Good Aussies over here

Mark and Jo Dennett introduced themselves to us at church on our first Sunday here. They are sent from Christian city Church in Whitehorse, Melbourne; here since October 2006 to work with churches and business people towards seeing Cambodian churches sustain themselves. 'Over 80% of Cambodian churches are dependent on western donor money to exist' Mark says.

Mark is an engineer by background; Jo a psychologist and counsellor. Together with their home church (which, interestingly, has put all its missions eggs into a one-nation basket: Cambodia) they have developed excellent resources and a well thought-through strategy to encourage the Cambodian church towards self-sustainability.

Learning vision principles - a hilarious exercise that makes multiple application points!

Mark and Jo enjoying a giggle during the 'Vision' forum

At the heart of the strategy are monthly half-day forums and weekly mentoring groups. The weekly groups have a mix of church pastors and business people in them - about eight people in total per group. I have accepted an invitation to be involved in a mentoring group. There are pastoral leaders from the church Sue and I attend in my group, as well as business people. Frank, who is worthy of a separate blog introduction, balances the group as he is one proficient business guy in a culture that is very interesting to manage a business in.

The monthly half-day forums are held 8am-12noon on a Saturday, followed by lunch together. Today was my intro - a very well put-together session on vision and planning. Mark and Jo mixed it up with a lot of small-group interaction, practical application stuff and good written material. Well done, guys!

Sokhun follow-up; amazing God

I came home to a very excited Sue after returning from my morning at the forum this morning. She had gone to see Sokhun at the hospital this morning, together with Te Awamutu Sue and Visna from Hagar. Sokhun is receiving excellent care and the room is clean and well kept. The ward is actually run by Medicine Sans Frontiers.

Sharing Sokhun's room are two other ladies - both with fungating cancerous breast tumours. One of the patients heard the girls talking with Sokhun and said that 'I have heard about Jesus but I do not know Him. Please tell me more about Him'. Vishna led her to the Lord in the little room in a real and powerful way. Polpal has no family. They were all killed under Pol Pot. She cried and cried as she talked about her life. Sue said that the Lord really did move on her life.

So, now there are two reasons to keep following up on Sokhun! Polpal's final words were 'please, come back and visit me some more'.

Expensive mothers

Language continues ... our homework the other day was to go to the local market and use what we had learnt in six conversations. So, off we went with 'how much? ... 'do you have it in red?' ... 'how much for three?' ... 'no, too expensive' and so on.

The folk in the stalls are really nice and appreciate our noble attempts at stringing an intelligible sentence together. A day later we discover that some of the somewhat puzzled looks maybe can be attributed to our exclamations of 'expensive mother' (tlai mai) instead of 'too expensive' (tlai na).

We've told Nimol that her homework was too expensive. It cost me two pillow cases, two pillows, a table runner and a deodorant (I asked if they had that one in black and the lady cracked up!)

Susie in the books - and cards that help us to keep the mai out of tlai

A man's second best friend (after Chagai Crrohom) - the pocket dictionary

Oh, which reminds me - red dog is still on our front porch.

Sokhun leaves us

Susie is feeling somewhat glum today. Hagar managed to get Sokhun into a hospital - and with one bed available they moved quickly to secure it for her.

It has been a privilege and a steep learning curve, having Sokhun living here for the last month. In that time she has had good food, care and prayer daily - and her health has stabilised greatly. However, she has also been a slow learner in the self-care area. Susie would bandage her swollen arm up to six times a day, and it was explained to her time after time of how important this was to reduce the swelling and pain.

We're not sure whether it is the thought patterns associated with poverty - where you live for the immediate with no vision of better possibilities in the future - or some other factor, but Sokhun would not listen to anyone. We think that this was a contributing factor to Hagar moving her back to the hospital even tho' she is in relatively good health.

Hmm, so much for the clarity of this pic - Sokhun hardly visible and Susie farewelling her

On a real positive note, Sokhun's four children appear to be thriving in their foster home. They have been coming here each Sunday to see their mum. Raita looks to be doubling his weight on each visit and the others look very settled and blessed.

We intend to visit Sokhun in hospital and keep in touch with the family via Hagar. Meanwhile, if five or ten folk would like to visit, we have this room ...

Of white gold and spider tales

Yesterday I was a man on a mission. Registering a moto (motor bike) is not for the faint hearted. After a couple of days visiting the local governing office, jumping some hoops and then being told 'we can't do this here', I prevailed on the land-lord's son to come help me jump more hoops at the right place.

