Rich and Ronda Dolan

You may not remember, but we do; Ronda, Rebekah and I arrived in Cambodia on August 23rd one year ago. Time has flown by. Rebekah is now at A&M sharpening her already sharp mind. One year brings a lot of changes. We're making progress learning Khmer. At least it doesn't all look like squiggly lines. Occasionally I will slip a word or phrase of Khmer in while I'm teaching in the school or at church. You should see the people perk up. Mostly, to laugh at my pronunciation. Let's see, me looking like a fool in front of a lot of people. It happens whether I'm in the US, Cambodia, Ukraine or where ever. I'm not sure what the common denominator in all that is. Not all things change. Ronda is amazing in her tenacity in learning the language. Her sister Julie moved here August 8 th . Wednesday, we pick up Dennis and Sharon Welch at the airport. They are moving here also. One year brings a lot of changes. We have 4 new students at the school and may

We must be having fun because time is flying!! I can't seem to be very consistent with posting new information. It just seems like I blogged and it has been 2 weeks! School started for our students this week. We currently have 2 new male students, Lee and Sovann and then 2 new girl students, Rena and Pisay. Lanny Sartain is here teaching Romans in the mornings and Sacrificial Systems in the afternoons. It is great to have the students back; I missed them during the off time. So we are back to having chapel every morning where we sing a couple songs, pray, and have a devo talk. It is a great way to start the morning. Really, I don't have much to say. Just trying to get back in the routine of the school year. We hope you are all well. Thanks for your love and support of us and this work. I'll try to get some pictures on soon. Much love, Ronda

Sorry...no pictures, because I am in a hurry this morning. But I was just thinking that I don't think I told you a little story, that is different from in the US. In our language class awhile back, we were talking about families and our teacher was giving us all the khmer names for different relatives. Then he said that women often call their husbands "bong"which really means ólder' (bong bro - if older brother; bong sray - if older sister). And that usually the only time they call each other by name is if they aren't getting along very well at the moment. So, being older than Rich, I had to ask if I should call him "p-ohng" since that means younger, instead of "bong". At that teacher teach looked surprised, and admirably at Rich and asked if it was true...that I was older. When Rich said yes, our teacher just stopped and applauded, as did the rest of the Asians in the class. They were very impressed with Rich for what I can only assume i

Dear Friends: We had to detour around one of the high schools by our house today. They blocked off streets on three sides of the school and had the military police out. Why, you ask? I asked also and found out it's because today is the last day of school. Yes, if you were in high school here you would just now be on summer break. And, that's not all. Tomorrow and the next day are tests. You have to pass the tests to graduate and/or move to the next grade. I thought all of you who might be moaning the end of summer would appreciate that. Next, cell phones. I got to noticing that my text messages were not being sent. So, with typical Dolan ingenuity, I went into "Repair Man" mode to find out why. Bottom line, when I was done the cell phone would not even come on. This morning I took it to the cell phone store. The man found a metal prong that had broken off. In America, they would have told me to throw the phone away and get another. In Cambodia,