Rich and Ronda Dolan

Friday night, December 21st, we had our 9th graduation ceremony. This one was a little different in that we were able to award bachelor's degrees from Sunset for 9 of our students (3 were at able to be there for the ceremony); 5 of our former graduates and then the 4 that graduated from CBI on Friday. This first picture is of Rich, Greg Fleming, Dennis Welch, Veashna (who is now working for CBI), and then the bachelor's degrees recipients:  Chhauet, Sokhorn, Borey, Sovan, KimSrauv and Chheourn.  Those not able to be at the ceremony were:  Sokun, Soklee, and Sereywuth.  The 4 graduates are shown in this picture with Rich and Dennis. Chheourn, closest to Rich, will be going back to his village to work.  It is toward the Vietnamese border and there is no church there.  So he will be starting a new work.  Please keep him in your prayers. Sokhorn is the next one.  He will also be going back to his village, but he will be doing a sort of circu...

 Greg Fleming is here for the month of December teaching Jeremiah and Lamentations.  Unfortunately, Cindy, his wife, was not able to come this time.  They both came 2 years ago to help us. Greg Fleming is the preacher at the North A Church of Christ in Midland, TX.  We have known them since we were living in San Angelo and they were in Robert Lee.  They have 3 children that are about the ages of our kids. So he has one more week of teaching before heading back to the US on Dec 21st. This first picture is of Piset, one of our students leading singing during chapel time.  We start off each day with a 30 minute chapel.  This is KimSrauv.  He is one of the 4 students that will be graduating on December 21st.  This is his last chapel talk. This is Greg Fleming with Veashna, his translator.  Veashna is one of our earlier graduates and as of this month, he is working full time for CBI.    We appreciate Greg being h...

 Greg Fleming from Midland, TX is teaching Jeremiah and Lamentations at the school now.  However, I haven't gotten his picture yet, so that will have to come later. For now, I thought you might like to see more pictures of our trip to the waterfall with the students. The students will have class until December 21st.  On that day, we will also have a graduation.  We will have 4 graduates.  After that, we will all have a week off before starting the Spring semester on January 1st. Enjoy!  Ronda  These 3 students are all from the same village.  Sraymom is on the far end.  Tola, in the middle and Makara, in front, are brother and sister.

Dennis and Sharon Welch arranged to take out students as well as a couple others to Kirirom Waterfalls.  There are actually 3 falls; we just went to the largest one.  As this is the beginning of a vacation week, some of our students opted to go home or had other things to do, but we had 20 people all together. I drove our van and took part of the students.  This first picture is at the beginning of our walk.  The drive to Kirirom is about 2 1/2  to 3 hours long.  Then you part and walk several kilometers to the falls.  And here they are.  It was a beautiful day and we were the only ones there.  To give you a little idea of how tall the falls are, at the bottom of this picture is 2 of our students that are standing behind and to the left of the falls.  The had a great time playing in the water at the bottom of the falls.  The water was COLD!!  It didn't take me too long before I had to get out! This is anoth...

 If you have been reading this blog much, you know that we have several Evangelism Weeks each year. During this week, Rich and Dennis divide out the students and each group goes to a village.  So, in the course of the week, they can go to 10 villages. Some of these village are places where there are already churches established and some are new places or places that our students are from. Typically, they leave early in the morning and  drive to the village (this has been prearranged so they know the students are coming)When they get there, they walk down the streets meeting and talking with people and then they meet together a few hours later.  They arrive back in Phnom Penh in the late afternoon. These pictures are just pictures I took in the countryside, so that you can see some of what they are seeing each day. The 2nd picture is of a small city along the highway.  The village that we go to are much smaller and more remote. Much love, Ronda PS. ...

 We were blessed to have Mark Hooper and Phil Jackson here.  This is Mark's 3rd trip to teach a short course at CBI.  We appreciate the sacrifice of their wives for supporting them in their trip here.  (By the way, Debbie and Rebecca, you will have to come next time!)  While most of Mark's time was spent teaching at CBI, we were able to show Phil different works that are going on here in Cambodia. This first picture is of Rich preaching Sunday morning at the Phnom Penh Congregation.  I thought you might like a picture of him. This is Mark Hooper preaching at the University Church of Christ.  Try translated for him.  Sorry, but I didn't get a picture of Mark teaching at the school. This is Phil Jackson, Mark Hooper and Rich.  This is the day before they left to return to the US.  We enjoyed their visit.  They were an encouragement to our students at CBI as well as to the missionaries here.  We look forward to their ...

Some of you have probably heard about King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia dying on Monday, October 15th.  I thought I would just fill you in a little He is not the current king.  He became king in 1941.  He is attributed to helping Cambodia get their independence from France and is respected by the Cambodian people.  And during the Khmer Rouge in the late 70's, they were under house arrest.  However, in 2004, he ceded from the throne.  A 9 member panel appointed his oldest son, Norodom Sihamoni, as king at that time and he is still king today.  King Norodom Sihanouk died of a heart attack in Bejing, China.  He and his wife spend quite a bit of time there.  In fact, a few years ago, during election time, it was rumored that the Prime Minister wanted to do away with the monarchy.  (The royal family are in an opposing party from the Prime Minister) At that time, King Norodom Sihanouk said that if he did, that he and his wife would move to ...