Son of land-lord is a fun guy. His favourite expression is 'sir, don't you worry about a thing'. So, with 'No-worries' we headed off to battle, secure in the knowledge that all was well.

It was a 20-minute drive across town to the rego centre. There is a big building lined with windows. Each window has a function of keeping you waiting in a queue. Fortunately, 'No-worries' is a professional queue-jumper. His abilities had me charge through the process in 3 hours 4 minutes.

My 'white gold'.

The rego boys have a well oiled money machine. You can get your plates in 'about a month' or in a day. The local constabluary had pulled me over for the fourth time the other day - and despite the 'fact' that you have a month to get the rego plates, you still pay (smile, explain, listen to '$20 fine', smile, talk. 'OK $10' and settle for $1). So, I opted for the fast-track in the earnest desire to get street-legal now. It's not too expensive - but you get to pay for parking your bike - passport photocopy - letter to say you really live here - plates at fast-track price - two holes in plates - afix said plates to moto.

Mission finally accomplished - and 'No-worries' nicely suggested that he double me back home on my bike as he was now in a hurry. In twice the traffic density he achieved that in under half my time. Red light? - it means 'go faster'!

My flying machine is a Spider. From a local perspective, think 'Daewoo' or 'Skoda'. As I understand it, it is a clone Honda, made in Thailand and assembled in Cambodia. Buying a Spider is following in the footsteps of Patrick Kelly, who took local counsel to go Skoda as these bikes are unattractive to thieves. Thieves target the brand names - like Suzuki Smash (no, I'm not joking - Smash they are!)

Our Spider machine - faster than a Suzuki Smash??

Straight to the dog-box

With Lina and Sopheak moving in, another little fella has also wheedled his way thru' the door. Meet Crrohom - that means 'red' in Khmer. I call the little guy Chgaii Crrohom - red dog. He's not nearly as nervous now as when he first arrived - together with Darra's collection of pet mice.

The mice were given 3 days. Crrohom is meant to exit today to Darra's place down the road ... but then answers sometimes are designed to soothe. Crrohom has the largest bladder of any dog of similar size I have ever met. He successfully emptied it yesterday afternoon, and then proceeded to doggy-walk thru' it and thru' the house ...

Cute - but capable of filling a swimming pool ...

Where mates hang out

There are a lot of Kiwis and Aussies in Phnom Penh. The majority of them work either in Christian-based ministry or in the business world - teachers, telecommunications, company management or whatever.

With some serious rugby being played at this time, there are a number of places which offer live big-screen tv. Sue and I try to make Saturday our r+r day, so a little light entertainment is one way to unwind in this city.

At the pub with the kiwis - that's Colleen Banks, a Tauranga girl out of Mike and Janne Cullen's fellowship who works with Asian Outreach, and Graham Taylor from Te Awamutu, here with Hagar.

School days

Learning the Khmyer language continues to be our daily challenge. We truck off to see Nimol from 9.30-10.30am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday. She's great and patient - and I feel clumsy and stupid! Learning one-off words is OK but the art of stringing words together into intellible sentences is a challenge! Sue and I then work on it together most days - the blind leading the blind very often!

We are having fun ... we are having fun learning ...

Khmyer has 33 consonants and 23 vowels. Helpfully, the 23 vowels can each have two inflections, so there is more like 46 of them - a far cry from 'a-e-i-o-u'. The actual script is not Roman (as in a,b,c ...) but a little more challenging

What we are not learning yet - Khmyer script. The writing is based on the ancient Brahmi script of southern India. It is arguably one of the oldest languages in SE Asia.

Some of the language is OK to get a handle on. Counting, for example, goes 12345; then 5-1, 5-2 etc up to 10; then start over. So 19, for example is dop-pram-bunn (10-5-4). Months are kai then the month, so March is month 3. Then, just as I get happy, I discover that 'grapes' are 'plae dambangbai chew'. The good news is that, being imported and US$5/kilo, 'plae dambangbai chew' are not too common in every-day conversation.

Lina's story

Lina has been with us for almost a week now. She is a most precious Khmyer Christian lady who is hugely devoted to her two children. Together with her son Sopheak, Lina has joined the Bonnevie Phnom Penh household.

Lina was just about to graduate from highschool when the Khmyer Rouge came to power in 1975. Her mother and father (finger across throat; tears) were killed by this demonic regime, together with her grandparents. I don't know how she survived those years - that will be another story.

