Jim Triezenberg’s vivid photos of life in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, show motorbikes buzzing down bumpy city streets, people preparing food in a busy market, and Buddhist statues leading up to Wat Phom, one of the most famous pagodas in the country.
His photos from Nigeria are equally compelling. They depict scenes of life in the remote Kambari countryside. One photo shows a pastoral shot of a village with dome-shaped grass huts. Another captures a huge fork of lightening cutting across the dusky sky.
Striking as they are, these are not the pictures of a professional photographer. Triezenberg works with Christian Reformed World Missions teaching English in Cambodia. Before moving to Cambodia, he served for several years in Nigeria.
Photography, he says, is a passion—a satisfying, even spiritual avocation that he uses “as a way of seeing the world, of preserving a bit of what was.” He says his pictures also give people back home “the opportunity to experience what I have experienced—a chance to see part of the larger world we live in.”
Photography also serves as a stress buster and a break from the routine of teaching. “It helps me to get out and look into the culture. It allows for artistic expression and creativity.”
Triezenberg recently helped the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee in Cambodia put together photos and a video that highlights the work CRWRC is doing.
Photography is a way of showing his reverence and gratitude for God’s world, Triezenberg says. “When trying to capture the essence of the majesty of creation, God is glorified. Any photographs of nature that I have taken are really God’s, since he is the creator of the scene.”
About the Author
Chris Meehan is a freelance writer and commissioned pastor at Coit Community Church in Grand Rapids, Mich.
