International Women's Day, Another Wedding

International Women's Day is March 8th.  The BEST Center always hosts a seminar on that day.

This year, Bhee Jirojanakul and his wife Gradtae came from the Soi Somprasong 4 congregation in Bangkok, Thailand.  (The congregation that I attended when I was young).  

We were thrilled they were able to come and spend several days with us as they are sweet friends.

There were several different groups of people from all over Cambodia.  I think there was about 130-140 people in attendance.

(I took this picture before it started; the empty chairs did fill up!)

Bhee did a great job teaching.  I always enjoy it when he is preaching while I am in Thailand.



 Lunchtime!  Those of us old timers used chairs to sit on and eat!!
We enjoyed getting to spend the weekend with Bhee and Gratdae.  Usually we see them in Thailand, but they are busy with work.  Bhee is one of the ministers at Soi 4, so is they are some of the main ones involved in the annual country wide church camp that we attend every other year.  



On Monday, Bhee and Gratdae taught a one hour class to the students at the BEST Center before flying back to Thailand.

Chhou, one of the girls at the BEST Center, lived in Thailand when she was young, so she was able to translate for Gratdae (from Thai to Khmer).

Bhee taught in English while he taught. 

This is the ladies' class.  








The weekend of March 14th, Rich and I were able to go over to Bangkok.  Our 42nd anniversary was on the 11th, and I had to meet with the doctor in Thailand on the 17th, so ... it seemed like a good idea.

For our anniversary gift, we both got new tennis shoes!  We now have a few shops here in the malls, like New Balance, Adidas, etc., but they don't carry sizes big enough for us.  Thailand does!  Isn't new exercise shoes a typical anniversary present?

While there, Bhee was happy to have Rich preach at the Soi 4 congregation on Sunday morning before Rich flew back to Phnom Penh.  I had my appointment on Monday and Tuesday, and flew back Tuesday night.



On Saturday, the 22nd, we made our way back to Battambang province for another wedding.  

The wedding was on Sunday, the 23rd.

This is a picture - sadly, not a good one - of a cart full of pigs that we passed.
Sunday morning, we again were able to meet with the congregation in Romchek village in Battambang province.  

This is Sokun getting the worship time started.  There were a lot of people sitting behind me, but I didn't take a picture of the entire group.
We did manage to get a few baby snuggles.  Soklee, our graduate and his wife, Gimlee, have this sweet little girl.  
Sunday evening, we attended Jenthra's wedding.

Jenthra is a graduate of CBI.  She is one of the sweetest girls.  However, her mom told her she couldn't be baptized, and she refused to go against her mom.  Breaks our hearts.



This wedding was sad for us and the guy she married is also not a Christian. 

She knows that she is lost.  And she has cried many times about it, but she still won't do what she knows to be the right thing.  Please keep them in your prayers.


In between all these weddings and trips outside of Phnom Penh, Rich taught the book of Daniel to Phalim.  I taught the book of Ezekiel to Sroy.  Both Phalim and Sroy are almost done at CBI.  They should graduate in May.  Our other students aren't ready for Daniel or Ezekiel yet, so Khemrin taught all of them the book of Matthew.

I gave Sroy her final today and Rich had given his final to Phalim last week.  

Khemrin will finish Matthew on April 4th.  

Then Rich will teach the older students on the Preacher and His Work while the newer ones will start studying The Cross of Christ with Khemrin.

The Khmer New Year is April 14-16th officially.  Most people take at least a week off.  CBI will be out from April 12 - 22nd.

I think that gets you all caught up.  I hope your March is going well and you are a glory to God every day.  We will be in the US from May 31st to July 10th.  We are still working on the scheduling while in the US.  But we hope to see many of you soon!!

Much love,

Ronda

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our house

Image
 I thought since my last post was about our street, I would show you our house.  (I don't think I have posted that before).  We live in a ផ្ទះល្វេង translated is a 'long house'.  Land here is extremely expensive but labor is cheap; so you buy a small plot and build up.  Our house is skinny and tall.  Each floor has 2 rooms and bathrooms. We'll start at the street.   As you can see, our gate sits right on the street.  Our street is the main street through the neighborhood. This is the repairman, wearing a motorcycle helmet with face shield, while he welds the new part on the bottom of our gate. (Isn't that regulation eyewear for welding??) You can see our new incline, so that we can get the truck and motorcycle in and out.  Before, it was too steep.   This is the area between the gate and the "front doors".  The doors are accordion style so that we can open them up all up and get the truck out. Also, many Khmers will run so...
Read more

Flooding in Battambang

Image
Sokun and Soklee are 2 of our students who are working in a village in Battambang.    We are incredibly proud of the work they have done for the past few years.  They are very active in their community.  They did a lot of teaching and helping during Covid.   The church there is growing.  They have a wonderful reputation among the people there.  When we were there last, several people let me know how much they are doing for their village as well as being leaders in the church.  They have classes for all ages of kids.  Every Friday night, a group of teenagers meet at Sokun's and sing for an hour or so as well. Sokun is now the village chief.  All the villages, even the areas in Phnom Penh, have a village chief that takes care of the needs of the village, etc. I sent to Sokun a few days ago after I saw his post about the flooding, and asked if, on top of prayers, they had particular needs.  He told me food and fresh water. This is...
Read more

Loren Hollingsworth

Image
As many of you know, my dad, Loren Hollingsworth, got to meet his Lord face to face on April 7th.  He fought the good fight and he finished the course.  Praise God for His perfect promises! The last blog I wrote said that my parents arrived in Phnom Penh the day before; that was Feb. 1st.  Dad was to teach for 2 weeks at CBI and then just have the other 2 weeks in Cambodia to rest, visit with us, and study for the next classes he was teaching in Thailand when they returned.  God had a better plan. Dad taught the first week at CBI.  Then Saturday, Feb. 10th, he had a series of mini strokes while we were out eating.  He ended up in ICU in Phnom Penh for 4 days and then back at our house for 5 days to make sure he could fly.  The doctor would only let him make the 1 hour flight to Thailand to see doctors there (instead of 30 plus hours of flying back to the US).   Dad, Mom and I came to Bangkok on Feb. 19th.  During the 3 1/2 weeks we were ...
Read more