Rich and Ronda Dolan

June 17th - 19th, we rented a bus and took our CBI students and the Aggies to Siem Reap. We left Phnom Penh at 1pm, after the students had their final in Rich's class; and arrived in Siem Reap at about 7:30pm. We checked in the guesthouse and walked to one of the outdoor eating areas. On Saturday morning, we went to a few of the temples in the Angkor Wat area. Even though it is free to the Khmers, they don't travel much and the only times they have been is when we stopped for about 1 hours in February when we were there for the lectureships. The Aggies treated everyone to lunch at Pizza Company and then we went on to the Cambodian Cultural Village. They do about 10 different dramas showing the different cultures around the areas in Cambodia. John, one of the Aggies was selected to be in one of the dramas. Naturally, he was the hero and therefore was rewarded with the daughter of the chief. Our students really enjoyed watching him interact with the Khmer actors. None of o...

June 11th, we had another graduation. There was only one graduate this time, but he was very excited! Rich called earlier in the day to pick up some more chairs and he was told that Serewudt had taken some on the moto and was making trips to make sure there was enough chairs at the school. Serewudt will go back to his village and teach the people there. Not long after he came to school, our students went to his village one day during an Evangelism week. There is a congregation of about 15 or so there now. Please pray for him to be the leader that he needs to be to the people in that place. Much love, Ronda

Just a few more pictures of the Aggies with some of the kids at the school. The kids really enjoyed having them here to talk to and play with. Ronda

Our daughter, Rebekah, is leading a team of 7 Aggies who are currently working with us in Phnom Penh. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays they teach English with the WEI program. Most of their students are college age. They teach all day. On Wednesdays, they go to another school in the city. It is a school of about 60 kids. This school is in addition to their public school (which is only half the day). They also teach English at this school. Two Friday nights, they had a party for these kids. They teach them Bible songs as well as stories and do some crafts. These pictures are from one of those Friday nights parties. We are thrilled to have them here! We have enjoyed having them in our house and getting to visit a bit with them. They are great kids doing a wonderful job, both with their teaching and their Christian influences. More about them later. Much love, Ronda

This first picture is of Sovan saying his vows. I forgot to mention that all of the bridal parties' clothes are rented, as are the headdresses. The 2nd picture is of the bridesmaids, Makara and Kolab. All of the wedding party does the whole makeup, eyelashes thing. They have asked me in the past if I was going to wear makeup. Well, those of you that know me know that the answer was no. They couldn't believe that I wouldn't like to wear all of that! The last picture is of Sokna putting a lei on Sovann. They put the leis on each other and them take them back off. Then the leis are broken and passed through the crowd so that everyone throws the flowers on the bride and groom as they leave. Since, during a Khmer wedding, the bride usually changes clothes 10 times in the course of the day and the groom about 4 or 5 times, they did change clothes twice during the lunch reception at the restaurant. Since the Aggies were here, we did not attend the lunch as it was quite exp...

Sovan and Sokna got married on May 28th. Sovan is one of our graduates and Sokna should graduate in December 2011. They waited until we returned from the US so that Rich could perform the wedding. As you can see from Sokna's picture, when they have weddings, they wear a lot of makeup, fake eyelashes and elaborate hair pieces. Sokna told me that she got up at 3am in order to be ready for the wedding at 9am. Since my blog works better if I only download about 3 pictures at a time, I will put more pictures on the next blog. Rebekah, our daughter, and a team of 6 Aggies got here on Friday, May 27th. So the first day they are here, they had to get up and get dressed up to attend this wedding. The 2nd picture is Rich with Sokna and Sovan. And then the 3rd picture is of Sovan and his groommen, Serewudt and Soklee. Since Khmer weddings last an entire day, they wanted Rich to "preach" for a long time. What was funny was that the Aggies thought that the wedding was really lon...

This is a picture of the Askew family. We had a wonderful evening visiting with all of them. (I did remember to get a picture of them) We got to visit with a lot of friends in Broken Arrow, but of course, missed a lot of others. I hope you all know how special you are to us. We especially want to thank the Binkleys for letting us stay with them; and the Binkleys and Saffells for letting us drive their cars. We had so many delicious meals with different people but we especially enjoyed getting to visit with so many of you again. (I think Rich got his fill of steaks and Mexican food thanks to you!) The 2nd picture is of the congregation in Batesville who have been so good to support our work here and the school. Like Broken Arrow, they have been invaluable to us. After leaving Oklahoma, we headed south to see Jason, our oldest in Abilene. Then we went on to Midland for Rich's parents 50th wedding anniversary party. We got to see many of Rich's relatives and were able to s...