Katherine Parker in Nepal

One of my responsibilities in the CHAD program is to monitor and support ongoing project groups.  Sometimes these visits are a headache as we negotiate why the group acted in contradiction to the by-laws that they themselves wrote.  Sometimes there are surprises and joy when a group moves beyond project limitations to use the resources to reach out and meet real needs in their community. Last January when Mrs. Sophal and I stopped at the Raksmey church in Kampong Thom province to audit the records of the rice-bank, we didn't know what we would find.  There are provisions in most of the by-laws, especially for rice-banks, to account for loss and other costs.  Rain can creep in or rodents can get at a bag or a particular family just can't repay this year.  Typically if the loss is less than 10% we assess the situation, but don't give them too a hard time.  So we wanted to know what was going on when this group in Raksmey was down by 500kg....

My heart goes out, as I'm sure yours does, to the people of Japan and all those around the Pacific Rim that have been affected by the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis. I have been reading updates from friends and staff at the Asian Rural Institute (ARI) who are located just 130km from the nuclear plants. They have been reaching out with food and spiritual aid both to people in the immediate area effected by the quake and to evacuees who are showing up in their town. ARI is very close to my heart and has also been very supportive of the mission in Cambodia. One of our young staff members, Ms. Daneth, spent last year there as a participant and I am so inspired by her transformation and excitement to serve her people as well as the new skills she has developed since she has returned home. ARI will be delaying the start of this training term, probably by a month, as we all watch the unfolding nuclear crisis and as they clean up all of the earthquake damage to the school and ...

Anne, Great timing on your email. Thanks! I've been thinking about writing an update for the last few weeks and feeling guilty about not getting the earlier email to you, but I just haven't quite sat down to put my reflections into words. I've been doing some annual planning this last week and I decided to set aside Tuesdays to attend a bible study in the morning and then to do some writing and reflection in the afternoon. I know it will be hard to commit to this schedule because it is very seductive to schedule meetings or field visits or just to catch up with various crisis paperwork (I probably only made it to bible study 50% of the time last year at best), but I am going to try to take this time and do better with my communications this year. Last Tuesday I was at the beach in Kep because I took 4 day get away with my friend who was visiting from New Zealand and then today my bible study group was canceled so I almost jumped right into wor...