Rich and Ronda Dolan

 We got the sweetest call on Saturday morning.  Khemrin called and told us that our student, Samai, wanted to be baptized.   She was baptized at 2pm by Khemrin.   She has been a student for over 3 years now.  At first, she seemed to keep herself a bit apart.  But lately, she has made several comments and asked some good questions.  She studies English with me twice a week and so I have gotten to talk to her several times. Last week, she did a devotional talk on Romans 6.  (On Tuesdays, we have split chapel, and the girls are all upstairs while the guys are downstairs).  She is a good teacher - very thought provoking - and she taught this passage well.  It made me wonder if she was listening to herself, since she hadn't been baptized yet, but knows she needed to in order to be saved.   After her talk, I made a few comments as did Navy.  Then she said she wanted to make another comment.  She said that she hadn't been baptized because she has seen people who call themselves Christ

A bit of a story.  When my sister, Julie and I went to Thailand the first week of December, they determined that I had cataracts in both eyes.  However, I needed another procedure done first so I put the cataract surgery off. Julie, however, has bad sight and it was determined that most likely, cataract surgery could help her vision.  But she has lasik surgery before and that can affect the results. This was her one month check up.  Since she isn't seeing well, long distance, I went with her.  We didn't know if she would need additional surgery or what.   (By the way, this is Bangkok traffic.  We were glad we were walking!) She ended up getting contacts for her long distance vision as the new lenses were in place and all was right with them. Since I am already back in Thailand, I met with the doctor again.  One of the downsides of living in a tropical country is that for many things, you have to be careful not to sweat and get incisions and wounds infected.   I had planned to h

Every year, several congregations in the country get together for New Years and bring in the New Year together.  This year, Dennis and Sharon Welch invited all of us to their house and grounds in Kampot.   We decided to get up early and go to the coast for a new hours first.   As they don't want the sun on their skin, they all love going to the beach, but huddle under the awning. On the way, we stopped and got raw seafood to cook once we arrived.   I won't tell you the comedy of the trip other than to say that it was 154 Kilometers from our house (95 1/2 miles).  It took us  6 hours!!!  This certainly wasn't our old youth trips!  We are going to have to teach them how to travel. Ha! We ended up on Coconut Beach at the tip of Kampot Province.  I didn't actually have a beach but sharp rocks.  But we still had a good time together before heading to Kampot. We enjoyed meeting all the groups and friends that we only get to see a few times a year. Dennis and Sharon supplied a