Lina married an army man after the Khmyer Rouge years. He left her when Sopheak was two years old, so Darra would have been 9 or 10. Darra says that she remembers her dad but she has not seen him since he left. Lina was left alone without parents; without support. She was so poor and so desperate that she took Darra and Sopheak to an orphanage in Phnom Pehn to be cared for. She then set up home outside the orphanage and attached church, scraping together a living by cooking food and selling it. It was through the orphanage that Lina came to know Jesus.

Some eight years pass in this way. Then Lina moved south, to the coastal beaches near Sihanoukville. Tourism was beginning to bring people into Cambodia - and the southern beaches are on the tourist trail. At that time 'only five others' were selling stuff on the beaches, so Lina took Darra and Sopheak out of the orphanage in order to sell things she made - mainly plaited bracelets. It was in these years that the Forbes family (working with World Vision) came to know Lina, Darra and Sopheak.

Initially there was a living to be made, but the combination of increased competition, the children growing older and losing the 'cute' factor and the months of down-time through the monsoon season meant that life became very difficult. Then, Lina became ill and could not make her goods. Money-lenders came into the picture and things were very difficult.

Bill and Heather became involved. Darra moved to Phnom Penh where the Forbes got her back into school and, in exchange for household work, paid her an allowance. It took a year to pay back the loan sharks.

With Bill and Heather's imminent return to the USA (they left 5 days ago), Lina hugely wanted to return to Phnom Pehn to be near Darra. She also wants Sopheak to be in 'a good church'. Bill explained that, increasingly, the southern coast is a dangerous place for a young Khmyer male. Homosexual foreigners come to this area seeking young guys and Lina was concerned for her boy.

So, Lina (who has perhaps as much English as we have Khmyer!) says 'I pray to God' for a place to come to in Phnom Penh. Her expectation was a one-room dive. We are so grateful and delighted that Bill and Heather's love and commitment to Lina and the Lord's good hand have worked together to bring her and her lovely family into our lives.

Lina is great with Sokhun. She is cooking for her, sits with her and is learning from Sue how to give care. I'm having to fight her to get into the kitchen to cook (tonight, I win!) and am on the verge of losing the fight for my manly right to do the dishes. She's a little evangelist too - out to follow up on her nephew last Sunday, who has been doing drugs.

What a can can do to Sue

Sue's thumb is plodding along. Here is how things looked with the stitches in

The stitches are out now; removed yesterday by a lovely guy who had 'no clue' (says Sue) re removal procedure. Happily there has been no infection - just raw, rugged pain!

Transform Cambodia school days

The teaching staff at the three 'Transform Cambodia' centres had leadership training days this Monday and Tuesday. Patrick and Carol 'volunteered' me to spend these couple of days at Centre 2, where their team of volunteers carried on the lessons.

Johnny, one of Transform's volunteer workers, taking morning roll-call

These centres are located in slum areas of Phnom Penh. The children are being given an incredible gift of education in a fun, caring environment. Centre 2 only opened in June, but it has not taken the little ones long to really love learning. The morning group of 35 children have their classes from 9-12noon (tho' children were arriving from 8am) and then the teaching program is repeated for the 2-5pm class.

The school day begins - and ends - with washing hands. Hygiene is a shocker in Cambodia, so teaching cleanliness is really important too.

Kids love to play in every culture! Note the great little packs Transform gives out to every child - pink for the girls and blue or green for the boys.

'I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made ... and that my soul knows very well' Ps 139

Out to Takeo

Today was the day to visit Sokhun's children in a village outside Takeo, 50km or so from here. Sue Hanna, a Te Awamutu 'girl' from Hagar, Vissa (also from Hagar) and a young American couple joined Sokhun, Sue and I for the journey.

Sokhun and Vissa - on the way out to the village

Vissa, Sokhun and Te Awamutu Sue. She drives like a local!

The four children are doing so well in their new environment. Raita has put on a heap of weight - no longer the malnourished, gaunt little guy who first came to us. They are in an Assembly of God sponsored school just down the road - we watched heaps of local kids on their bikes head to school in the early afternoon. Sophie, Sokhun's girl, was among them

Sophie off to school

Raita amongst the food - with Sokhun and Sue

Hagar run parenting training classes for the families that are wanting to foster children. Today the subject was discipline without hitting. Hagar have outstanding Khmer staff who really give themselves to this work.

Parenting classes in front of the kids new place

We trust that Sokhun will be more settled and at peace now that she has had opportunity to see where her children are living and how well they are doing there.

