Jesuit Offset

The Jesuits in Cambodia have initiated a carbon offset programme in conjunction with the modest seedling nursery set up in Banteay Prieb, the Jesuit-run vocational school for people with disabilities, in late 2012. Primarily intended for Jesuits within the country, volunteers and visiting friends, the carbon offset programme provides an opportunity for air travellers to counterbalance the carbon emissions from their flights to or from Cambodia. “Hopefully, when our website is up and running this year, customers will be able to identify their trees and track their growth through periodically updated pictures. To date, we have 51 patrons, who have given a total of US$ 482.60 to the programme,” said Fr Gabriel (Gabby) Lamug-Nañawa SJ, who is part of the Ecology Programme team of Jesuit Service Cambodia. 

“The carbon offsetting program is merely a way to maximize the value of the trees we plant,” 

said Fr Gabby. “To be sure, we do not grow and plant trees in order to support a programme that offsets carbon emissions. Rather, we desire to plant as much trees and as many species as we can in communities that will care and protect them.” The growing of seedlings has now become an integral part of Banteay Prieb’s curriculum. In 2013, 22 agricultural students with disabilities spent three weeks of their school year in the nursery, learning about the techniques used in growing different native hardwood trees from seeds.

Link (here)

Thai-Cambodian Jesuit Ordained To The Priesthood

The Church in Cambodia has ordained the first Jesuit priest since the Church revived in the country during the early 1990s.

Father Phongphand Phokthavi, a Thai national, was ordained by Bishop Emile Destombes, apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, on May 24, in a special ceremony in Battambang attended by 2,000 people.

The ordination of Father Phongphand, 53, brings the number of Thai priests serving in Cambodia to four.

Ham Sok, one of the many people at the ordination, said the scale of the event was a sign that the Church in Cambodia is growing.

During the ceremony, Jesuit Monsignor Enrique Figaredo, apostolic prefect of Battambang, said Father Phongphand "always gives himself to others, loves the poor and encourages people who have lost hope."

The monsignor, who has known the priest for 20 years, cited one occasion when Father Phongphand saw some people without shoes and offered them his own, saying, "I have another pair."

Cambodia has a special place in the Thai priest's heart. During the 1980s he helped Cambodian refugees in Thailand while working with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). Later in the 1990s he went to Cambodia with returning refugees and helped build a vocational center for the disabled near Phnom Penh.

Link (here)

Jesuit NGO Run By Sister Denise Coughlan

Border camps, Buddhism and building a mission

Sister Denise Coughlan, director of the Jesuit-backed NGO Jesuit Services, in Cambodia is interviewed at the group's office in Tuol Kork district. More (here) and (here) on Sister Coughlan


I imagine that religious organizations run a fine line between performing charity work and proselytizing - of producing "rice Christians". How do you perceive this challenge?

I am absolutely and utterly opposed to that sort of approach. We say in our mission statement that we're here for the people of Cambodia, especially those in greatest need. We've made a definite effort to include on our staff Buddhists and Christians, women and men, refugees and nonrefugees, people with disabilities and those without.

We don't proselytize at all.

Sometimes people are attracted to [Catholicism] and I'm happy if they are, but we certainly don't have any mass baptisms.

Link (here) to the full and compelling interview/article.

Jesuit Mission In Cambodia

Richard Fernando, SJ

1970 –1996

In 1996 Richie Fernando SJ was killed aged 26 years by a hand grenade released by a student in the Jesuit Refugee Service technical school for the handicapped near Phnom Penh. On January 3, 1996 Richie wrote in his diary:

"I wish, when I die, people remember not how great, powerful, or talented I was, but that I served and spoke for the truth, I gave witness to what is right, I was sincere in all my works and actions, in other words, I loved and I followed Christ."

Richie Fernando was a long way from home. He was a Filipino Jesuit in Buddhist Cambodia. He was educated and full of promise in a camp where refugees maimed by bullets and land mines and scarred by hunger and disease fought for hope. He loved life in a land where life was hard and death nearby.

Richie went to Cambodia in May 1995 as part of his Jesuit training. He had entered the Society in 1990 and finished the novitiate and collegiate studies. Before going on to theology studies and ordination, he was sent to work at Banteay Prieb, a Jesuit technical school for the handicapped not far from Phnom Penh.

Banteay Prieb describes itself as a "place that enables the disabled to tell their own stories, to gather strength and hope from being with one another, and to learn a new skill that enhances a sense of dignity and worth." Here people disabled by landmines, polio, and accidents learn skills that allow them to earn a living. Banteay Prieb means "the Center of the Dove."

Read the rest of Ritchie's story (here)

Hat Tip to Ignaciophile from Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Daniel Liew's (here) post is entitled, Finding God in all things - Day 1

Daniel talks about his first experiences in a Jesuit retreat/vocations program in Singapore