Evan Maynard and Luke Walvoord are here!

Evan Maynard and Luke Walvoord, from Broken Arrow, OK are here with us now. Both just graduated from high school, for those of you who don't know, and their parents allowed them to come visit us. We are having a great time.
The first picture is taken a Sihanoukville, on the coast. Let's just say that we took it pretty easy! Enjoyed just being lazy.
The 2nd picture was taken in a coffee shop here in Phnom Penh. As most of you know, Rebekah, our daughter, came the second week of June and will stay until July 30th. She is enjoying being "home".
Today, Rebekah, Evan and Luke are out with our
students in one of the villages. That should be a good experience for them.
Hope you all are well. Know we think of you all often. Much love, Ronda

Graduation

On June 12th, we had our 2nd graduation. Veashna, Sokphea and Chanty graduated. Currently, Chanty is on the Partners In Progress Ship of Life teaching along the Mekong River. Veashna is here in town working on some vocational training for the next few months and Sokphea is deciding which village he will be going to.
Ron Downey was able to be here to give the charge from Sunset Bible Institute. It was great to get to know him and look forward to his next visit.
We just got back from taking Evan Maynard and Luke Walvoord to the beach. We had a great time of relaxing and playing in the ocean. I'll put up some pictures of that on my next blog. Love to all. Ronda

Dave Brockway, back in the US

Dave Brockway was here teaching for 3 weeks. We appreciate his willingness to come and share part of himself with our students. We hope he had an enjoyable trip.
This picture was taken when we were in Siem Reap. We went to the Cambodian Cultural Village. Dave thought it was funny that the designated a place for the foreigners to sit. It was probably because foreigners pay almost 3 times what the Khmers pay.
Anyway, Dave found his place in the foreigner sitting.
Rebekah is here and still speaks Khmer very well (it is a little on the disgusting side). Youth definitely has its benefits. Love you all! Ronda

Languages can get you in so much trouble!

OK. This picture has nothing to do with what I am going to tell you. I just wanted you to see part of what we see when we drive out of town.
Now for the language problems...recently, we attended a wedding out our congregation between a Nigerian man and a Korean woman. They had requested our Khmer preacher to perform the ceremony. At the end of the service, our preacher said there was a song that he thought was great and appropriate. However...as we listened, it was all we could do not to crack up laughing. The song was "Please help me, I'm falling". The first line is "Please help me, I"m falling in love with you." Some of you may remember this old VERY country song. The problem comes in that the guy is singing to a girl that is NOT his wife...but he does have a wife and he is trying not to get into an affair. Not exactly the song for a wedding. Our preacher just thought it was a man telling a woman that he loved her, etc. It does show how easily it is to misunderstand something if it is not in your heart language.
Rich got up to preach a couple week ago and, in khmer, INTENDED to say "I'm going to teach to you again about Jesus." What he actually said was "I'm going to teach you about ANOTHER Jesus." Whoops! Well, we certainly aren't bored!!! Much love, Ronda

Trip to Siem Reap

This past weekend, we took Dave Brockway to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat. I have put pictures of Angkor Wat and other temples on the blog before, so won't do that now. But in the afternoon, we did go to the Cambodian Cultural Village. Basically, you go from "village to village" and they show you some of their culture from different times in Cambodia and different customs.
The first picture is of the peacock dance. At each place they had song and dances. We missed some of the shows as we started in the afternoon.
At the end was a big finale about Cambodia
history between 1150 - 1300. The last picture is from that show.
We have enjoyed living in Cambodia and getting to know the people here; so it is interesting to see where they come from and different aspects of Cambodian life. Much love, Ronda

Reuben and Rachelle's trip

While Reuben and Rachelle were here, we took a trip to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Mostly we walked around the main part of the city, enjoying their parks, zoo, and the market.
The first picture is Rachelle and Reuben in a Vietnamese restaurant that we decided to try; I think we all prefer Thai/Khmer food.
Ho Chi Minh City is quite a bit more "progressive" than Phnom Penh, however, they speak less English there than here. They have beautiful parks so we enjoyed walking through those.
Reuben is back in the US now and Rachelle leaves tonight. We hate it that their time was so
short, but we understand having to actually work for a living. It was great to see them and we so appreciate all of you who helped them get here.
The 2nd picture is of me, Reuben, and Rich in one of the parks.
The 3rd picture is at the Royal Palace here in Phnom Penh. Rachelle hadn't been to a palace before so we went. Since the king is in residence there, a major portion of it is blocked off, but we did see a few things. After going through the Grand Palace in Bangkok many times, the palace grounds here are tiny.
Saturday, Dave Brockway will come in and will teach for 3 weeks, so we look forward to catching up with him. Come visit! Much love, Ronda

Reuben is here!

Haven't taken any pictures of Reuben yet, but he did make it. Sadly, the same can not be said of his luggage. His flight out of Denver was delayed 3 hours so they moved him to a flight that left 25 minutes after he landed...in another terminal. So he barely made the flight to Seattle and his bags didn't.
We did get the news that the luggage did make it to Seattle, but hasn't gotten here yet.
But we are thrilled that he is here!
This picture is just one I took of the sunset. Unfortunately, you never seem to quite get the vivid colors in a picture that we get with our eyes. The pinks were beautiful.
Come see us in beautiful Cambodia! Love, Ronda