Nurse seeking doctor

We had a bit of a scare last night. Susie was making chicken soup and sliced her hand on an open can lid - deep enough that she thought it could have taken out a nerve or tendon. We had a good look together and saw the tendon looking OK - so she did her nurse thing while I leaned on the stair rail and clawed back from a helpful 'I think I'm going to faint'.

The next 40 minutes were out on the motorbike to find a place to stitch things. Met a nice helpful guy who pointed to the sheet that said foreigners pay US$100 out of hours to meet the doc - before anything happens. Hmmm, maybe we'll come back in hours!

Susie at the clinic this morning (top) and wearing the nice designer-pink bandage after the sew-up

So, back to (another) clinic this morning - six stitches. Please address all sympathy cards to Sue Bonnevie, ....

Table tales

One of the areas we want to be involved in is bringing people and ministries together. Cambodia has a huge reputation for suspicion, division and offence - less than a true representation of 'one faith, one body' ... To bring people together, one needs a good table and a good cook!

I remember a vivid dream I had just before coming here - of sitting around a big table and actually counting how many were seated around it. There were 12. So, the hunt was on for a 12-seater.

I answered an ad and got to meet this great couple - Bill and Heather Forbes from USA. They have been here 7-8 years with World Vision and are about to return to the States - hence the table sale.

Heather asked me what Sue and I had come out here for - and in the conversation I said how we were keen to open our home to a couple of Khmers, especially students. She got quietly excited and said that she had two great people for us - Lina (mum) and Sopheak (son - 15). Darra, the daughter/sister had been living with them this last year. She is 23 and in year 10 at school. Bill and Heather had come to know the family when visiting the beach at Sihanoukville, 230km away.

Lina made fruit, bangles, bracelets ... and Darra and Sopheak would sell the stuff on the beach. Another long story including sickness and going backwards - Darra had opportunity to move to Phnom Penh and finish school and Lina wants to keep her family together. I will tell Lina's story of a mother's devotion to her children through huge hardships in the next blog.

Heather, Sopheak and Darra - around the table

Sopheak moved in with us yesterday. He is a great young guy - very open personality, capable and good initiative. He is taking a computer class during school holidays (July-Sept; restart Oct)and extra studies to jump him into Year 8. Lina arrives Sunday - she is just getting her stuff stored with a rellie. Bill and Heather made arrangements for Darra before we were on the scene. In a city of 1.4 million, her place is same street as us, throw-the-tennis-ball-distance away! She and Sopheak are real close - and she is so happy that he is close by that she says she wants to cry. No doubt she'll be around our table lots, too.

Oh, and at a squeeze, and pulling out the extension part - the table will do 12!

Weatherwise ....

She was a hot little country when we first arrived, but thankfully most days and evenings have dropped back a little. At night we run a fan all night; maybe our one and only aircon gets a 20-minute run too. It's probably around 32 degrees by day; 29 by night.

We are in the rainy season, which means that maybe four days a week we get a good afternoon downpour. Today was one of those days. I timed my run home from an afternoon meeting today impecably, leaving in a light drizzle and scootering into the tornado ...



It can pour for hours but mostly it blows up with a wind, pours and then clears in 40-60 minutes. We live on a dirt road so that good news is that the dust is well settled. Here's our Rue 460 from the balcony.

Of course, it quickly turns into 'slush alley' in the wet. Kids run out from their homes and splash in the puddles, happy as pigs in mud!

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Sokhun and family

Great - having established by 80 steps that the ding-dong was not our donger ... back to an update on Sokhun. She is doing well mostly, tho' emotionally it is real hard for her being separated from her children. She gets lonely and too much time to think I guess - but she is doing well. Susie said that the cancer on her breast has noticeably decreased in size and a lump dropped off 2 days ago. We keep praying for her and over the manuka-honey dressings that have been given to us for her.

Susie stocking up on bandages at the local chemist. The new girl 'shaved our heads' (ripped us off!) on this lot - hey; another day another head-shave.

Today we had a grand old house invasion - 3 scooter-loads of Sokhun's four children, the foster mum and dad, a brother-in-law, a sister and I think a Hagar worker in the mix. They scootered 80km from Takeo. On Wednesday we will go out to the family in a Hagar van together with Sokhun. The little ones have really been received into their new home and obviously they are responding beautifully to the love that they are receiving. Of course this too is hard for Sokhun to observe - please do pray for her.

Family photo - foster parents are in the back; mum far left; dad in the middle

This last week

It is written 'bodily exercise profits a bit' or words to that affect. Happily, Cambodia is my place of daily profiting. By strategically locating ourselves on the top floor I have a daily guarantee of multiple heart-rate increases and muscle toning.

