Rich and Ronda Dolan

Every year, the BEST Center (the dorm that my sister, Julie, runs) hosts a seminar on International Women's Day. This year, Rich and I taught a Marriage Seminar.   We had three 45 minute classes.  The first one was everyone together.  There were so many people that some had to sit upstairs and watch on a monitor. The 2nd and 3rd classes were split; Rich teaching the men and I taught the women. This is my class.   Including the 20 children, we had about 170 people attending.  There were groups from Siem Reap, Battambang, as well as both congregations in Phnom Penh. This is the children's class that Julie taught so that their parents could listen to the lessons. I thought you might like to see this.  They are loading in the back of this pickup for an approximately 6 -7 hour drive back to Siem Reap.  They left Siem Reap early Monday morning and then drove back after the seminar on Tuesday afternoon. It is always great to get together with our br...

  Graduation 2022 – Finally!! Covid has brought many changes and delays. I think we’re learning patience. One delay for us was we kept having to postpone the graduation for Lek and Thai. It was supposed to be in February, 2021.   It finally happened in February, 2022. Ith Voleak (whom we call Lek),  is on the right above.  He started CBI in October 2016.   He struggled some as a student, sometimes was a little lazy and then got into some trouble and temptations.   I almost kicked him out of CBI.   It was a judgment call, but he really seemed to have had a change of heart. It was the right call.   Lek became a great student. He really knows the word and believes it and it shows.   Five current students are at CBI because of Lek and his influence.   He currently is working as an intern with the University congregation while finishing up a marketing degree.   Both of those roles will end in May.    Lek actually finished ...

Happy Chinese New Year!  Most of you might not even know it is Chinese New Year.  There are a lot of Chinese descendants here, so anyone with even a small part Chinese celebrates.  It is not technically a holiday here, but there are a lot of shops that are closed.  And also a LOT of karioke singing in front of houses...not good singing, just loud. These are some pictures of our Women's Night that we had in January.  In Cambodia, churches have only been allowed to meet since October or November.  So that stopped our Women's meetings as well. We had Women from the 2 different congregations that we attend.  We had 32 people, that included 4 girls. Since we haven't been able to meet in person and both our school, CBI, and the BEST Center, where my sister runs a dorm, have new students, I decided to have a Bunco night.  That lets everyone move around in different groups and get to know one another. This is the group!  So many sweet souls that I wi...

On Thursday morning, Dec. 30th we drove to Battambang Province for the New Years Fellowhip.   Several of our students are from Battambang Province, but from different villages. We stopped at Jenthra's house for lunch on the way. These 2 pictures are at her house. Not all of our students could come as some had university classes that they couldn't miss. (Just a note, on the way home, we stopped at 5 of our students houses to drop them off for a couple days with their families.  It ended up taking 10 hours to get home.  It is 250 kilometers/155 miles.  The roads were pretty much terrible and our A/C in the truck went out.  So lots of dirt and dust.  Thankfully, it wasn't too hot. The shower at home felt really nice!) Then at supper time, we drove on to Sokun's house in another village in Battambang Province.  Sokun graduated from CBI ten years ago and he and Soklee do a great job in their village. Sokun is very active in the community and has been a...

We hope that you all had wonderful holidays!   Of course, Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here and we had school like normal.  But that evening, the BEST Center, the dorm my sister runs, had a Thanksgiving Fellowship.  As we are just beginning to meet back together, this was very exciting.   The meal - hot dogs on white bread with corn on the cob and fruit.   We sang afterward and this is part of the group.  I have a friend in Ohio who, for the 2nd year, sent money for our students and staff to have a Christmas meal. It is very much appreciated!  We went to a BBQ place.  Not like our BBQ at all.  They have big tubs of raw meat of all kinds plus vegetables.  On the tables are both grills and boiling pots of water.  It is a buffet and you go get what you want and grill it or boil it yourself.  Our students love it! For dessert, there is fruit. These are pictures of our students having a terrific meal and fun evening. ...

 Everytime I start a blog and look to see when I posted last, I can't believe it has been so long.  Time really does fly!! I thought I would share my Monday afternoon with you.  I had to go to our area commune chief's building in order to get a verification that I were living at our address.  I had to have this to get a new driver's license.   I decided to walk over there (about a kilometer).  I got my paper with no problems. After that, I was going to walk to the store and then back home.  However, I started walking to the store and it started pouring rain with high winds.  Very hard and very fast.  I ducked into an apartment building to wait out the rain. After an hour, I decided that it wasn't going to stop and I would just call a PassApp tuktuk (like using Uber).  But after 5 drivers declined, I realized that no one was going to drive in this.  I decided to walk home. Immediately, I found out why no drivers came.  The ...

 I have now been out of quarantine for over a week.  It is so great to walk around the streets and eat food that you want to eat! Rich is almost halfway through teaching the book of Matthew at the school.  He will give the midterm either Friday of this week or Monday of next week. He started preaching a series on the book of Philippians on Sundays. As for covid and restrictions, we still are not able to meet with our Christian brothers and sisters.  It is nice to have the avenue of meeting online, but it still isn't the same as actually meeting together. I do have to tell you that a few days after I got out of quarantine in Thailand, they changed the rules to be only one week instead of 15 days.  Then, a few days after I got out of 2 weeks of quarantine here in Phnom Penh, they also changed to one week!!!  I couldn't believe it! Now, Bangkok has just issued a statement that we can travel there with only one night in a quarantine hotel (until the covid test ...