6th April, 2022 is a special day for Jesuit Mission Cambodia.  Some of us accompanied Chanra Tieng to the airport to wish him ‘farewell’ as he travels via Bangkok to Myanmar to begin his Novitiate.  This will mean that Jesuit Mission Cambodia will now have 3 Jesuits who are Cambodian nationals.  In the photo below we see some of the Jesuits who were there as also one of the candidates and especially the older brother of Chanra who is a Buddhist Monk.

My contact with Chanra began in 2018 when he was living in the Candidates’ house “Koun Prieb”.  He was studying Engineering.  Besides attending classes he would come regularly to Prieb So, where I was then based, in order to improve his English.  This is very much needed for those who would join the Jesuits and would need to go abroad for their Novitiate and further studies in Philosophy and Theology.  He was very regular to say the least.

The method that I used was not Standard English lessons.  I would print out some very short stories, about 1 page, which had some moral values in them.  Each story did have many words which he had not heard before.  What I told him was that he needed to understand the gist of the story and try and learn one new word every day.  The next day he would have to tell me that story in his own words before I took up a new story.

After some months there was a break as he had another assignment and I had to move to Sisophon in October 2020.  In mid-2021 Chanra was assigned to stay at Xavier House which is the Residence of Jesuits and Volunteers attached to Xavier Jesuit School in Sisophon.  Our English classes began again using the same method as used before.  As remarked by him and others who were in contact with him his communication skills had improved considerably.  I wish him all the best as he begins his Novitiate in Myanmar soon.