Learning to see how future trips could be used to mutually transform lives, while supporting Cambodian creation care efforts.
“One doesn’t hear much about Cambodia in our news”, a regretful comment by our team leader. Spending two weeks in the country with months of preparation culminated in an immersive cultural experience. One really had to be there to experience the daily struggles and witness the constant frustrations of a country lacking support from its government to improve the lives of its own people.
With this as a backdrop, I had the opportunity to work with a Cambodian NGO founded by Leakhana and Kevin Knight, Manna4Life, on a new venture, as they develop their environmental stewardship plans from a faith-based perspective. As a partner missions organization of Tenth Church, they heard about A Rocha’s involvement creating a faith-based Community Garden at Tenth, and wanted to connect along a similar desire of growing good food within their community!
Currently, there is little Christian teaching in Cambodia that shares about God’s redemptive plan to restore what He created, and how we, created in God’s image have the responsibility to care for the earth. We were able to kick-start this with our ‘missions’ trip and share a week’s worth of devotionals, starting in Genesis and ending in Revelation for a quick 101.
Half of our time there was spent learning with the Manna4Life co-founders, seeing examples of sustainable agriculture and livestock production that could be implemented at their future village farm. And this became a learning highlight, especially seeing tropical plants and agriculture grown organically.
We were lucky to visit a range of sites from rural settings to connecting with young students at the University of Agriculture in Phnom Penh. See some of my pictures of my experience. Ironically, we were there at the delayed start of their cooler, rainy season, which is when they would plant crops such as beans and squash – plants that we would consider hot weather crops for us in Canada!
Now back in Vancouver we will take some time to discern how future groups from our Church could be involved in supporting creation care efforts with Manna4Life.
