It’s 3:00 am April 1st and I’m wide awake….
We leave for the airport at 6:00 to go to Malaysia for month 7 of the race…. And I can’t go to sleep!!!
If you couldn’t tell, Vietnam has been one of the best months I’ve had on the race!! We didn’t know we would even come until 2 months ago, but man am I happy we did!! Where we are staying is in the backpacker, crazy district in Ho Chi Minh City. Right down the street are all the crazy bars, we live next to the Bourbon St of HCMC pretty much, which is cool!! Crazy and a lot of fun, but you see the down side of it too. We have gotten hassled all month to buy…
Sunglasses
Lighters
DVDs
Shoe shines
Maps
Fans
And when we say no to all of those, they ask
Marijuana…NO!!
Heroin….NO!!
Cocaine…. NO!!
Girl…NO NO NO!!!!!
I’m kind of use to that from everywhere else I’ve been, so I politely say no thank you. One of my side projects of the month has been to make friends with some of the people who sell those things instead!!!! I shouldn’t even call it a side project because that should just be normal for us. We should want to be friends with everyone and show love equally to everyone we come in contact with. One of the things the Lord is teaching me this month is to seek out the people no one else seeks out. Talk to the people no one talks to, be friends with them and show them love that they haven’t seen before. I am horrible with Asian names, but I’ve made friends with, banana guy, bread lady(her name is Giam), shoe shiner guy (his name is Minh), moto parker (his name is lynn), Dvd guy, smoothie lady, all the surrounding hostel workers, all the waitresses at a bar we go to for live music, all the workers at a coffee shop where we do ministry, doner kabob guy, most of the street sunglass sellers. I feel like a local!! I walk down the street and just wave to everyone, smile and say hi, and they do the same back. One of my favorites is Lynn, he parks motos down the street and I see him everyday. Most nights I just go and sit on a moto next to him and talk and hang out with him. At the beginning of the month he asked me to buy marijuana everyday, but now he asks what I did that day and how I am.
So tonight I just couldn’t go to sleep, I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I went out!!! I went to go talk to Lynn. I sat next to him on a moto and just sat, we talked, but I just sat and soaked. At this time in the night it’s very different from a few hours before. All the prostitutes are out and about, drunk people stumbling into taxis, the late night bar scene. So I sat on a moto next to Lynn and looked around, soaked…..and prayed!!! I was surrounded by sin. There had to have been 20-30 prostitutes sitting around, some talking to each other, some eating. Guys coming up to me asking to buy all kinds of different drugs and girls. Lynn knows I am not here for any of that so he tells them all to stop asking and go away. I have seen all of this stuff before, but God gave me new eyes for it tonight. Sitting on a moto, on a busy street corner in Vietnam, surrounded by so many people that I could have helped and talked to. These beautiful girls are sitting there laughing with each other and look as if they are happy, but I know that their not and are waiting for some guy to take them home for the night. That breaks my heart every time!!!
