Vietnam

Hey guys, I know it’s been a long time, I didn’t post in Vietnam, because there wasn’t too much happening.

Anyhow, here’s a dBrief of what happened in Vietnam.

December 7. We flew out of Guatemala to go to Vietnam. We had layovers in Texas, California and South Korea. Yeah, it was a very long travel day, about 50 hours. At our time in Texas it were a couple special things that happened. First thing that happened was my team leader, Banks Johnson, got engaged while his girlfriend came to Texas to visit him. A couple of other cool things that happen in Texas was we were walking to the post office when a woman came up to me and said ask me to buy food I told her I would so then we got to talking and she said that she was a Christian and it was such a great opportunity for me to. Encourage her in her face, and build the body up. I was talking with her a lot of other guys came and 18 to talk as well so we got to pray over a lot of people in Houston because our layover there was 12 hours. Eventually, we got closer to the post office and we seen the lady again, after she had left and then we were talking to the other guys, and she said that we were in the “hood “of Houston, and that she was starting to get nervous for us. I thought it was really cool that we got to experience that because we thought afterward, if we wouldn’t have going there who else would because they know it’s dangerous there, and it was just a great opportunity at the Lord, gave us to minister to them at the show the love of Christ, wherever we went. I feel so blessed to be able to talk to them guys, and just to tell them about Jesus even if it is in the dangerous part of the town, we were definitely led to go there by the Holy Spirit.

We eventually got to Vietnam, and had our dBrief in Ho Chi Minh city. We spent a week there, debriefing Guatemala and just talking about what you thought out to each of us and what encouraged us and what we want to bring into Vietnam and leave in Guatemala. I always love dBrief because our coaches, Brian and Brandi, and Stephen and Teri come from the states to just pour into us. And it is always fun hanging out with them because they always have good stuff to talk about and they’re just a good time. There wasn’t too much that happened in Ho Chi Minh City except for eating a lot of sushi.

Fast forward to that weekend, we had a 20 hour bus ride that went from Ho Chi Minh City to Da Nang Vietnam. Here we dropped off all the other teams, except for my team, and my team went to Hue Vietnam. We got to meet or ministry host, Minh and Thu, which I came to find out or some of the funniest people. We got to learn a little about the ministry and and learn some dues and don’ts in Vietnam. For example, it was illegal to share the gospel with anyone on the street which kind of gave it more of a thrill to be able to do something illegal for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our ministry in Vietnam was very relaxed. We had two or three hours every day where we would do ministry. Monday through Thursday we will go to a coffee shop and just teach English and use sneakamonies (sneaking testimonies in everyday conversation) for the English students that weren’t Christian. While we were there, it was mind blowing to see what the Lord is doing in that place. Our ministry host told us that he had a Christmas banquet a couple of days after we got there with college students. 50 people decided to give their lives to Christ that day!!!

Another part I’m just being with this ministry, he would go to church a lot and watch them. Do Christmas plays in a whole bunch of stuff to do with Christmas.

Though it was illegal to share the gospel with people in Vietnam, we had a couple of very cool experiences, while sharing the gospel with people on the street. What time we were walking home and I seen this woman with her daughter on the side of the road asking for money to the traffic going by. I decided to stop and talk to her. And I asked her if she would want any food or anything that she said no and that she just wanted to talk. I find it really amazing when people are in situations like that all they really want someone to talk to and you don’t care about the money as much or the food. Her daughter that she had with her had some kind of disease and I got to tell her about how she loves her daughter is how God loves her about how he has so much compassion toward her, and that he just wants to talk to her. It was just so cool to see someone that does not have Jesus so but compassion for someone and be able to use that to guide them to Jesus. We ended up praying for her and a guy came up behind us, and was trying to look at a RAW Translate, so I quickly change all the words that were talking about Jesus to how we wanted to serve. I don’t think he really caught on. He was really just wondering what we were talking to her about. But we got to talk to him a little bit too just about life. After this we got followed a little bit and I decided that we needed to take an Uber home because I didn’t want to go to Jail. Another time we got to pray for an elderly woman, who had a very bad limp. We pray for healing, and though it did not come physically, I believe that the Lord is working where it is coming spiritually. Oh, thanks and praise to the Lord for giving us the opportunity to be able to bless her pray for her, and to put her in our path.

