Luem spends time helping those infected like him

This is Luem Laom. He was one of the first of 275 in his village in Cambodia to be diagnosed with HIV. That was in December last year. 

 

Out of his immediate 8 family members, 4 of also tested positive with the virus. Luem now helps out as a volunteer offering support and counseling to other affected families.

According to the Cambodian authorities, an unlicensed doctor who re-used syringes and other medical equipment was responsible for spreading the infection to unsuspecting victims. 

Catholic Mission is committed in providing support of these victims of HIV through supporting its local partner, the Apostolic Prefecture of Battambang, provide Emergency support services. To ensure this project can continue to provide those people affected with AIDS and other chronic diseases in village of Roka and their families, with different tools to help overcome the difficulties they face, we are looking to raise $45,000.

If you can support this cause, click on the link below and go through the various fields. At the bottom of the page, where it has a box for you to give a bit more information, please mention this post and indicate your contribution is for the village in Cambodia. Tell them 'David in Brisbane sent us'. And thanks, on behalf of those inadvertently affected by this awful disease. 

https://www.catholicmission.org.au/donate

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Huen's hospital visits are taking a toll

Huen is the wife of the Chief of Roka village. As Chief, her husband combines this responsibility with being a farmer in order to provide their family with sufficient income. Huen is the mother to four children, each of which have been diagnosed with HIV, including herself.

In February, they joined the powder milk program of the Catholic Church’s Health Centre which provides powdered milk to mothers with infant babies and monitors there nutrition and weight.

Huen family is now struggling to survive as she has had to stop working. Every month, she must travel to and from the Provincial Hospital 15 km away is to receive monthly medication for herself and her four children. If they eventually get sick, they will have no support for any sort of transportation to the hospital.  

Huen’s main priority right now is to assure a clean house and access to clean water and food on a daily basis for her family.

If you can support this cause, click on the link below and go through the various fields. At the bottom of the page, where it has a box for you to give a bit more information, please mention this post and indicate your contribution is for the village in Cambodia. Tell them 'David in Brisbane sent us'. And thanks, on behalf of those inadvertently affected by this awful disease. 

https://www.catholicmission.org.au/donate

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Despite 'love and care', doctor still spreads HIV among villagers

 The focus for today's post is on Kuu Mau (pictured above). He is the head of his family. Like many of the other people in his village, he also has contracted HIV. As a HIV sufferer himself, what saddens him most is having to witness his 15 year old granddaughter also being diagnosed with the virus.Their home was scarce meters away from the house of the unlicensed doctor who allegedly brought the virus to the Commune. 

Mau knew this doctor personally for many years, so he was especially surprised to hear that he could be the reason for this tragedy. In his own words, the unlicensed doctor “always treated his patients with love and care”. 

Mau’s granddaughter Kaeu Nita (pictured below) is currently living in a shelter home run by the Catholic Church in Battambang, where her welfare is guaranteed as she continues to focus on her studies.

If you can support this cause, click on the link below and go through the various fields. At the bottom of the page, where it has a box for you to give a bit more information, please mention this post and indicate your contribution is for the village in Cambodia. Tell them 'David in Brisbane sent us'. And thanks, on behalf of those inadvertently affected by this awful disease.

https://www.catholicmission.org.au/donate

 

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Unwitting HIV victims need our help

This is being written on a morning when the world watches in horror as Nepal, a place of mountain ranges and mystery, is rocked by the after-effects of a devastating earthquake. I am writing this blog entry, mindful that there are many calls on the hearts and hip-pockets of people, like you the reader, to give. However, I want to draw your attention this week to a country in the same region, but slightly to the south. 

This week, I would like to introduce you to a number of people from a small village in Cambodia. They won't make headlines but they need our help, as badly as the families affected by the natural disaster in Nepal. They won't have people advocating for them, like the pair waiting to be shot in Bali, but they have each been unwittingly afflicted with a disease that could, potentially, be a death sentence.This is their story.  

Monday, April 27 - In the beginning of November 2014, Laom (pictured) started preparing his rice fields for planting. After a few days of working long hours in the fields, he felt weaker than usual and decided to visit a private clinic in the city for a check-up. The doctor took some blood samples and Laom was diagnosed with HIV. His initial reaction was one of denial, defending that he had never behaved in an inappropriate way and could not understand how this was possible.

He was so ashamed of this diagnosis that he could not face telling his family and instead went to speak with the village Chief and later to consult with the head oaf the village health centre. They both advised him to seek a second opinion on the diagnosis in the Provincial Hospital. The second blood test came back positive again and after receiving this news, he went home and told his family. They supported him from the outset and it was decided to that all of his family members should take precautionary blood tests themselves; Out of his immediate eight family members, four have also tested positive with the virus.

If you can support this cause, click on the link below and go through the various fields. At the bottom of the page, where it has a box for you to give a bit more information, please mention this post and indicate your contribution is for the village in Cambodia. Tell them 'David in Brisbane sent us'. And thanks, on behalf of those inadvertently affected by this awful disease.

https://www.catholicmission.org.au/donate

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Of pearls and buried treasure

The following thoughts are taken from the beginning of the appeal talk I will be giving at Sunnybank and Acacia Ridge parishes this weekend (July 23/24), as part of the Catholic Mission appeal program. They draw on the imagery in this weekend's Gospel, about the landowner finding buried treasure, and selling all he owns to possess it; and a merchant similarly selling all his possessions to acquire a precious and rare pearl.

