A Brief History
Tim has been preparing to return to live and work in Cambodia, since doing work experience there in 1995. It was the impact of the trauma, poverty, violence and suffering of the Khmer Rouge genocide and its ongoing and deep impact on Cambodia, and lowland Khmer village life in particular, that broke and captured his heart. A desire to see village life restored was kindled that has never gone out since. Catherine has wanted to go abroad (somewhere hot!) to live and work with the poor for even longer. We both, independently, had pictures of working up to our elbows in mud. When we were married we asked friends and family to give us gifts of money towards setting up home in Cambodia.
It is time to go at last!
Last year, we went to Cambodia for six weeks with our son, Forrest, to see how our dream might work in practice for us as a family; where would we go? Who with? And to do what? This clarified our vision and values but didn’t answer the where or who with, so this summer Tim went on a two-week trip to look at Battambang Town as a possible starting point. The trip was a great success and we feel we have found the welcome and peace we were looking for about where to go. So, Our plan is to move to Cambodia in the first quarter of next year (2006). All things going well we will go as close to the middle of January as we can as it starts to heat up pretty quickly after that.
Language Learning in Battambang for a year
We plan to go to Battambang to spend one year, initially, to learn the language and settle in as a family. We have been advised that to become fluent in Khmer it requires a year (minimum) studying the language full-time. More than this though, we plan to learn the language (and way of life) from our neighbours, so this will give us the opportunity to build relationships and get involved in community life as a family.
We feel this investment in language learning and building relationships with our neighbours will lay quality foundations for the duration of our residence in Cambodia, however long that may be. Our approach is to have a long-term attitude but to take it step-by-step, year-by-year.
A neighbourhood-based family experiment
Our desire is to experiment as a family with integrating learning from our neighbours, home schooling, community development and income generation; the nature of an experiment being that we don’t yet know the outcome but there is enough to suggest that it is worth trying.
We envision learning from our neighbours, amongst other things:
How to grow fruit trees, vegetables and flowers;
How to raise chickens, ducks and pigs;
How to catch and preserve fish; How to prepare and cook food Khmer style; and
About Khmer festivals and ceremonies.
Through this we can begin to learn about family life, village politics and power relations, and the challenges that face the poor (whether these be physical, relational or in terms of identity and self-worth).
From this we anticipate opportunities opening up to get involved with others in improving the quality of life in the neighbourhood in an integrated way. For example, exploring how to preserve and market mangoes could provide an opportunity for income generation, building community, home schooling and having a tastier and healthier diet all year round!
We expect one or both of us to get part-time employment outside of our neighbourhood (once we have learnt Khmer): Tim with rural community development NGOs and Catherine in some educational capacity. Until we have learnt enough Khmer there may be the opportunity of part-time or casual work teaching English, if we need the money or the outside contact.
We would also love to have a guest room or house for visitors or retreats that could be a source of income and contact with the outside world but this might take some time to get off the ground (literally, if it is on stilts!).
Our motivation to be friends of village life
In all of this our heart is to see the fabric of lowland Khmer village life rewoven after the trauma of the Khmer Rouge genocide and it’s ongoing legacy of cycles of injustice, poverty, violence and suffering. We want to see these cycles challenged, yet, in a way that is focused on affirming all that is good in lowland Khmer village life, in a way that pursues abundant life. We would like to prioritise trying to do this as a family and as neighbours (albeit strange ones!) first, and then as professionals second.
This is why we have provisionally called this venture “Friends of Village Life”, whether we live in a neighbourhood on the edge of a provincial town or in a village. In reality, it might take a few years to get to the village or it may just prove a step to far but that is the way we are headed as we start out.
The sub-title on our family web-log (see below) reads “just peace and joy”. This acknowledges that we are motivated by our experience of God’s compassion, and the influence of Jesus’ life and teachings on our faith. We are inspired by Jesus’ mission to be good news to the poor and to seek justice, harmony and joy; and we recognise we need to change our attitudes and ways (not other peoples) in order to do that.
Going interdependently
We are not going to Cambodia with any job or organisation but we are not going on our own or independently. We are confident to set out on this journey without a job or an organisation, even with such a young family (our second child will only be a few months old), because of our experience of the support and encouragement over the years of friends and family all around the world. We would like to encourage you to join or continue supporting and encouraging us in our move to Cambodia as we cannot do it alone.
We would like to invite you:
To write to, email and phone us
To come and visit us
To pray for us (if you are that way inclined)
To invest financially in this foundational first year
To be friends of village life too.......
