A few months ago a chicken was stolen from the home of a poor family in a village north east of Phnom Penh, and Ming knew exactly who had stolen her family’s chicken: the village ‘bad boy.’
In the absence of a just judicial system it is not uncommon for a person identified as a thief to suffer greatly at the hands of an angry, frustrated community. So instead of publicly identifying the thief, Ming went to the home of this young man and explained to him the extent to which her family had been affected by the loss of this chicken. As subsistence farmers living hand to mouth, the loss of their only chicken was a significant blow to the whole family.
Two days later the thief turned up at Ming’s home in tears, carrying the chicken. Ming was stunned to hear the young man apologise and admit that he had never thought about how much his crimes impacted upon his victims.
Why am I so excited about this stolen chicken?
Four years ago a man from this province, Lokru, graduated from Peace Bridges’ Certificate in Conflict Counselling and Mediation. Since then Lokru has facilitated many trainings in his province using Peace Bridges resources, sharing his new skills and knowledge with countless people, including Bong. Bong became so excited about the ideas covered in the course that he in turn used the Peace Bridges resources to teach people in his village about non-violent conflict resolution and peacemaking. One of the many people who heard this message from Bong was Ming, who in turn has helped turn around the life of a troubled young man.
While visiting the province last month, it was exciting to sit in on peace building trainings being run in the prison as well as to observe Bong and Lokru facilitating their latest round of training, this time with Catholic priests and lay people from every parish in eastern Cambodia. The last couple of years Bong has focused on equipping the Protestant churches, but the Catholic church heard about the impacts of the training and asked him to share the ideas with their leaders.
We’re hearing an increasing number of these stories of small transformations in the lives of people around the country and they are a great source of encouragement to us.
Chickens, Trainings, and Thankfulness
by Barry Higgins
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