The 15-day Pchum Ben festival is underway in
Cambodia. Pchum Ben is a public holiday in Cambodia that follows the period
called “Vassa,” a kind of “Buddhist Lent,” and has been kept with great
devotion by the Khmer people for longer than anyone can remember.
In essence, Pchum Ben is a time to remember,
venerate, and present food offerings to one’s deceased relatives. Ancestors are
honoured going back as far as seven generations, and offerings are also brought
for those without living descendants or in place of those who could not attend
the ceremonies. Celebrants rise early in the morning to cook rice balls and
other food items, which they bring to the monks at temples and pagodas. The
monks chant suttas (Buddhist scriptures) all night without sleeping, then
conduct the colourful and complex food offering ceremonies. Some Khmer give the
food to the priests, while others leave it at pagodas for their deceased
relatives to eat or cast it into a field for them to find. The first fourteen
days see many offerings made, but it is the final, fifteenth day, that is the
grand culmination of the whole period.
Pchum Ben is also the time when the “gates of hell”
are supposed to open and let out those imprisoned there to travel to the land
of the living to receive food from their relatives. Some are let out only
temporarily, while others are thought to gain permanent relief. Offerers
believe they receive merits by helping the dead and blessings from them but
curses if they fail in their familial duty.
Cambodians all over the country will travel to their
home provinces for Pchum Ben, and there are services in many towns and
villages. Most ceremonies involve processions around temples and crowds that
wait outside with lit incense in hand as the monks perform rituals inside. There
are also symbolic events where five mounds of sand or rice are formed and
decorated in an effort to point to Mount Meru, where various Buddhist gods are
thought to reside.
Pray with us at this time ... that more and more
Cambodians will discover the true light of Jesus Christ, who satisfies fully,
giving perfect peace in this life and beyond the grave.
Please continue to pray for Fe:
2nd Chemo (20more to go!
PRAISES... PRAISES...
God provided Genoveva Palalay and Lovely
to pick me up from the Mission House. We had breakfast together.Then Ruby C.
Malonzo , my Carer met us at the hospital.
The chemo went well and fast...fewer
patients came due to flooding that happened days before that.
Slochin Gragas prepared dinner for me...
Sacrificed her meetings because I'm alone.
I slept after chemo for 4hours and that
was a good boost to my energy now.
PRAYERS...
I will be travelling to Iloilo city on
Sept 18. Need to be refreshed with a change of environment, having my family
and friends around. Praying for good weather, health and protection as I
travel.
Let me share to you my PRAYERS OF
THANKSGIVING FOR EVERYONE who is part of my journey. (Philippians 1:3-6)
I thank God everytime I remember you. In
all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your
partnership with the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of
this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until
the day of Christ Jesus.
Blessings to you all!
Very good friends of us, Kwan and Bruce, in the USA are asking for prayer for their
little daughter.
Prayer request: Chloé has fever 101.6.
She prob have another UTI, please pray that the urologist will schedule her
appointment and fit her in for a test sometime next week, so that they can confirm
that she has kidney reflect and can have an outpatient surgery done to fix it
before we have to leave for Thailand and mission trip in Cambodia on Oct 26.
Thank you so much. I covet all your prayers.
Our friends Jacob and Carmen updated their Blog:
So many people need prayer as their loved ones died.
Pray for Gawie and Dina Joubert in Botswana. Their son went to the Lord in this
last week. Also pray for Johnny and Hannelie Lofty- Eaton, her dad just died a
few days ago. Mordegai’s mum, ouma Matra, needs also some prayer as her best
friend, anti Sannie, died right in front of her while they were having tea.
Pray also for my good friend Johann Coetzee as his wife Annemarie past away
after a long fight with cancer.
Gideon and I decided to shave our heads in support
of all our friends that struggled with Cancer. There are so many of them. Makes
me sad to see my friends going through that.
The Rossouws are coping with new computer skills
that need to be learned, never know that some of those things exist at all.
Growing up in Namibia where computers are not on top of our lists of doing
things, it is a new learning curve for us. We take this week’s holiday to catch
up on left behind homework and hope the boys will not hold that against us one
day.
I know I say it every Monday but I mean it. Thank
you for praying for us. While reading to the boys the other night, I told them
that they are very privilege kids to have so many people praying for them.
Thank you very much.
Love
Rossouw-clan
