At the end of the day, Bloom Asia, and its mission of helping underserved young women in Cambodia will mostly improve thousands of lives here. To me, they demonstrate high regard for the law in the creative verbiage utilized on their internet pages.

(beginning of sarcastic comment) I want to recognize the bold, cutting edge work of the fine men here on this forum that have joined forces in investigating Bloom Asia and uncovering that they were actually a RELIGOUS organization! I know it a shocking truth now that we'll have to grow into and accept...(end of that sarcastic comment)

Guys, they all are... or were. And Proselytization in any form has been really uncool for 70+ years now. College courses in NGO work/sociology/urban planning/etc all contain mandatory pass/fail proselytization questions and have for about 50 years now. The staff members at Bloom have probably been vetted and trained better than a Premier League football player by the time they hit the sunny shores of Cambodia. Every single staff member has been drilled and re drilled on just how taboo pitching stuff like, "Jesus saves if only you let go and have faith, Panha, or, 'the Buddha did not die for you Sokha, but your savior Jesus Christ did.'."

I'd wager that some very specific language is in Bloom's contracts and maybe even in their immigration paperwork as well. Does that mean they won't violate? Nope. Some will and their exit will be a slam dunk out of here and they will be shunned in the industry. The cases are likely to be real subtle given the training regime they've undergone. A good Human Resource professional would be able to keep this NGO safe from these violations.

( final sardonic bit here) Hey Ryan 754326, yeah, i heard that one too, we were ducking mass one Sunday and Wayne was passing a fat doobie of ditch weed and his older brother 'Vinny was saying that what you said just now bro.

{IN EARNEST} Thank you to this fair forum for inspiring me to speed read the UN Declaration of Human Rights, written in 1948 and it is delivered in a slick cartoon format in the clickable .pdf at the end of this entry. Many seemingly miscellaneous points are articulated within this document but with the cartoons and light word count, this little pamphlet contains summations of all the worlds major philosophy s and religions and the content does not seem miscellaneous when it's all absorbed at once.

https://www.un.org/en/udhrbook/pdf/udhr ... en_web.pdf

clutchcargo wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 6:46 pm I have a confession to make. I never heard the word 'proselytize' before in my life time until this thread. Nor did I know it's meaning until I googled it.

I'm glad I'm not the only one

hburns wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 6:54 pm

clutchcargo wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 6:46 pm I have a confession to make. I never heard the word 'proselytize' before in my life time until this thread. Nor did I know it's meaning until I googled it.

I'm glad I'm not the only one

There's the Aussie educational system for ya.

Brody wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 7:03 pm

hburns wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 6:54 pm

clutchcargo wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 6:46 pm I have a confession to make. I never heard the word 'proselytize' before in my life time until this thread. Nor did I know it's meaning until I googled it.

I'm glad I'm not the only one

There's the Aussie educational system for ya.

LOL. Is CEO on a mission - to expand vocabulary ?
Don't you all feel that life is enhanced by having another word in your vocabulary that you can use, that is impossible to spell, and has an ambiguous meaning ?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proselytize
pros·​e·​ly·​tize | \ ˈprä-s(ə-)lə-ˌtīz
\
proselytized; proselytizing
Definition of proselytize

intransitive verb
1 : to induce someone to convert to one's faith
2 : to recruit someone to join one's party, institution, or cause

transitive verb
: to recruit or convert especially to a new faith, institution, or cause

(I didn't know how how to spell it either, and I'm not Australian. )

Proselytization is covered below in the UNDHR, and upon a deeper read it was written as a map to strive for all the humans.

Article 18:
Everyone has the right to freedom of
thought, conscience and religion; this
right includes freedom to change his
religion or belief, and freedom, either
alone or in community with others and
in public or private, to manifest his
religion or belief in teaching, practice,
worship and observance.

Here is the illustration that goes with this article of the charter: [img]https://i.imgur.com/qMBzzQp.jpg[/img] do click on this link as you will find these illustrations so lighthearted given the grave subject matter.

What (possibly) could go wrong when a(ny) god doesn't come down from his cloud and talk face to face with the earthlings but rather have some fine human beings representing him?


A priest, an imam and a rabbi walk into a bar.
The bartender says "What is this? A joke?

@clutchcargo you may notice this as well, it seems that Bloom Asia is indeed a part of the Gateway Baptist Church. Copied from the 2019 annual report for the church but I still don't understand why they are not upfront about being an offshoot of an evangelical church although to be honest I'd keep it quiet too.

In 2019 we marked the 10th
anniversary of Bloom—and we
celebrated the milestone with
a cake, of course! This year we
also celebrated another 14 brave
ladies, rescued from the horrors
of trafficking, who graduated with
formal qualifications and an open
door to their new future of healing,
hope and purpose.
After more than 10 years in
Cambodia, Bloom also said goodbye
to Ruth and Murray Larwill in
December—not from Bloom entirely,
but from Cambodia. The Larwills
returned to Brisbane where Ruth
continues part time and Murray
serves on the Bloom board.
At the end of 2019, Bloom also closed
the Cebu centre. After more than
three years, it was a hard decision
prayerfully made, but sets up Bloom
to best serve the changing landscape
of need.
But be encouraged: all Cebu girls
were placed into jobs with their
new future in place. And just as
importantly, every girl was tangibly
transformed by the love of God. We
thank Him for the opportunity to bring
His healing into the many lives and
families there during that season.
Murray & Ruth Larwill
Bloom Directors
That journey of encounter with
Jesus was beautifully highlighted
recently with the testimony of one
Cambodian girl. At 14, her family slept
on cardboard in the street. She was
pregnant and exploited every night.
Today her testimony is very different.
“I now have a new future at Bloom
and Jesus made my heart come alive!
Apart from Him my life was so messy.
But now I pray for me and my family.
I’m still not perfect (ha ha) but I try to
read my bible with my son every night,
and the Lord gives me strength and
hope to go on each day”.

I used to work in the air force with a bloke who was a member of one of these "I found Jesus again" churches and he gave 10% of his gross salary to the church. I asked him one day what happened to his generous donation and he said it goes to a village in Africa where they had a village school set up (now bear in mind his wage at the time would have been close to $70,000 AUD gross and a lot more if he was deployed and received further allowances and at times his pay would be tax free for up to 6 months). We had a bit of a discussion and I said I didn't agree with religion in general let alone the tub thumping evangelical mobs and he said his church wasn't like that, they didn't preach to the village as such but if a student or parent asked where the pencil and paper came from then the answer would be that Jesus provided it. They were able to convert the kids into believing that Jesus could do miracles for them if they believed in him and of course they were given bibles as gifts so they could read about all the miracles.
So in that respect and instance they didn't operate a church much the same way as I think this organisation is doing.

Who said anything about proselytising?
We just decorate cakes.