Hello 2012

10th January 2012

Greetings from a post-festive Phnom Penh! Hope this finds you well.

I'm writing from a cafe overlooking the river  where I cheered in the new year - a night full of laughs, cafes, crowds, fireworks, prayers, and hopes for things to come. Unfortunately my camera battery ran out so here's some photos I've just taken. Just imagine them with darker skies, loads more people, traffic, neon lights and you'll get the picture....... 

When I last wrote Mum had just arrived for a three week holiday so just to let you know, we had a great time! Loads of chat, cafes  and people. An evening of Scottish country dancing with Mum as the caller and me as the MC and a trip to the wilds of Mondulkiri in North Eastern Cambodia which for both of us, was the highlight. Me because of the elephant ride.....

And Mum because she got to fly her kite.................

The elephant ride was just for fun but the kite is something Mum takes with her when she travels and flies it as a way of praying for places and the people she meets. There's nothing special about the kite itself. I think she bought it in Lidls. It's just a way of engaging in prayer that she finds helpful and it was great to have a local herdsman help out at one point and make it fly when the pair of us were failing to get it even slightly air-bourne.

Another highlight was going to the local church and being the only Westerners there. Often churches in Cambodia have at least a few Westerners present, usually the founders or people in some kind of leadership role. But this one was led by a local man and almost the whole of the congregation took part which was great to see. And we received a very warm welcome plus sticky buns (aka squidgey bean curd cakes) afterwards so a very happy morning was had by all :-)

It was such a good time with Mum, I was sad to see her go, but as soon as she left I had to get things ready for a Christmas art/prayer installation a few days later so there was no time to mope...... Loads to do and in the end I pulled an almost-all-nighter to get it done. The idea was to have two seperate spaces for people to pray in and/or reflect on the Christmas story. The first space - The Prophets Said He Would Come - looked at the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures about Jesus coming to earth. The second space - The Prophets Said He Would Come And He Did - looked at  the stories of Angels in the Gospels whose words confirmed them. I can't take credit for the following visuals as I did most of the writing, but here's some of  my friends' work to give you a flavour of the thing:

And so to Christmas and all its celebrations.  First of all, the team party......... a festive mix of British, Canadian, American, Brazilian, Japanese and Indonesian food and frivolity. This year the favourite game was Father Christmas's Beard. Nowt to it but a can of shaving foam, plastic spoons and a steady hand............

And here's Christmas Day.... Good food, good friends and good cake (with marzipan!!! thanks be to Mum)....

The week in between was quiet but I was glad of the time and space to ponder and look back on a full, freeing, frustrating, inspiring, stretching, exciting and humbling year. Loads more I could say but I'll leave it at that for now until I next see you..........

So what's next? Well, this year I'll be doing less work with Love146 (just one training day a month) and lots of writing, research, gathering stories and making films for the World Horizons 30th birthday conference this August in Wales. Language still continues and I have my first exam this Friday!! Having faffed and fumbled with it for such a long time, I'm so pleased with how it's going. I'm  beginning to read and finally string words together and I'm even enjoying it so thank God for the right tutor at the right time. It's been the biggest breakthrough so far.

Anyway, I'll say cheerio for now as I think they may well kick me out of this cafe soon......... Sending lots of love as ever from Phnom Penh and huge blessings and Shalom for 2012.

Fiona xx