40 of the blighters up, and yes, 40 down

Apart from daily exercises, this week has been really interesting. The highlight was taking our little scooter for its first trip out of town to meet the amazing John Tucker. John used to work for a hospice in town that cares for AIDs patients. In his work he kept on coming across children who are HIV-infected. He has now established quite an amazing setup in a disused hospital wing 15km out of the city.

Children with HIV are treated here from all across Cambodia and even Vietnam. Many other ministries have spun out of this core: orphanage-clusters (one hut; eight children and house-parents) are in the process of being built for 200 children. There is day-care for HIV mothers so that the mums can keep working and a sewing room.

John is an ex-insurance salesman from USA, 58 years old, hugely passionate in what he does and a committed Catholic. He's had the prime minister - twice - and Bill Clinton - once - come visit the work. His pet hate: 'fundamentalist Christian groups who come out here to plant their flag and who only work with the healthy - they refuse to work with the sick'.

Sue with John (above) and the running stats board; how many patients by province

I did not take any pics in the hospitals as it would have been a bit invasive - but saw maybe 12 HIV children (of the 300 they are treating - once they are stabilised in hospital they return to the province and have ongoing care and follow-up) and perhaps 50 children with denge fever on drips. There is a denge epidemic here at this time.

We are getting ready to receive our little Khmer family - mum Lina and 15-year old Sopheak. I'll tell you more about how they get to come here in the next blog, when I have some pics too. Just to say that we are looking forward to having them and it is fun setting up their rooms too.

Cane delivery a la trishaw

Two beds and two mattresses on the back of a moto - he carved a magnificent path through the bedlam of Phnom Penh traffic!

Language learning continues. Enough said. Susie has the superior brains in this department so far . I've told her that we could do a 'Moses and Aaron' - I could be the man and she could be the mouth. She says - 'nope'.

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Sokhun soldiering on

Sokhun is doing well. The swelling in her arm has noticeably gone down and she is responding well to love and care. Carers from Hagar have been coming and going and we fill in the gaps. There is good praise music going constantly in her room now. We picked up a cd of Hillsong in Khmer (I kid you not) and a good worship album led by Pisat, the church worship leader. Susie went to talk to a doctor today about pain relief for her also.



The big step today has been with Sokhun's four children going into foster care. They are such great kids; really lovely. Here's a pic of Scooter and siblings as they were leaving - happy and excited they were too.

Sokhun will get to see her children next week at the foster family and they will come in here on weekends. It's encouraging to see her comfort level increase with the swelling going down - still got the rotten cancer to contend with tho'.

Navigating Phnom Penh

This city of 1.4 million is pretty well contained in an area 7km by 5km. Officially it is more like 13x9 but the inner city proper is really pretty small.


Getting a handle on what is where is not actually too bad. There are four main north-south streets and four main east-west. In between these main drags we have streets that go by numbers; even numbers east-west and odd numbers north-south. The numbers don't always add up; they can jump 4 or 8 or 10 a block sometimes and don't always appear where they 'should' but basically you can navigate the city off these.


The real fun is with house numbers. They are totally random, like no system. Zilch. We are 8c - as in five houses together numbered 8a-e. Easy. We are opposite number 45, of course. And the new place being built next door is ...

...252e. I'm intrigued both by the 'e' and the '252'.

To add to the fun, there is another number 8 down the other end of street 460. This is very common - never despair if the wrong people are at the address you have been given; just look for the same address down the road.

So, when giving an address it needs some kind of grid; like 'number 8c, Street 460, between streets 123 and 105 (OK, so there is a gap of 18 in our north-south block). That way people still get lost but hopefully not as lost!!

Language learning

Nimol is our Khmer language teacher. Don't be fooled by her sweet smile ...

... she is requiring our tongues to go where linguistically they have never gone before! We've moved to morning classes for July; Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We have fun and we have pain ...still working on getting new words in without yesterday's words falling out. Anyway, merry niat mien crrew-sa harr-rin-will to you all.

The days in between are pretty necessary for practice and revision. Sue and I work on this together

It's fun using what we learn out in the streets. I did some brilliant stuff today and I could see that it never even occurred to the nice lady that I was speaking her lingo ... which I'm led to believe could be the norm for the next year or three. Susie turned a few heads yesterday with her 'somtoh' (sorry/excuse me) as she squeezed past someone in Psar Toung Tom Pong (the local market). Polite is noteworthy out here!