Tonight a bunch of us are standing in front of our hotels when Tellus asks me a question. I don’t make out the question but I immediately say “Yes”. Naturally, I thought he is inviting me to go the smoothie lady for a smoothie, or to the kebab lady for a sandwich. But when Brian pulls all five us to the end of the street and says he’s going to pray to get us started, I quickly realize smoothies are not part of this plan. When he ends praying, I turn to Robert and ask “what did I just agree to?” And he says “we are starting a revolution.” Which is typical Robert-language for, “we are going on a prayer walk”. Alright, cool. I am down.
Brian then mentions he is looking for a man in a wheelchair who he saw the previous night and cannot stop thinking and praying about. Then Amanda also mentions a few people she wants to see again. So we start our hunt.
The walk down the main road is terrible, as always. I’ve become a pro at racing through the shenanigans of the Red Light district with a smoothie in hand and eyes on traffic so I don’t get run over or robbed by a motorbike, purposefully ignoring what is going on around me. Because truth be told, Ho Chi Minh City makes me sick. It weighs heavy on me. It suffocates me. I hate it.
But tonight, as I walk down the street, instead of looking away, I decide to stare. As we walk through the devil’s playground, I am not afraid. I am expectant. I have butterflies and I just know something is going to happen.
When we reach the end of the main road, Brian turns around and says he hasn’t seen the man he’s looking for. We stand there waiting for Amanda and Tellus to catch up. That’s when Robert sees a wheelchair peaking out from behind a motorbike on the other side of the street. Brian walks over and it’s the man! He gets down and starts praying for him. I stand next to him, looking at our surroundings. We are in front of a restaurant where there are a ton of westerners enjoying their expensive Italian meals. They are watching us.
On one side of Brian, there’s a man laying on his bike who tries to tell me the woman we spoke to briefly just seconds before is “coo-coo”. I tell him everyone is little crazy. He doesn’t get it. Then a woman selling all kinds of trinkets stands behind the wheelchair, on the other side of Brian, and starts having an argument with the man laying on the bike. Brian and the man on the wheelchair are in the middle. It all starts to feel a bit chaotic.
Brian then decides he wants to buy the man some fried rice, so we walk across the street to the food stand. As we’re waiting for our take-away, the woman with the trinkets seems to be in a bigger argument now. There’s a tall young Vietnamese man who is trying to slap her and he’s being held back by a few women. Another woman shoos the woman with the trinkets away, pointing her to the opposite direction. She hastes in that direction. I tell Brian I need to go after her. I grab Robert and I book it after the lady. I approach her and let her know I saw everything. I ask if she’s okay. I tell her I am sorry.
Huyen is fuming and going on about tourists and bikes and bad people. I don’t understand anything but I stand there listening to her ramble. I look Huyen in the eyes and tell her I am sorry. I turn to Robert and before I can say anything this young man runs up to her, corners her and puts his fist to her face. It all happens so fast. He doesn’t throw a punch because someone holds him back.
That’s when I see Huyen who is probably in her 50’s become a defenseless five year old girl before me. I will never forget the fear in her eyes.
Next thing I know she is pushed to the ground by another young man and punched on the side of the head by yet another young man. I’m not sure what happens in that short spam of time except that I jump in front of her. Amanda and I cover her with our bodies while we pick up all her trinkets from the ground. We sit there with her until she is able to stand.
The young men disappear. Everyone else around us just stares and then quickly return their attention to their human merchandise and their booze.
With Huyen, something overcomes me. I am distraught but at the same time I have never seen clearer. In Vietnamese culture, is not okay for one to touch another’s head. But I don’t care. I touch this woman’s head. I caress her hair. I hold her hand. I want to kiss her head. I want to pick her up, run her a bath, and make her some tea. I want to take her somewhere comfortable; somewhere cozy; somewhere warm.
I cannot physically give her that. But I do what I can.
I hold her hand. And with tears streaming down both of our faces, I pray for Huyen and ask God to protect her and to make her feel safe. I pray He surrounds her with His comfort. I pray He brings her incomprehensible peace. That she would not feel any fear. The she knows He is watching her. That she knows how much He loves her. I pray Huyen is able to supernaturally understand God sees her as that defenseless five year old girl and He says “FEAR NOT, my beautiful and wonderfully made child; you are worth more than many sparrows”. She says “thank you,” and she means it.
We walk several blocks before we can sit down and debrief what had just happened. The men who attacked Huyen, are kids in their late teens. We are angry, confused, riled up…you name it. But Brian spits out wisdom about how we shouldn’t sit in our anger and whatever the enemy is saying right now we need to release it. I quickly arrive at the conclusion that whatever did happen back there, I will never know. Even if Huyen spoke perfectly good English, we would never be able to understand what transpired. I start praying and almost immediately God gives me His words: Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
They do not know they made her feel like a piece of trash
They do not know they made her feel worthless
They do not know they made her scared
They probably will never know.
But it’s not my job to judge them. My only job is to LOVE them. And love is what I will do.
