by Virginia Jama
What is mission? How does the adventure of working for the good of people and perhaps making some converts in a minority-Christian country play out in the Apostolic Prefecture of Battambang, the second city of Buddhist Cambodia?
During a monthlong visit earlier this year, I observed the functioning of a classic Catholic mission close up in three visits. Even that was not enough to see the ear clinic or watch pre-K children enjoying the rare playground. Cambodia is considered the poorest country in Southeast Asia, but it’s developing fast.
I went by tuk-tuk wagon to a Sunday morning Mass, as I had done on a previous visit to St. Augustine Church in Battambang. Clutching my Teva sandals, I grabbed a red chair in the back extended to me by a kind woman. Everyone else was sitting barefoot on the floor.
In Cambodia, 65% of the population is under the age of 30. All I saw were babies, toddlers, parents, and young people. The priest entered the church barefoot and in green robes. He spotted me in the back and told me he was Father Carlos from Colombia. Father Carlos led the Mass in the Khmer language.
There were two white-haired nuns on the front left. They later told me they were Sister Katie and Sister Maria from Support Cambodia, an agency in East Anglia, England, which contributes to the northwest Cambodia missions. Father Carlos gave a short summary of his homily in English for the benefit of foreign visitors. After Mass, Father Carlos started working with a group of 10 boys sitting in a circle on the floor.
After I called the mission during the week, Father Carlos agreed to meet with me and tell me more about what he was doing in this seemingly remote place. He told me he was Carlos Alvaro, a diocesan priest from Ipiales, Colombia, in the Andes Mountains. After he had lost three close colleagues to COVID-19, he decided to try a mission. China was not available, so he opted for Cambodia.
He then studied for three years, learning how to speak, read, and write Khmer, the official language of Cambodia. We sat under a canopy of trees in a little café on the grounds of the mission. He told me he had plenty of work there. On his days off at this mission, he travels to a village church, which started with three Catholics.
Every three years, he gets five months’ vacation. He spends some time at Our Saviour Church in the Bronx. The mission visit helped me understand the value of reaching out to people in far-flung places, doing good work, and speaking the words of the Gospel. Now that I am back in America, I remember.
Virginia Jama is a retired NYC educator and parishioner at St. Nicholas of Tolentine, Jamaica.