks lower than nursing.

It’s something he’s working on.

For the last few months, he has one or two Khmer physiotherapists shadowing him as he treats patients, asking questions and learning treatment techniques. They work at a local hospital in the mornings and follow him around in the afternoons. Steve actually enjoys teaching but into the afternoon the room heats up to unbearable levels and he is often weary from the morning patient load. He is concerned that he often doesn’t have much energy to teach these guys but they seem happy enough with the scraps that he can give and keep coming anyway.

But training has been a significant part of his work for the past five years through his involvement in the Physiotherapy Upgrade Training Program. This program is supported by Singapore General Hospital who provided the funding and lecturers while Steve supervisors the clinical training. As the program has progressed, the top graduates have gained further training in Singapore and are now virtually running this year themselves.

But the last two weeks, Steve has been helping out by lecturing on the lower limb for the 5^th promotion of this program. And he has been a different man. Teaching in aircon only minutes from home really makes a difference. I visited the Physio School the other day and found a patient, clear and even joking Steve working with a bunch of physiotherapists keen to upgrade their skills.

It was a pleasure to watch and I’m no longer afraid to approach the couch of an afternoon. (ok another exaggeration). Next week, he is back in the clinic, supervising two to three physios at a time as they apply the skills they have learnt over a full working week - it's a seriously tough job

What God does now.

My friend L has been having a hard time of late. A mother of three working full-time, it’s not easy. But her struggles have hit a “high” point of late. Her husband of 18 years finally left home for another woman, taking not just his clothes from the cupboard, but the family’s life savings (of about $500), the motorbike and even his teenage son’s bicycle which he used to ride to school.

This betrayal was just the latest bead on the string of their marriage which has included years of neglect, drinking, gambling and womanising. He’s told her a number of times that he wants to take another wife. The guy is an idiot. Sure, L is not the most beautiful woman around, but she is a hard worker, talented cook, strong but loving mother who is doing everything she can to make sure her children get a good education.

Now, she is close to destitute. And her husband’s boss is now calling her to pay back the money he was loaned to pay for bogus medical bills (for her!). The boss even brought the police in to make him promise to go back to his wife or he’ll lose his job (I’m presuming so that she could then pay the loan off). He signed the form, but hasn’t turned up to work since.

I hate sharing L’s misery in a blog. It feels like I am betraying her confidence at a vulnerable time. But there is another side to this story.

In the face of such personal devastation, L is clinging to God.

For years, she had heard about Jesus from various workplaces and even began attending church out of curiosity and maybe a sense of obligation towards her Christian boss. Then about a year ago, while in a church service, she was healed from a heart condition and a dorky thumb that had made work difficult. She came to know the power of God and dedicated her life to Him.

These kinds of conversions always make me a little nervous. We hear stories of people coming to faith like this and then fall away next time God decides not to answer a prayer for healing. But He is faithful.

Ls faith has been growing deeper and she attends church weekly eagerly sharing with me what she’s learnt. Her children have been going along too and this angered her husband. When he left, he quipped to the neighbour, “I’d like to see what her god does now”.

He doing this... L tells me how the people at church are concerned for her, give her money as they can, pray with her and regularly call her to check she’s ok. She is reading her Bible with her children and encouraging them that God does provide. She even overheard her 16yo son tell his father on the phone that the only way he is welcome back is if he repents and becomes a Christian too.

She tells me that as she clings to God, He gives her peace and strength and He will get her through. She says she feels like she and the kids are on a small boat in a big sea and is heading to some new land with God. With dignity and strength, she has filed for divorce (a very shameful thing here), will lose her family home and is trusting God.

Then earlier this week, L told me that her husband wants to come back and is willing to go to church. She is torn as she does not believe he is genuine. She’s heard that he has nowhere to stay and is getting skinny from lack of food. After seeking God, she has courageously decided that if he wants to follow God, he can come to Him on his own.

There’s no fairy tale ending to this story. It’s life – real and raw, ongoing and unresolved. Yet, amongst it, God too is real and at work. I too can’t wait to see what God does now.