Please continue lifting up Myanmar and India in your prayers. The situation in both countries continues to grow worse and our hearts ache for the people there. Myanmar There’s been less communication from Myanmar not because things have improved but because the Tatmadaw has heavily censored the internet and cut back on communication access. We…
COVID-19: First Dose
As of last Friday, all of MCC Phnom Penh’s personnel have at least received their first vaccine dose. More than half of national staff have received their second dose. We have two staff in the countryside who are not yet vaccinated but that’s due to preexisting medical conditions. Crystal and I were in the last…
COVID-19: Lockdown Zones
As I mentioned last time, this has been by far the most serious outbreak of COVID-19 that Cambodia has experienced. The country went into full lockdown for several weeks and then, slowly, transitioned to a zone based lockdown. Red Zones: Areas with high rates of community transmission. Complete lockdown. Families are allowed to leave homes…
The Year in Board Games
Our family loves playing board games! We especially enjoy cooperative ones like Pandemic or The Fairy Game, though this year we didn’t play any pandemic. We had enough pandemic in real life. As we looked back over our photos from the last year I thought that I’d share some of the board games we’ve played….
Crystal’s Birthday in Lockdown
Yesterday we celebrated Crystal’s birthday in full lockdown. We’d been planning to go visit an elephant refuge in distant Mondulkiri province for her birthday but as the COVID-19 situation in country has worsened we had to abandon those plans. Then, when Phnom Penh went into full lockdown, it became clear that we’d need to celebrate…
COVID-19: Full Lockdown
By many metrics, Cambodia is still doing well during the pandemic but the situation is much worse than it was just two months ago. On Friday, we saw our highest increase of cases with almost 700 people diagnosed followed by almost 500 people on Saturday and another 300 people yesterday. These are not high numbers…
The Holy Week Meditation: Jesus’ Journey to Calvary, thence to the Empty Tomb.
This reflection was written by one of the pastors we work with in Myanmar. Name and identifying details withheld for security reasons. The Holy Week, also known as the Passion Week, began on Palm Sunday, and will end on Easter Sunday. Christians all over the world commemorate in their own church’s tradition—fasting, praying, contemplating, meditating,…
From Flower to Mango
Last year I shared the wonders of mango season with you. This year is a bit different. Our new house has two mango trees so it’s given us a closer perspective on the delicious fruit and it’s growth. It’s been a blessing to have mangos raining down on us during this latest COVID-19 outbreak. I…
Online Schooling Again
This is our fourth COVID-19 lockdown and I’ve think we’re finally getting this online schooling thing down. Charlotte is doing well on the individual attention but Catherine really misses her friends. They do, for the most part, get along really well. I don’t think I was this sweet to my siblings when I was their…
COVID-19 Update: The February 20th Incident
Three weeks ago Cambodia had the third lowest cases per million of COVID-19 in the world (after Laos and Vietnam). On February 20th, it was discovered that four Chinese people had bribed their guard to break quarantine earlier in the month and new cases began to be discovered at an alarming rate. From January 2020…