Craig being installed as an elder at the International Church
Yes COVID changed our life here in Cambodia when we arrived. But with COVID having less impact on society at present, our life here is still very different from our first term (2017-2019). In our first term we came to an unknown place with an unknown language and so our way of life was unknown and needed to be figured out, almost from scratch.
This time we returned to a known place, a known role and a language that we had begun to know. When we first arrived we were going to a Khmer church, our kids were going to a Khmer International school. Now our kids attend an international school for missionary kids and we go to an English speaking international church. When we first arrived 6 years ago, we would call a tuk-tuk driver if we wanted to go anywhere. Now we use an app, similar to Uber for tuk-tuks. When we first arrived I would go to the ATM every week to get out cash. We are not cashless yet, but now we are close to 50% cashless transactions and now have banking apps on our phones (which we didn’t have 6 years ago in Australia). When we first arrived we had to weather blackouts. Now we have a generator to assist in those times. When we first arrived, I rode a bicycle for 3 years. Now I ride a moto and can’t picture Cambodia without me using one, it’s so convenient. When we first arrived, driving was out of the question for us. Now we use a car more than we use a tuk-tuk.
Life in Cambodia looks substantially different when you compare our first and second terms, COVID changes aside.
In my last post I summarised 17 months worth of life into 300 words concerning our extended home assignment in Australia. COVID affected both our home assignment and our return. We got our visas in February, and booked flights for April. We eventually returned to Cambodia to be greeted with COVID tests and hotel quarantine. Packing 40kgs of snacks was a vital move to help our family survive. But hotel quarantine wasn’t even our biggest challenge in returning. We returned to a city-wide lockdown and weren’t able to reconnect with friends. In our absence some friends had left and others were preparing to leave. We were returning and grieving.
Arrival also meant online-everything. Online schooling for Sam and the kids, online teaching for me and online churching for us as a family. If we had thought hotel quarantine was hard, this was harder in different ways. It was too much. After a month of trying life in Cambodia again, we as a family hit rock bottom. It was less re-entry stress and more pandemic stress. We couldn’t go on in this same fashion. We stripped everything back to the bone. With the support of CMS, our mindset was that even if we didn’t do any ministry for the year, but managed to weather this COVID storm, then our presence in Cambodia for years after would be worth this year of bunkering down and surviving.
As 2021 progressed, week by week and as restrictions lifted, we were able to gradually add more of normal Cambodian life and ministry back into our routines. By the end of 2021 we had returned to more normal functioning in life and ministry, all while wearing masks. Though, like everyone else, we were still a bit shell-shocked.
I remember going to a hotel in mid-2021 for a quick family break and having quarantine flashbacks. Am I able to leave our room, really? In September 2022 we were able to visit Australia for a holiday. On our return to Cambodia it felt weird to be able to just walk out of the airport, rather than go through all the COVID rigmarole that our return in 2021 featured.
It’s been a while. Apart from our latest post, the post before that was one we did from Australia in 2020, before we knew our flights would be canceled, again. So what has been happening since then? This next series catches you up, not only on some of the details of our goings-on, but also adds in new cultural and missiological insights that we’ve picked up along the way. For those who receive our monthly updates, the beginning of this series will be a helpful reminder of our journey in recent years giving good context to where we are up to as well as going into details that we can’t always fit in our monthly updates. Hope you enjoy the ride.
Part of our decision to stay in Australia till January rather than attempt to return earlier was to prepare ourselves for the long term in Cambodia, in view of the disruption that COVID has been. Part of our rationale was giving our family stability for a little bit. During that time of stability we (Sam and I) were able to use that time to ‘grow ourselves up’ (the title from a book by Jenny Brown that we both love) or more specifically, work on ourselves in different ways.
The result of that working was that during the Term 3 holidays I reflected that I was ready to return. We were both rested and had grown in self-awareness. Both of these will help us as we start back in our second time around in Cambodia, and help us stay in the long term. Below are some of the things we’ve done and the way we’ve found them helpful.
Resilience insights: I was involved in a resilience training study. It was helpful to see that we can grow in resilience and that we often rely on previous forms of resilience that may or may not be helpful in new situations. I was able to see that resilience is related to our beliefs, practices and resources. For me it was particularly this third category, in how I spent my time and energy that provided me with insights about how best to grow my resilience. In the past I would normally just try and rise to the task (when massive things came along). While that’s needed in some ways, now I need to work much smarter as mission and family life mean that I can’t just up-my game, because I have been maxing out.
