Good evening dear Family and Friends
I’ve been reading “Grace Notes”by Philip Yancy for
morning devotions. This touched my heart this morning: “Ron then mentioned a
prisoner in India who had returned to jail scores of times over a 21 year span.
The criminal simply could not break the cycle, until he found Christ. Puzzled
by his absence in court, the local magistrate visited the man’s home and asked
what had happened. “For the 1st time in my life, someone forgave me,”
the ex-prisoner answered.
Thank you for
praying for the The Acts program. We are conducting Camps during the school
holidays. Last week it was for the Primary students and early secondary and
this week is for the secondary and high school students. The theme of the camp
is "Love yourself and others". The students enjoy all the different
activities and open up during small groups. Today the lessons focused on Self
Awareness. Many students share how they are compared to other better achievers
in the family and feel like they are not good enough. They also share that they
don't have confidence in school to share their ideas or speak up as others
bully them. The topics for the rest of
the week are emotional intelligence, empathy, active listening, social
responsibility and impact. Please pray that this will be a time of
encouragement and growth for our students.
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.
https://publicholidays.asia/cambodia/pchum-ben/
As you can see this is a very significant festival in
Cambodia and for Cambodian Christians it can be a very hard time as they need
to partake in festivities as this is big tradition. Pray for safety on the
roads as so many people will travel this time.
Thank you for praying with us.
Love
Rossouw-clan
No comments:
Post a Comment