Celena and I are considering moving. There is a town house in Wellington Point that has caught our eye and we are in the process of doing the paperwork, and dealing with banks and mortgage brokers and everything that comes with such a decision. It also means, however, we are doing a lot of clearing out, and culling.

When we cull, or when we have a clearing out in our life - a room, a desk, a shed - we come to understand what is really important. The things that are perhaps trivial, or less meaningful, we dispose of; we keep what is significant and what we truly cherish.

This goes some way towards conveying the mindset Jesus invokes in the Gospel for this weekend (July 23/24). When He shares about the owner of the field selling everything to buy the buried treasure, or the merchant selling all his possessions in order to purchase a newly discovered valuable pearl, He is asking each of us to consider the ultimate clearing out or cull, with the question: "What would compel us to give up everything?" Or to use the theme for the Catholic Mission appeal at this time, "What sacrifice would we make in order to 'Do Something Beautiful for God?'"

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Partnership paves the way for support of priests

An unlikely friendship, between two very different individuals, paved the way for a unique means of supporting parish priests.

On November 9 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte established the “Consulate” in France, in effect ending the French Revolution, which was a victory for him, and a few short years away from his reign as dictator. At this time Catholic Mission’s founder Pauline Marie Jaricot was four months old. Her later great-friend-to-be, Jean Marie Vianney, later to become known as the Curé d’Ars, was just over twelve years old. Both grew up knowing what it meant to be Catholic in those days; Pauline was baptised in secret, and, about four miles away, and at approximately the same time, the same persecution demanded that Jean’s First Holy Communion was also concealed from the outside world.

There was a difference, of course. Pauline’s parents owned a silk factory, enabling their eight children, of whom Pauline was the youngest, to be brought up in comfort.

Jean was born into a farming family in Dardilly near Lyons and knew poverty from his earliest years. This was a source of protection during the French Revolution, a period when wealth and status could mean an introduction to Madame la Guillotine! However it also ensured that Jean’s parents were able to offer no more than a single year of school before the nine year-old was needed as a shepherd on the family farm.

Pauline’s was a loving family who doted on its youngest member. There was a very close relationship between Pauline and her brother Phineas who was just two years older. They both wanted to be missionaries. In later years Phileas became a priest and with his advice Pauline’s ambition took a different direction; instead of going out into mission territory, she would organise people to finance missionaries and their work.

Jean also had his dreams. At the age of 18, he wanted to study for the priesthood, but his lack of education was a massive drawback, especially as he had never studied Latin. His was a long and difficult road until he was finally accepted at the major seminary in Lyons, where, even when given private tuition, he failed his Latin exams. His eventual ordination in 1815 was the result of a special dispensation by the Vicar General, given because of Jean’s obvious vocation.

The young priest took his parish duties so seriously that Ars was soon on everybody’s lips. People began flocking there at the rate of 350 per day for the Curé’s advice or absolution in the confessional. Jean might have failed his seminary exams, but he was proving to be an exemplary priest who not only prescribed a penance for those whose sins he forgave, but also practised an extraordinary degree of personal penance on behalf of his parishioners. Even as an old man when Jean Vianney had lost his ability to project his voice when preaching, the crowds still came to church, just to be present for the occasion.

It was through Jean Vianney’s gifts of wisdom, compassion and understanding that eventually Pauline found her way to Ars. A lifelong and close friendship soon came to birth between a woman consumed with love for the Rosary and for the missions, and a priest whose heart was equally on fire with zeal to reach out to others with God’s love. In fact Pauline would eventually found the Living Rosary and the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (Catholic Mission’s work with Communities) through her seemingly simple idea that each person could touch the hearts of ten others, who, in turn, could find ten more.

Pauline had a wide Christian vision of social problems. Her efforts to solve these met with miserable failure owing to the dishonesty of others in whom she had placed her trust. Her first idea was to create a special fund for the poor so that they would obtain interest free loans. She had the plan of obtaining a large sum of money from fifteen wealthy families to create the capital of her 'Celestial Bank', but she was unable to obtain the initial capital. Her next idea was to purchase a factory where the dignity of the working person would be upheld and families would not be separated. Pauline was persuaded to purchase a factory in Rustrel by a group of people who diverted the money provided by her and her friends. Pauline would spend the rest of her life involved in various judicial proceedings flowing from their dishonesty. Despite all her efforts the factory was sold off at a low price, and Pauline was still burdened in paying back the remaining massive debts incurred through the machinations of others. Yet, by the time Pauline died in poverty and obscurity on 9 January 1862, she had 2,250,000 followers in France alone!

Jean Vianney’s own life was touched with great suffering from which his holiness was no protection. As with all the great saints who felt driven to extremes of austerity, his general health suffered. His constant availability to others meant that he allowed himself a maximum of four hours sleep at night, sleep that was regularly disturbed by terrifying, often violent, visitations from the Devil. Even when he was dying, there were crowds outside his house, looking for Jean’s blessing and, somehow, he managed to raise his head and hand in order to satisfy their need.

Jean died on 4 August 1869, 6 and a half years after Pauline. He was beatified on 8 January 1905 and canonised in 1925. Four years later, he was declared the patron saint of parish priests. 150 years after his death, Pope Benedict has chosen to mark the anniversary by declaring the Year of the Priest starting from June 19 2009.

During the Year of the Priest we might make a special prayer for missionary priests using the friendship between Jean Vianney and Pauline Jaricot as our inspiration. These priests, inspired by Vianney and supported by Catholic Mission, are vital for the life of the Church.

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