Marriage enrichment: Sam and I were enabled to participate in the Condie online marriage enrichment course (we’ve been able to be a part of their in person seminars twice before). This was helpful for us both, particularly in the very ordinary but profound insight of doing little things every day as the way to grow a marriage. Grand gestures are fine, but it’s about cultivating friendship and gentleness and staying connected with each other (particularly in stressful times like this year or when living in other cultures).
Family systems: I first came across Bowen’s Family System thinking at Moore college about 10 years ago. Since then I’ve dabbled a little (see the book I mentioned above). During this period we were able to put these insights to greater use as we delved into some situations more particularly with the help of a Family Systems counsellor. We picked up insights about how we function individually, but more importantly how our family functions as one ’emotional unit’. To quote Dr Robert Creech, from an online conference that I was enabled to participate in, the aim is to be the calmest person in the room. Now, while we can’t always be calm, the result of working on ourselves and our responses has effects on the units we are a part of (our families, staff teams or similar). In understanding ourselves more we can reduce the emotion that inevitably gets passed around in the groups we inhabit.
Those are just a taster of the insights we’ve gained from this time. These insights will set us up, not just for the long term in Cambodia, but the long term in life.
This post rounds off the series. Hope you’ve found it helpful. For me it provides a place for my consolidated thoughts, if I want to access them later. And in consolidating I’ve learnt and been reminded of a great many things that I have learnt already. It’ll be interesting to see what the next blog post series is from our second term in Cambodia.
This is the soap I’m currently watching to ‘learn’ Khmer.
It might seem strange that I’m giving an update on where my language is up to while here in Australia at the end of 2020. But actually my language ability has changed, or at least that’s the theory. So a quick summary of where I was up to, then my deputation language learning plan and the results (or hoped for results).
Where I was up to when we returned to Australia at the end of 2019 (feels so long ago now): On arriving in Cambodia for the first time with no Khmer in January 2017, my aim was to attempt to teach the Bible in Khmer, but I was unsure of the timeline. I thought maybe a year of learning Khmer would get me to basic conversations. My first term of learning Khmer involved 1 year of full time language school, then independent language learning till I began teaching at the end 2018. This pace of language learning was only possible with Sam’s help. In that sense I don’t consider my skills an individual but team achievement. In fact, this also includes the support of the wider CMS partnership who has freed me up to focus solely on learning Khmer.
The result was after 4mths I could hear conjunctions and some words. After 8mths I could guess the topic of conversation. After 1 year I was not close to basic conversations like I thought. After 14mths I could get the main point of conversation, but interactions were often minimal, because it’s hard to keep asking friends the basic questions, like their age (even though this is not taboo in Cambodia). My skills moved on to seeking out more conversation with how’s the weather questions in the middle of my second year of learning Khmer.
However, I needed to move to teaching preparation by this stage, so learning Khmer came through making teaching materials for teaching the Old Testament. Two quick reflections on learning Khmer. The first is a more general reflection. To learn language well you need to set up situations where you have comprehensible input. That is, you are familiar with a specific context or text up to about 80% of the words. That 20% left over is the new stuff that you want to add into your repertoire. This is hard work finding situations of comprehensible input, but makes learning possible. The second reflection relates to the language resources in Cambodia. I went to an excellent language school. However, when compared with Mandarin or Arabic, Khmer doesn’t have the language resources like these languages because it doesn’t have the speakers (20 million or so compared with billions or whatever number it is). This makes Khmer language resources trickier to come by.
On return to Australia at the end of 2019 we intentionally had a break from Khmer. The rationale being that just like athletes need to rest from sport, so language learners need to rest from language. There is even scientific support (I think) that in the same way that when an athlete rests from their sport, their muscle memory gets a chance to move a particular skill into a more automatic region of the brain, this same benefit occurs in language learners. So my hope was that resting from Khmer would help to make it more automatic when I pick it up again. Of course there will be rustiness, but the second time you learn a skill you learn it quicker.
With our extended stay in Australia I’ve returned to Khmer through vocab cards (ANKI is the best) and through Khmer soaps. Soap operas provide great comprehensible input as I shared above and it means that I can do my language learning by watching YouTube.
