Rich and Ronda Dolan

This first picture is the front of one of the boats with their offering and incense for good luck. The guy in the front uses his oar to beat out a rhythm for the rowers. He also uses a whistle. Some of these guys get quite animated and flap their arms and chant; they are fun to watch. Some entire teams chant while they row to keep their rhythm. They race 2 boats at a time with only a few seconds between starts, so there is someone always racing. Each team is guaranteed 3 races and then it goes to the finals. I didn't look to see how many teams there was this year but in years past, there were over 450 teams. Boats are various lengths, the longest we saw had 78 people on it. Fun stuff. Ronda

I already wrote several blogs with pictures of the Water Festival before the stampede happened(some I postdated so will come later). I am sure most of you have seen the pictures and heard the news about all of this. On the news here, they are showing piles of people that are so crushed in on top of each other that they had trouble getting them untangled and to hospitals. Tawn, who is the dean of students at the CBI school, teaches, and is a wonderful Christian man and great help to us, just texts us to tell us that one of this brothers' only daughter just died. She was about 1 1/2 years old and she just got sick quickly and died in their village; it had nothing to do with the tragedy at the river. However, that brother's wife's brother died last night at the river. Please pray for Tawn and his family. Thursday has been declared a day of mourning here in Cambodia. Please pray for us and the people here.

I just wanted to let you know that as of November 18th the post office said that there will be no mail coming into Cambodia from the US or Canada or going out. They just said that it was for security reasons and they don't know when it will resume. So, for those of you with birthdays that I usually send cards to...they will be late; maybe very late. I will send them whenever we are able to get mail out. Sorry, but what can you do?! Love, Ronda

We have enjoyed going down to the river a couple times and watched some of the boat races. And, who can pass up all the good food along the way. I didn't get a picture of the yummy fried frogs on a stick and you can barely see in the top of the picture the fried roaches. But I though you would like the snake-on-a-stick offering the best. Don't you wish you were here??? Actually, the races are great! So many colorful boats and everyone has on bright colors. Actually, I have just noticed that none of these pictures are actually of the boats racing, rather they are of the boats making their way to the starting line. I'll have to put on some more in a couple days. The last picture is of the group of boats waiting for their turn to race. It is really fun. You ought to come see for yourselves! Love, Ronda

Hey, friends! It's my turn to do a blog now. And, that means I can do whatever I want, so here's some random stuff. First, Ronda got the cast off her leg today! After about 4 weeks, I think she was getting sick of it. Of course, I pitched in with cooking, washing clothes, carrying things and carrying her. All without desiring any credit. Okay, maybe I pointed out every little thing I did. (Ha). I won't say I worked really hard, I'll just let this picture of me say it all. Here's a picture of our students this fall. The student body has already changed some. And, we do have 4 married students. Two of the men come only in the morning. The lady, Linna , is married to Veasna one of our early graduates. She comes in the afternoon. Currently, I'm teaching them Galatians in Khmer and Tawn is teaching them 2 Corinthians. Next, here's a town in France to avoid -- Angerville . See what being there just a few minutes did to our son Jason!! We almost missed the town.

We have all kinds of taxis here. In the city, it is primarily motodopes(motorcycle drivers who taxi), tuk tuks (3 wheeled taxis) and then regular car taxis. But in the countryside and the outlying parts of the city, they also use other kinds of transportation. Two of the pictures are of trucks with people in the back. We will also see these in the city on occasion. Typically, they are packed with people who are all standing in the bed of the truck. The real fun comes when it starts to rain! The other picture is of a cart that is pulled by a moto. The cart had boards tied across the cart for the people to sit. I have seen these loaded with more than 30 people along with vegetables, fruit, and whatever else that they sell in the markets. We live in an exciting place! Love Ronda