The Gratitude Challenge

Along with many others, I have been "nominated" to do the Gratitude Challenge. Accepted! Every day this week I've written down three things I am thankful for - here they are!

Monday:

1. An AMAZING church/home group community here in Phnom Penh. I feel challenged, heard, and loved by this group, and even though the transience that is normal of expat community is difficult, I wouldn't trade it for anything.
2. Skype, What's App, Facebook, email: they don't (and can't) replace in-person conversations and quality time, but they sure make living on the other side of the world more bearable.
3. Air conditioning. I know this might sound frivolous but I really don't think my Canadian body will ever truly adapt to the tropical climate! Now that I'm pregnant, I appreciate it all the more, and I am thankful that we can afford to live in and go to places that have air con.

Home group trip to Kep, on the Cambodian seaside, in February of this
year. The transience of expat life is demonstrated by the fact that half
this group is no longer in Cambodia! We are so grateful for this
community, whether they are here or not!

Tuesday:

1. A healthy foetus. Every time I go to a prenatal appointment, I am so thankful that Squeege is growing, moving, and healthy. S/he is a wiggler, just like Saméa was... very suspicious ;)
2. A toddler who sleeps long and well: We made sure of this from a very young age and I am so thankful we did! She goes to bed around 6:30 every night and sleeps (or stays in her room) until past 7:00 every morning - what a joy!
3. A wonderful husband who loves being a father: I love that we take equal responsibility in childcare, and how his (and our) worldview on marriage and parenting mean that I get to develop in my career while also having young children. I am keenly aware that I am of a privileged society and generation that enables this worldview.

My beautiful family, for whom I am thankful every day!

Wednesday:

1. A career where I often feel challenged: even though consultancy work sometimes wears on me, I am grateful for the opportunities to stretch myself and learn as I go. This week I am writing an NGO partnership contract full of legal jargon, leading a Focus Group Discussion on Khmer staff perceptions of volunteer impact, completing a Letter of Interest for a grant for organisational development and capacity building, and finalising the preliminary framework for a macro-assessment database on the Cambodian development landscape. Definitely enough to keep me busy!
2. A stimulating and fun book club with my Chab Dai colleagues: every Wednesday, we get together for lunch to discuss our current chapter. We vote on which books to read and take turns leading discussion. So far this year we've read Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (see our team's blog post about it here) and Brysk & Choi-Fitzpatrick's From Human Trafficking to Human Rights. This week we're starting Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
3. The freedom to dream about where my career is headed: unlike many people around the world, I will not have to have the same job my whole life. I have plans and dreams and I can make them happen. Yes, I work hard, but I am also just really lucky to have been born and raised in a country and family that gave me opportunities to learn and grow and build a good resume. And for that I am incredibly grateful.

Our weekly Chab Dai book club meeting at Alma Cafe

Thursday:

1. All the wonderful ladies in my life! I have a group of best friends back home who have loved and accepted me for over a decade, and still keep in touch even though I live across the ocean. I also have amazing girlfriends here in Phnom Penh who understand me and do life with me in such beautiful and authentic ways. 
2. The women in my family, especially my Mom, who have shown me what it means to be a strong woman, how to live out my faith in deep ways, how to pursue excellence and honesty. 
3. My Dad: For raising my sisters and me with "I love you more today than I did yesterday and there is nothing you can ever do to change my love for you" and giving us the choice between the oak tree and the flower. For continuing to challenge me and allowing himself to be challenged by me. For being a feminist without needing the label. 

With my Mom and sisters in Hawaii last year

Friday:

1. My Christian upbringing: some say that the only reason I am a Christian as an adult is because I was raised Christian and, frankly, I don't care. Aren't we all influenced in some way by the values and habits that were instilled in us as children? I am thankful that my parents raised me to know and experience God's grace, and also taught me to think critically so I could make my faith my own.
2. Books: All the books! I am grateful for being literate and able to enjoy, learn from, and lose myself in books. Fiction, non-fiction, theological, fun, challenging - I love being a reader! I guess that's why I'm already in two book clubs and want to start a third!
3. Airplanes: When Charlie's grandparents left Manitoba with their kids and headed to Greece to work with MCC, not only did the journey take days and days, but they left knowing they would not see their friends and family for years to come. Even though we can't afford to fly home as often as we would like, it is much easier and more realistic to see our home community more often. We have a couple friends who have already been to see us twice in 2 years! How amazing is that?!