My plan for our second term serving in Cambodia is that I want to build on 1st term skills by improving my listening and my ability to use local phrases and expressions, not just the Khmenglish of my 1st term. Having said that my assumption is I’ll always carry around some Khmenglish, regardless of how ‘fluent’ I become.
This post comes from the video that we did for Mission up Close with CMS in June. You can either watch it or read the summary below.
What’s it like preparing to go back to Cambodia for a second time, our second term? We were excited to be going to Cambodia for the first time and we’re excited to be returning for a second time. But the excitement is different. In the first term, there was so much new and ‘for the first time’ excitement. We didn’t know if they would let us in on arrival. We had little local knowledge and even less language. Thankfully we had some great support from other CMS families. There was uncertainty about how long it would take us to pick up Khmer, or when it would be best to start teaching at the Bible school. So the excitement of the first term was the excitement of all the new. There was a lot of tiredness related to the new too.
Second time around, there is excitement. But it’s the excitement of the familiar. Returning and being able to have decent conversations in Khmer, getting to a greater relational depth and understanding of the culture. Returning to good friends and to an area that we know well now. And on the flip side looking forward to returning and not having the major start up in language learning that we had in the first term. Enjoying the wins of improving in a language that we already have some skills in (though rusty at the moment). As I say in the video, learning in a less intense way.
Sometimes the familiar gets a bad wrap, particularly as we long for the new or the unfamiliar. And yet, sometimes it’s through the familiar that we find the truly new; coming to a deeper understanding (and so ‘new’) of what we already know. As a tourist, yes, you see lots of new places. As you stay in one ‘new’ place longer, it becomes new in a way that you never could know if it wasn’t familiar. You could say there’s more new in the familiar than there is in the new. For me the excitement of the familiar over the excitement of the ‘new’ is my preference at the moment.
This post is about our experience of being delayed in returning to Cambodia due to COVID; the confessions of a stranded missionary. Below describes the rollercoaster of feelings that we felt particularly in the heart of the pandemic lockdown earlier this year. This is not where I’m at presently, but more an insight into what I went through.
Most people during the COVID-19 pandemic this year have experienced various amounts of panic and grief. As I reflect, there is definitely overlap in what we were feeling as stranded missionaries compared with those who are permanently in Australia and probably some differences too. What stands out to me is the complexity of grief. There was the loss as plans were changed (our flights back to Cambodia in July were cancelled). There was loss of certainty (not just when would we go back to Cambodia, but could we?), loss of space (the inability to travel), loss of privacy for some (having more people stuck at home), loss of connection and loneliness (for us this was both here in Australia as well as the delay in seeing friends in Cambodia). There was also anticipatory grief (not having stable plans). There was the loss that we felt of missing things in Australia that we would have been able to do had it not been for COVID (visiting family, friends, and partner churches in person). This loss is heightened for us given we are back for a specific amount of time. Strangely, this last loss feels at odds with all those other losses. In a sense we were grieving not being able to return while simultaneously grieving in a sense of not yet ready to return as well.
What I found over this time was a wrestling backwards and forwards with these feelings of grief combined with a sense of acceptance as I worked through all this stuff. On reflection, the grief over uncertainty only really exposed an uncertainty that is always there. COVID just removed the mask of certainty that we try to create. Grief and panic is tiring. I needed to give myself and others grace. Term 3 here in Australia (July-Sept) has given us that. We’ve had a time of stability and rest.
Where am I up to now? I’m now ready to return to Cambodia.
This is my understanding of the Cambodian church from my short time there. I checked it with a close Khmer Christian friend:
The Cambodian church began through French missionaries. While there was some growth of the Cambodian church before the Khmer Rouge, surprisingly, post-Khmer Rouge has seen an exponential growth in the Cambodian church. The main reason for this surprise is that the Khmer Rouge targeted and killed those with an education. This included a lot of church leaders. Since the Khmer Rouge ended (nearly 30 years ago), the then small church has grown rapidly to be now about 3% of the 16 million people living in Buddhist Cambodia. A lot of this growth has come through the Pentecostal denomination. This growth is quick, particularly when you compare it with other countries in the region where the church is not growing as quickly. One possible reason for this growth is the openness that Cambodia has shown to outsiders, given its need for assistance following the civil war. However, with quick growth in the church comes two problems; division and false teaching. One senior leader also sees a real need arising because many Khmer Christians don’t have much sense of what it means to be a committed follower of Jesus.
