Rich and Ronda Dolan

December 11th, we had the 16th Graduation at CBI.  4 young men have finished their studies and move on to continue a life in service to God.  It's always a sad and happy time. Happy with what they have accomplished so far and with the promise for the future. Sad as they will be moving on to other places. Graduation is always a time that many graduated students come back to help celebrate. It is so good to see all of them.  And, at graduation, our current students lead most of the events.  Here are pictures of Somrach leading songs and Khemrin leading prayer.  Vanna, who graduated in Feb 2014 was the speaker. He works as a travelling evangelist with the SNACK program.  And, he did a great job. Pictured here are all four graduates with the on-site CBI teachers.   As you may know, many guest teachers come to teach one or two classes. These students studied under 11 guest teachers, in addition to many classes with the four of us who are on-site.  Pictured right to left - T

This past week, we had our 2nd church camp.  It is open to all ages and we had about 140 people attend. The theme was Growing in Faith. And the lessons were based on II Peter 1:5-7. We left Phnom Penh at 6:30 am on Tuesday morning and arrived at Srae Ambel at 10:15am. This is the view in the evening.  We enjoyed the beautiful scenery that God created for us to enjoy.  Everyone was put into groups, taking turns serving meals, washing dishes, hauling the water for the dishes and dumping it, cleaning bathrooms, and picking up around the grounds. This is Rich and part of his group serving supper one day.  This is one of the evening meeting times.  The singing was great!  We had a nice mix of all ages.  The speakers all had good lessons. About half of the people had come to the camp last year and the other half were new this year.  This is the view from the hut we stayed in back toward the tents.  Rich taught 2 lessons.  His first lesson was for everyone and he ta

 A week ago, we had a pizza and Bunco night for our students. They would tell you that pizza is their favorite food even before they had ever had any.  But, now they have had it a couple times, so they know they like it! The main reason that we play Bunco is that here, all the games they play are gambled on...soccer, volleyball, ping pong, etc.  We want them to know that they can play games for fun and it doesn't have to include money.  The prizes that we give them are towels, notebooks, pens, etc.; practical things that they can use. Looking at these pictures, they look very calm.  Let me tell you, they are anything but calm!  They are very loud and there is a lot of hollering going on!  In this picture Kimsrouen is standing because he can't play and sit down.  He gets very excited. I thought it would be good to update you on our students so you can see who you are praying for. These are our newest students.  Tola, in the yellow, just started a couple weeks ag

I thought you might enjoy seeing what we see out on the streets. This picture is of a couple carts.  The closest one has all kinds of drinks - iced coffee, iced teas, milo, etc.  and all kinds of flavors.  This isn't the coffee cart that I usually use.  My iced coffee is excellent and cost me 50 cents a cup.  Can't beat that!   The people behind are having an afternoon snack off the cart.  They cook from the cart, and sometime have a small table with a few chairs that you can sit and eat. This is one of the many chicken carts.  These are really good.  There is charcoal in the bottom of the carts.  These come out and park on the side of the street in the evening time and set up in front of other shops that close for the night.  The chicken is rotisseried (is that a word?).  And the chicken comes complete with head and feet.  This isn't a great picture, but these are other carts with pork as well as noodles.  Some of these carts are attached to motorcycles, so the

This week, Rich and I have been enjoying a week off from school.  It is the Pchum Ben Holiday here in Cambodia. Pchum Ben is a Buddhist holiday.  And, although, we don't take many of the Buddhists holidays (we do take the national holidays), we do take this one.  It would somewhat compare to our Christmastime.  It is a holiday where most people go back to their home villages to meet with their families. It is technically a 3 day holiday, but stretches to a week for travel time.  For the Buddhist, there are certain things that you do each day during this holiday. The first day is preparing a lot of food.  This is for your ancestors to eat first.  A candle is lit when all the food is out on the table.  When the candle goes out, this signifies that the ancestors are finished eating, and they have taken the nutrients out of the food.  After this, the family might eat the food, or they might give it to the area temple for the monks to eat, or a combination. Day 2 is the day to

 Friday night, September 25th, we had our 15th graduation.  We had 2 graduates making a total of 38 graduates.  27 have received a bachelor's degree from Sunset International Bible Institute. In this picture is:  Rich, Veasna (teacher and translator at CBI), Sothary and Ponlue, our graduates, Dennis Welch and Dan Wilson, teachers.  Sothary Sam is one of our graduates.  She is one of our 2 girl students.  She has already studied 2 years in a university, majoring in English, and will continue her studies there now. She is always thinking.  She will readily ask questions so that she has a better understanding.  Please keep her in your prayers as she shines the light of God to the dark world around her. Ponleu Kong is our other graduate.  He actually has been finished for a couple months, but offered to wait until Sothary finished and have one graduation together. Ponleu is a very good student.  He is typically soft spoken.  He has ability to teach good, thought ou

This was Greg Fleming's 3rd trip to Cambodia.  This trip, he taught the book of Matthew.  He is the preacher at the North A & Tennessee Church of Christ in Midland, TX. I did not get a picture of him teaching at the school.  These are pictures of him preaching at the University Church of Christ.  Buntheon is the translator here; Veasna translated for him at the school.  We have known Greg and Cindy for many years and it is always nice to get to visit with sweet friends.  (Cindy has a new grandbaby, so she decided to play with grandbabies this time...and who can blame her!  Maybe next trip. At the end of Greg's trip, he got overlooked some because... Randall, our 2nd son, and his wife, Kassie and our sweet granddaughter, Kenley came!!!  They got here on Sunday, Sept. 6th.  Since Kassie is pregnant, we decided to forego the trip to Siem Reap and hiking all over the temples this trip. Instead we headed to the coast for part of the time that they were here.  Kenl

This year we got to go to the Asian Mission Forum in the Philippines.  If you remember, I got dengue hemorrhagic fever last year on Thursday before the forum started on Saturday, so...we missed it. It is always encouraging to get to see missionaries from all over Asia.  To see old friends, make new friends, and get to fellowship a bit. Pat Bills from the DFW area was the keynote speaker and he did a great job.  We had not met Pat before, so we enjoyed getting to know him.  Also, Keith and Sharon Lancaster came.  Keith, of course, lead the singing and it was fantastic.  I told him that we need to have an AMF with just singing.  Pat did a really great job speaking but I can get great preaching at home...I can't get great singing. And let me tell you, the singing was so beautiful.  We also really appreciated that Keith encouraged everyone to really sing.  He said that God gave you the voice you have; praise God with that voice.  Acapella singing is so beautiful because eve

I know...I am way behind. David Burton is from Idalou, TX.  He actually was here in Phnom Penh before we got back from the US.  David taught our students on the miracles in the book of John. We hope he enjoyed his time here.  It was nice to get to know David while he was staying with us.  We hope he will come again. While David was here, my cousin, Steve Hollingsworth and his wife, Pat, came to visit.  Steve was lecturing at a university in China and they came after he was finished there. We didn't have a lot of time to see much of the country, but we did manage to go to Kirirom to the waterfall.  We had wonderful guides to the falls in the way of 5 dogs.  They seemed to enjoy having the company as much as we enjoyed them.  It was about a 45 minute hike to the falls.  We managed to climb around on the rocks and get our feet wet.  We enjoyed some of the beauty that God created for us and then we walked back to the car.  Since it is the start of the rainy season,