Yes, this is me reading an e-book on the laptop.
It was a graphic novel and the pages were bigger
and better by turning the laptop sideways!

So that's it! Just a few of the things that I am thankful for. How about you?

September 2014 Newsletter

Books We Love

Charlie and I both LOVE to read. Our reading styles are very different; if I love what I'm reading, I'll say, "Charlie, you have to read this book!" upon which he will either later read or not read the book in question. On the other hand, if Charlie is enjoying what he's reading, he likes to interrupt whatever I'm doing to read whole excerpts aloud to me, upon which I either graciously stop what I'm doing and listen, or snap, "Just a minute!" and proceed to listen or not listen to what he's saying.

It's not a perfect system. But we're working on it.

And we both LOVE to read!

And so, in honour of our love of the written word, here are our respective Top 10 Books That Have Had a Lasting Impact on Our Lives.

Julia

It took me a while to be OK with making this list, and then I remembered that I don't have to commit to it forever and ever, and I acknowledge that it may change, A LOT, in years to come. My main method for choosing my books was to choose ones that I enjoy going back to read wether in whole or in part, or books that touched me deeply and I kept thinking about long after finishing them. So here goes, and in no particular order:

1. Walking With the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development by Bryant Myers
2. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
4. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
6. Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth by Richard J. Foster
7. The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis
8. The Giver by Lois Lowry
9. Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee & Esther Duflo
10. The Holy Bible, New Revised Standard Version

Charlie

1. Dune by Frank Herbert 
2. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
3. Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Friere
4. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
5. Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
6. Walking with the Poor by Bryant L. Myers
7. Ordering your Private World by Gordon MacDonald
8. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
9.  Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
10. The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs

Things I do regularly in Cambodia that could get me arrested in Canada

AKA "Things that keep my Mom's prayer life rich and committed" (you're welcome, Mom!)

• Driving into oncoming traffic: The easiest way to turn a corner here is to hug the corner closely and weave your way through traffic into your desired lane, even if that means turning left into oncoming traffic. Linked to this is a nonchalance about having other vehicles driving towards me in my lane of traffic. I think it makes my driving better and instincts more alert!
• Wearing my toddler in a backpack carrier, while driving my moto: She still wears a helmet! And this is better than the alternatives other Khmer families opt for, including having small children stand between the driver and the passenger.
• Jay walking: OK, I wouldn't get arrested for this one back home, but here I am taking my life in my hands a little more by doing it. You see, as a pedestrian, I am never afforded right of way, but instead am seen as the very bottom of the road traffic food chain. Bicycles, motos, tuktuks, cars, SUVs, and trucks are all above me and, therefore, see no need to stop to let me cross. I see my jay walking in Montreal as a kind of soft training for Phnom Penh jay walking.
• I let restaurant staff take care of my toddler while I eat: Maybe I should be teaching my daughter a little more about stranger danger, but it's just so nice to walk into a restaurant and have her whisked away into the kitchen or other room to be entertained and fawned over while Charlie and I have a nice quiet meal. Who turns down free childcare?
• We rarely put our toddler in a car seat: We rarely travel in cars, but when we do we're either going somewhere in town in a friend's car or in a hired van to go out of town, and in both cases, there is rarely enough room to put a car seat and all the passengers. So lap sitting it is. She's in for a rude awakening when we go back to Canada.

I do not feel cavalier about many of these things, some I am 100% fine with, others make me a little nervous. On the one hand, it's nice to live somewhere where regulations haven't gone completely crazy. On the other, I am keenly aware that there are more traffic-related accidents and deaths in Cambodia than anywhere else in the region. This is just the way we live. We are as careful as the circumstances allow, and trust our family will be protected.