Phuket Pics

This island in Thailand is a perfect place meet friends, meet ya bro, swim, surf, run, eat Pad Thai, drink iced coffees, nap, read, watch DVDs... and spend a few seconds pitying all your mates in Sydney, Melbs & RAdelaide who are freezing in winter ; )

Phuket Pics

Adults' tourni Finals

On Sunday June 12, I was running a half marathon in Thailand. Meanwhile, our staff were making sure everything went smoothly for the finals of the Adults' Football Tournament.

They hosted the referees at our office/ my home, set up the equipment, made sure the fields were prepared, checked player's documentation, introduced the teams, played the national anthem, made speeches, made sure the event started and finished on time, interviewed the team captains about their experiences in playing in the tournament, took photos of the event, presented the trophy and prizes to the winning teams etc. etc. etc.

A Canadian friend who dropped by just to check it out was impressed by how professionally it was organised. Yay team! (I had no doubts you guys would pull it off.)

Adults' Tourni Finals

Enthusiasm

It is impossible to overstate the excitement of the Bridge of Life Under 13s team as they prepared for the Regional Championships last Saturday, June 18. The three winning teams from Poipet (Under 17s, Under 13s and Girls) met the other first-placed teams from Pailin and Battambang for the holiday tournament. The boys were told a month before about the upcoming Championship. Thirty whole days of waiting! Hundreds and thousands of hours and minutes to wonder what it will be like to compete against teams from neighbouring Provinces!

Our Sports Coordinator, Chanthy, was worried that the youngest team might sleep in and miss the 5am departure. So rather than risk missing the bus, he invited the crew for a sleepover at our home/ office the night before! We borrowed mattresses and spread them out across the floor. The soccer players were supposed to come at 7pm, after dinner, but they started gathering from 2pm. (That's keen!) No surprise, then, that they found it difficult to get a full night's sleep. Phoeurn also crashed at our house to help supervise and, since all of the kids were awake at 2:30am, he grabbed a whiteboard and talked soccer strategy. At 3am they tried to sleep again but by 4am they all up, dressed and ready to go!

The Under 17s and Under 13s lost both of their games but gained experience through playing better teams. (Maybe they will do better next year if they get more than a couple of hours of sleep the night before?!) The Girls had a friendly match and they won that game. Win, lose, whatever... the kids and teenagers had a great time.

Lost: God

When was the last time you were sitting in your favourite coffee place and a stranger walked over to ask if you could help his search for God? Yeah.. I know.. this doesn't so much happen on a regular basis but it did happen to me last night. I don't think I have any special, holy glow about me so it was kinda cool that a Cambodian guy in his late twenties would sit down with his hot drink and doughnut to talk faith.

I discovered that he's been working in Poipet for almost a year and decided just last week that he wanted to know God. The Christian God. 'Dy' asked around and a friend of a friend of a friend thought he knew of a church in Poipet. On Saturday he went looking for the church but couldn't find it. When he saw me in the coffee shop he decided to take a punt. Do you speak Khmer? Do you mind if I sit down? Are you a Christian? Great! Because I want to find God.

Anyway, an hour later we had talked about life, religion, sport, work, Jesus, the bible and etc. We exchanged numbers and I will give Dy a bible and information about local bible study groups and church services. The funny thing was that Dy also asked if I get many strangers asking me similar kinds of questions? Umm...not so much.

adults tourni 2011

Last night we had a thank you dinner for the referees, assistants and team leaders who've been involved with the adults football over the past six weekends. It was a fun time to hang out, drink soft drinks, talk about highlights & lowlights from the tournament and eat together at a nearby restaurant.

It was also an opportunity to ask for feedback. We can think that we're doing an okay job, but it was helpful to do a quick survey to check. We read that the referees have gained knowledge and experience from the training and practical opportunities given to them in May & June. Some wrote about growing their competence and confidence as team leaders, others wrote about things coming together for them in terms of using the whistle to stop play, using hand signals to communicate their decisions etc when they ref games. They all agreed that adults tournaments have social & health benefits. Some wrote that it helps them and their peers stay away from drugs. Other said it gives them something positive to do rather than engaging in "immoral behaviour".

I thanked the referees last night and today I want to thank everyone who donates to our sports projects. May these smiles bless you!

PS Finals for the adults tourni are this Sunday.

Event of the Week

Cults, Religion and Boredom

Yesterday I joined a meeting with Pastors, Church leaders and Christian NGOs. Our hosts: the Provincial Government leaders from the Ministry of Cults and Religion. (Yeah, I know... established, mainstream denominations and kooky cults are on a level playing field in Cambodia!) The purpose of the meeting was to tell us all that Churches need to be registered. Fair enough. I would have been okay with an email but communicating this message in the local style required a full-day conference in the Provincial Capital.

It was boring. Don't get me wrong... I did learn some stuff. I now understand that if a church has a sign in a foreign language as well as in Khmer then the Khmer script must be at least one-third larger than the foreign letters. I learned that a new Christian church cannot be started within 2km of an existing church. Our attention was drawn to a 2003 document that states that Christians are forbidden to sit and wait and use the words, "God has come already." (Maybe this was a reference to the latest End Of The World predictions late last month?) Anyway...

On the whole it was boring. But that's one of the reasons I went. If I'm going to send a staff member to these public meetings I should be willing to endure one occasionally. I took notes. Last night I reviewed the single page of scribble that read: "I'm so tired... Jesus is NOT coming back on May 21. I will not sleeb todxyx__....." I blame the hot weather and the early start from Poipet with no time for coffee. I put it down to not sitting directly under a fan and having to sit through long speeches in formal Khmer.

But I guess we all have parts of our work that are boring?