These are some of the issues that the Cambodian church faces. This is further compounded by the need for educated leadership. Cambodia’s young population (around 50% under the age of 22), combined with the leadership vacuum created by the war, has affected society and the church. Also, the average level of education in Cambodia also provides further challenges for leaders and churches.
To read more about the Khmer rouge, a series I wrote on Cambodia before we left is available here, here, here, here, and here.
My translator. I have much Khmer to learn from him as he does English from me.
There is a truth to the title that I didn’t realise before I moved to Cambodia. Pre-arriving in Cambodia I was all about learning the local language and helping locals to engage with theology in their own ‘heart’ language. Then any speaking I did with them would be helping both of us as I was learning the language and they were engaging in theology in a language that they are proficient in. So I would try in as many contexts to speak in Khmer, rather than in English. And, to a certain degree, I haven’t changed this view. Learning Khmer is extremely helpful for me and others. What has happened is that, instead of changing this view about learning language, I’ve enriched it, or added to it, even nuanced it.
My view now is all of the above AND for a few people I’m going to speak English with them. For these few people it is actually selfish for me to learn their language. They should be the ones learning language. They need to improve their English.
The reason English is important, and I didn’t see this before, is that for Christians in Cambodia at the moment to progress in theological education they need to do that further study in English. Not only do they need sufficient English to progress, but they need theological English (which might as well be another language). The reason is simple. There are not enough theological resources in Khmer to sustain a Masters level degree or higher. The point could be argued for Bachelor degrees as well, but that’s a whole kettle of fish that I don’t know if I want to get into right now (though I would love to engage this point).
Given the need for English skills to progress in theological education, rather than just seeking to speak Khmer with my fellow Khmer colleagues at the Bible School, I should be using some of my time to help them improve their English. Now this is not an easy swap, English for Khmer, because they have an important role in developing my theological Khmer. However, there is a mutual need that I didn’t see before. They need theological English from a native English speaker and I need theological Khmer from a native Khmer speaker. To just work in Khmer with them all the time would be selfish. There is a mutuality in learning language that I knew in principle from missiology, but needed to expand my approach to others learning Khmer.
This needs further qualifying. While I want to speak with them in English, my thought is that this is best done one to one. In group settings at the Bible school I think speaking in Khmer gives them the power and ability to interact in a language that they are comfortable with rather than in a second language which is harder. So in group settings I prefer Khmer. In one on one relationships with a few, English.
I wrote previously about the missionary as bridge between two places (or two cultures). I stand by this description. But I want to add another metaphor. The bridge metaphor captures our in-betweenness. When I think about our relationship with locals, the metaphor changes. And I can’t decide. Am I a goalie or the coach? The description of goalie and coach resonate with how I see myself as a missionary.
A missionary like a soccer (or hockey) goalie is not up the front pushing play forward and scoring goals. They’re not making the new developments happen. They’re more like the back stop. To even mix metaphors, we could say we deal with the tricky things in the expression “let that one go through to the keeper” (yes I realise that’s for cricket). A soccer goalie has different resources. They can use their hands. We come with a different perspective and different training. However, a goalie is limited. Outside the box they are just like any other player. In fact it’s better for them to not leave too much. This “contained to a box” feeling echoes my ability to travel round. I’m not as useful on the go as I am in my one spot. You could say that a goalie has limited mobility (in a ministry or vocation perspective, not just physical mobility) and that’s how I see my experience. Further a goalie has a different perspective on the action and is able to lead and direct, but not as coach or captain. The goalies main job is to stop goals. This could be described as a defensive stance or protective and again this resonates with what I’m doing in Cambodia. There are many things about a goalie that resonate with my missiology.
But coach also resonates in a different but similar way. A coach has a specific role that is different from the team. They can’t make the players play, they are an assistant to the players. A coach, when they are at their best, is neither doing too little or too much in how they lead, direct or manage the team. And their very inability to get too involved in the actual play feels like a helpful way to look at mission from one perspective. And in the end the glory often (and rightly so) goes to the players. The coach is valuable, but they have their limitations.
The emphasis on limitations helps me to find my spot as a missionary (whether as a goalie missionary or coach missionary) and it speaks to the vulnerable mission thoughts that I’ve mentioned at other places (here, here and here).
corksincambodia.com 