Rich and Ronda Dolan

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 a picture of him going to one of the villager's ho

 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 some kind of shop out the bottom of

OK.  It may not seem like a big deal to you, but I am so excited!!! These are pictures of the process.  I assumed that they would redo the road in the same order as they tore it up.  But, for some unknown reason, this little strip in front of our house is getting cement FIRST!!   For those of you who have been here, they repaved the road on our side of the temple and behind the temple.  But from there all the way down to us is still dirt and gravel.   Here is all the rebar that they laid.  I missed getting pictures of them painstakingly tying the rebar cross sections together with wire. This is to show you the cliff at our gate. I am standing in the street before the paving begins.  The red tile is our entry.  You can see why we couldn't get our truck out since there is a drop of about 16 inches. These ladies are at the end of the area that will get cement.  They are tying off the ends of the rebar and making sure the board barriers are tied in place. And the cement is coming!!! I

I was really trying to blog every week or at least every other week.  How are we now at the end of the month and my last blog was September 7th?  So...catching you up... After Kemchhouy's baptism, Rich decided to teach a chapel lesson on some of the basics about baptism as a reminder.  I was listening, thinking how blessed these kids are to get to listen to Rich.  He explains things so clearly and plainly.  God has put us in just the right place for Rich to use the gifts God has given him to serve.     I had to make a doctor run to Bangkok, Thailand (and let me remind you that is like flying from Tulsa to Dallas).  All is well.   Since I was coming anyway, Rich made the trip over as well for my birthday.  And, of course, was invited to preach at the Soi Somprasong 4 congregation. I thought these flowers were beautiful.  My friend, Gratdae, made this bouquet.  We got to meet with her and her husband, Bhee on Saturday.  Bhee is one of the ministers at Soi 4.  We enjoy getting a few m

  Much rejoicing!!!  Kemchhouy was baptized!!   Kemchhouy is one of our recent graduates.  He is from Battambang province.  Alone with finishing at CBI, and therefore having a bachelor's degree in Bible, he also graduated with a Electrical Engineering degree and is currently doing an internship. Kemchhouy has a special place in my heart because the entire time he was at CBI, he studied English with me.  He is very smart, kind, and just a great guy!  I was so sad when he graduated from CBI without being baptized.  We talked about it and he said the he knew the information but just needed to think more about it.  I told him that I admired him for counting the cost of being a Christian.  No one in his family are Christians.  Of course, Rich and Khemrin also talked to him many times. He is a special young man.  I really wish you all could get to know him.  Please pray for him to have courage and that his faith might grow.  Pray that he might be a mighty servant of the Lord all his life

  We said goodbye to Greg Fleming on August 20th.  This was his 5th trip to Cambodia.   These are our 10 students with him, as well as Khemrin (front left).  Khemrin was Greg's translator. I took my girls (our CBI students) for coffee on the 17th of August.  We just needed a little 'catch-up' time.  From left to right:  Sroy, Sraynu, me, and Teang. And, as I mentioned, new pipes were coming.  Greg left on Tuesday night and they dug a 6foot hole, that was our road, on Thursday. I took this one from the roof so you can see all our wires.  The excavator operator not only had to dig the hole, but then swing around to a dump truck behind him.  In order to do that, he had to avoid all these wires as well as awning of store fronts on both sides.  He was quite talented. This was at the corner, one lot away from us.  There is a street running perpendicular to ours.  They ended up breaking a water pipe and had to do quite a bit of work to get it fixed. This red gate is ours.  I enjoy