In a country where only around one percent of the population is Christian, it comes as no surprise that Christmas is not a big public celebration, or even a national holiday. However, as the forces of globalisation penetrate Cambodia, Santa Claus, tinsel and Christmas trees are becoming an increasingly common sight, at least in the capital.

Prach Chantheun, 24, works at a popular cafe serving locals and expatriates alike. He explains that for Christmas, his foreign employers will organise a party for all staff members.

“With my friends, we also go shopping, exchange cards and buy presents, as well as go eating, drinking and clubbing,” he said.

He describes Christmas as a happy time, acknowledging that the concept is foreign but adding that many Cambodian high school students, in particular, like to celebrate the event.

“Last year, I went to church with my friend who is a Christian, so I know about Jesus and why Christmas is celebrated,” he said.

Others are less aware.
A colleague of Prach Chantheun said, “I know Christmas because of Santa Claus. It is a happy time but no, I don’t know anything about Jesus or the religious aspect,” Chantheun’s colleague said.

“Commerce is taking over everything, ” he said. “Though I suppose that’s part of the modern mentality - make more money. I am worried that we are losing the real meaning of things and that we miss the deep message [of Christmas].”

Members of his congregation are less concerned. Uch Maly, who joined the Catholic faith some 15 years ago, acknowledges that many Cambodians celebrate Christmas merely as a happy occasion, but he sees no problem with that.

“It’s good, it develops people and encourages them to think about others,” she said. “Since I became a Christian, there has been a big opening of minds about the celebration, and Christmas is now featured in hotels, stores and on TV.”

Fellow believer Duong Savong, Catholic since 1995, stresses the responsibility the church has in explaining the true significance of Christmas. “At a general level, it is good that people celebrate, as they want peace in their hearts. But the church must enlighten them to what it is all about, that God sent his son to the earth to save us,” he said.

At the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Tuol Kork, pastors Lim Pheng and Pech Sopheng describe Christmas as a time for spreading the good news, reminding believers of the birth of Jesus and his second coming.

“At our church, we will celebrate with a meal, the nativity play, Bible games and an exchange of gifts,” Lim Pheng said. “We expect around 300 people to come, some bringing non-Christian friends along as well.”

Like Father Bob, Lim Pheng and Pech Sopheng worry that the meaning of Christmas is being lost amid its popularisation. “Many connect Santa Claus with the Christian message,” said Lim Pheng. “In the past five years, I have seen a big change in popular attitudes towards Christmas. The commercial idea has really picked up, though mainly in Phnom Penh and other bigger cities.”

“At home, we prepare the tree, decorate it and buy presents,” said Lim Phousimalis, coordinator of nurturing Christian commitment at faith-based NGO Hagar.

While most of  Lim Phousimalis’s  family is Christian, she explains that even non-Christian members of her family, as well as neighbours and friends, join in the celebrations. “I think the message of Jesus is powerful, even if you don’t know about him. He was born in poverty and had a difficult life. I think many Cambodians can relate to that,” she said.

Christmas celebrations
As Christmas carols bellow out in malls around town and shops such as IBC and Peace Book Centre stock a wide array of trees, glitter, human-sized Santas and other Christmas paraphernalia, it is clear the holiday is becoming increasingly established in Cambodia. Even local markets and small corner shops sell Christmas-related items.

Unlike Christmas traditions in many Western countries, however, there are no customs of serving particular foods to top off the party. At the Adventist church, pastor Lim Pheng says they usually serve special Christmas curry with French bread. At Lim Phousimalis’s house, the big spread includes beef lok lak and seafood.

Mass in Khmer will be held at St Joseph’s parish on the 24th at 6pm, and the 25th at 8am. Some 1, 500 members of the congregation are expected to attend. In the run-up to this climax of the Christian calendar, more spiritual activities have also been arranged to prepare the faithful for the event.

“At our church, we also raise money for the poor. This year, the money will go towards building houses,” explained Duong Savong. “The most important message is to tell people, not just through words but actions as well, that their lives are valuable, that despite all the corruption and other problems in our country, there is value to our lives.”

Read from source PPpost

Have you proposed or someone proposed you a Christmas yet for this year? I guess if not then you should do that to plan your hiliday before end of year. Christmas is fun if you can have lots of game and activities with big group of people.

For those of you who don’t want many people at the party, you might think of any creative thing to do like making a special meet up with your family, friends, relatives or your special one. I’m sure you know what to plan better than i am.

End of year this year for me there are many works waiting to be done. And tomorrow will be the last day of work for 2008. So i have a long holidays. Everything have to neatly done by tomorrow and then enjoy my holidays until Jan 4th.

My previous plan for Christmas that were done 12 Course of Buffet for Christmas Dinner Party, my wish that i treated myself a few weeks ago that was my original plan to Planning for Christmas Season 2008 and Welcoming New Year 2009, and then HTC Touch Diamond My Wish List For Purchase in Christmas Season this Year and what kind of gift should you get for your someone this year with some thought of Diamond Gift Christmas Present.

During this time, i proposed some of my friends to make a party at home. It is still in the process. Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to everyone of you!

This handy dictionary was first published for the public in September 2004. As we understand in the Cambodian society during the last ten years, the peace sector in Cambodia has been significantly developed. Among those active institution, the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI) has been very keen and active to produce the text book and this dictionary aim to support the peace and the development of Cambodia.