Though they do not celebrate Christmas, too much because most of the country is Buddhist, we had a very fun New Year’s. During the day we didn’t do too much but in the evening we went to the middle of the city and they had a whole concert plane and there were so many people. You cannot walk anywhere because you would bump someone else, and it was so packed I have never been for. And then for New Year’s they let off a whole bunch of fireworks and shouted a lot. Also for Christmas we had such a fun time gifting Minh’s children with a whole bunch of gifts and just watching the reaction was definitely worth it. We also played a lot of soccer against the Vietnamese and almost always lost.

Random story of how I thought I was going to die. We went to the beach in Hue, and after it had been raining for the last two or three weeks the waves were pretty big me and Luke were swimming and then we seen the shore which is getting farther and farther away so we both decided that we should probably start swimming toward shore. I Put my head down and start swimming and realize that not only I wasn’t getting closer, but I was getting further away.( Also, I forgot the whole thing about if there is a riptide when parallel with the shore.) So I kept swimming and I wasn’t going anywhere. At this point, I had not really any strength of my own so I called out to the people on the shore and yelled for help for a solid minute or two. But no one heard me because of the waves crashing and everybody was mine in there and business. Eventually, Luke swam by me, and he got closer to shore, and I remember thinking, I wish I was there, and Luke was. So I asked the Lord for more strength, but didn’t really seem to get anywhere. So I figured I would just talk to Jesus in my final couple minutes. At this point in time I had pretty much accepted the fact that I was going to die because water was going in my mouth and I couldn’t swim anymore because my arms and legs were shot. I told Jesus “I guess I’m going to see him today.” But the Lord had different plans. So I kept swimming with all my might, and somehow moved halfway to shore, and I felt ground. And I told my body that I needed to give all my strength into my legs to run to shore. Though I was dead tired, and honestly could not move without the strength of the Lord, I was able to push and push and push. At this point in time I was also not able to see very well. As soon as I seen that the water was going back from the waves, I just stopped and collapsed because I had no more strength in me to walk anywhere. Then I look over at Luke, and we ended up on the shore at the exact same time that we thought we were both going to die praise the Lord for sparing me and Luke’s life, and that we can continue to do his work in this world.

On one of the last days in ministry, we had a team building exercise where we did some games and we were just connect with a non-believers and the believers. Then during the end, while we were in a small group, we got to share the gospel and part of our testimony with everybody and two people came to Christ that day!!!

After we were all done with ministry, in Hue, we went to Da Nang where we met up with all the other teams, and spent a couple days there. During this time we got to surf a lot and two of my friends played guitar at a local coffee shop and they would also sneak a couple worship songs as well which I found so cool.

Travel Day to Cambodia.

We started off by leaving Denaun in a bus to go to Cambodia. It was a 10 hour bus ride to the border. And when we got there, they told us that no foreigners were allowed to cross the Cambodian Vietnam border in that area. So we decided that we would go whole way down to Ho Chi Minh City. To cross the border there, which is like 12 hours away. We got to that border, and they told us that our visas had expired and that’s the only way we could get to Cambodia was to go to the airport to get our visas renewed, but in order to do that we needed a plane ticket. And they told us that he could take anywhere from 5 to 7 days. During our time in Ho Chi Minh City, I decided to eat a lot more sushi and we decided to go to the zoo. But as we were at the zoo, we got a call saying that we need to go to the airport ASAP because we were leaving the next morning and the visa renewal place was not open during the night. So then we got back to the hotel around 8 o’clock to go to the airport. Our flight wasn’t till eight the next morning. We went to the airport and got our visa stuff figured out and extended, then we just had to wait till morning to fly out. The next morning we started packing all of our stuff and some peoples bags got flagged and it was just a whole mess because we weren’t sure if we were gonna go flight because of our Visa stuff and it was a lot going on. We all made it on the plane by two minutes which honestly all this is such an answer to prayer because we were supposed to be staying 5 to 7 days in Ho Chi Minh City. Now we are in Cambodia and it is such a cool country and I’m so excited for what the Lord has here. That was so far the craziest travel that I have ever been on.

Thanks for tuning in and here are a couple random pictures that I have a Vietnam.

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