All the fundamental and basic foundation to peace building, the lexicon contribute the keypoint to develop the building sector for long lasting in Cambodia.

The existing of this lexicon were suggested and contributed by the core participant from the training course of Conflict resolution from 1997 to 1998 by the Cambodian Centre for conflict Resolution in conjunction with the Uk English with Khmer translation was the first of its kind in Cambodia.

This peace lexicon part one in English – Khmer is provided for free download on the internet with the following address. Get you own copy of the part one lexicon of peace building and conflict resolution for your future reference. We thanks for all the hard work to make it available to be used widely in the purpose of peace building in Cambodia.

The concept of the community development is talking about the poor or underdeveloping country where practitioners are in active (who I prefer to call community worker) are face with every daunting tasks of helping a community to help itself or getting a community project on going.

At any stage community development is a learning process. Community development is a collective in action where community need oriented. It needs the objective oriented. The ideal community would be flexible, good leadership, good human relations, rich in self-esteem, social and physical basic infrastructure, participation at all levels, initiative, able to identify needs, uses available resources, feeling of togetherness, and good communication. In this term a community development leads to further development.

What are the main actions in community development?

It should become clear that ordinary people play the important role as the primary key to contribute to community development.

The action will be in group or either individual as a community worker. So in conclusion, should be aware with these advices by go to the people, live among the people, learn from the people, plan with the people, work with the people, start with what the people know, build on what the people have, teach by showing and learning by doing, not a showcase but a pattern, not odds and ends but a system, not a piecemeal but an integrated approach, not to conform but to transform, not relief but release.

In the first chapter, it shows the remarkable change and transformation of th Tangababwe Christian Fellowship(TCF) that mentioned about the division and corruption in the country. Because of these bad things it had lost all the credibility with its members and the donor stayed away from them. This booklet asks the important question to reveal its nature in order to bring change and trust to gain it credibility back for the future development and sustainability.

By sticking on the current thinking on spirituality in organization, chapter 2, explains the mainstreaming spirituality in management for the effectiveness in the organization. And also address the important of why is spirituality moving into the mainstreaming that we need to find out to enter into the management area. The additional task that needs to point out is about what is meant by spirituality where part of the sensitivity and disagreement over spirituality in organization arises from the wide variety of definitions that people have when using the words spirit and spirituality. The vision and values, service an love for others, empowering others, relationships of trust, changing from within, courage to overcome fears, and a divine spark or energy is to tell what are the spiritual elements of organization are.

Toward the biblical approach change by looking into the biblical principles of change, biblical elements in a change process are discussed in chapter 3. Then followed by chapter 4 that talks about when the bishops repented the resurrection of an organization. Can you imagine the power of a Christian approach to Organization development? It is all about depends on God’s power to spark change, believes the gift of grace is at the core of change, creates space for God’s grace, listens to God, prays for change, focuses on life-giving, spiritual elements of organizations, follows a biblical process of change, internalizes change, explicitly aims to integrate the spiritual dimension to change is professionally excellent.

At the last chapter of chapter 6, discussed about creating more space for grace where in details explains the implications for leaders as leadership is difficult. It is a divine, but daunting calling that almost always involves considerable hardship and sacrifice. After all creating space for God’s grace, praying for change, focusing on life-giving, spiritual elements of organizations, internalizing change, explicitly aiming to integrate the spiritual dimension to changes. Those are very critical questions for faith-based international NGOs.

Because of those basic thing, people tend to forget it and look for a better on with new model, brand with camera, flash, 3g, voice record, video, music…etc.

Why need to spend more for phone?

It is hard question to answer. The simplest way to answer is because people like to spend money and to compete with one another in this world.

What is the important of smart to you?

So now what are the reason behind that cause you want to use smart phone instead of normal phone or the cheap one?

In some certain point of time there were/are event and trends occured to people lives on this earth.

Here is some brief from Wikipedia for more details:

• 1006 BC — David becomes king of the ancient Israelites (traditional date).
• 1002 BC — Death of Zhou zhao wang, King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.
• 1001 BC — Zhou mo wang becomes King of the Zhou Dynasty of China.
• Earliest evidence of farming in the Kenya highlands.
• c. 1000 BC — Bronze Age ends.
• c. 1000 BC — Latins come to Italy from the Danube region.
• c. 1000 BC — Archaeological evidence obtained from inscriptions excavated in 2005 dates the Tamil language, a classical language spoken in India.
• c. 1000 BC — Assyrians started to conquer neighbouring regions.
• 1000 BC — World population: 50,000,000^[1]
• 1000 BC — Priene, Western Turkey is founded.
• c. 1000 BC — Hungarian separates from its closest linguistic relatives, the Ob-Ugric languages.
• c. 1000 BC — Saul.
• c. 1000 BC — Ancient Iranian peoples enter Persia.
• c. 1000 BC — Iron is introduced in Ancient India.
• Phoenician alphabet is invented.

If you travel on the road in Phnom Penh don’t forget to look around at the back of the tuktuk and you will surely find the ads. Even more popular because now they have the website for gays haha.

You may wondering why i post this article about gay. Well, because i noticed that i once posted the article about MstyleKhmer.com Man who love man and it attract many visitor to my website. So just want to mention it again here. From your idea related to human right how do you think about gay? Any idea to share?