Hello hello! Here is a recap of the week: On Sunday, we went to the same church that we went to the week before and then had the rest of the day off. On Monday, our ministry contact brought our team to this place in the city called “Revelation Palace” or “Apocalypse Palace”. It was a hotel that was built because of the hype surrounding the year 2012- the supposed end of the world. The hotel was built with architecture that symbolized the book of Revelation in the Bible. The book of Revelation talks about what will happen in the future when the world ends. The man who built the hotel is Vietnamese and he became a Christian in Poland, and then came back to Vietnam. It was really interesting to visually see things that symbolized things in the book of Revelation through the architecture and features that he included. He taped the Bible verses on the features so you could look it up in the Bible too. Some of the things that “symbolized” Scripture seemed to be stretching it a little bit, but there were definitely some things that were legit. On Tuesday, our ministry contact brought us to visit 2 evangelical churches, 2 Catholic ones, and 1 Buddhist temple. We visited with the pastors of both the evangelical churches and prayed with them because the pastor knew them. One of the Catholic churches looked pretty old, but I didn’t find out how old it was. The other Catholic church had a small group of older men worshipping with hymns in it. It was encouraging to see that there’s a so many churches in the city that we’re in. Then, we went to the Buddhist temple and we saw two huge, white statues of Buddha- one of him standing and another one of him sleeping. I prayed that Christ and his truth would be there. We later listened to a sermon as a team that night. On Wednesday, we had a day to be with God and pray. We worshipped and prayed together in the morning, and then I went to the beach with one of my teammates and read the Bible. Later, I took my team out for coffee TO CELEBRATE MY BROTHER’S ENGAGEMENT! Shout out to Kevy and Bethany!!! It’s such a blessing, and I’m thankful to God. My brother told me that he was probably going to get engaged soon, and he e-mailed me when he did since he couldn’t call me. I’m so happy and excited for them! Later, the family here made us dinner, and it was so good! They were so hospitable to us, and it tasted like a restaurant.
On Thursday, we went out to talk with people with the intentions of sharing Christ with people in the city or on the beach. I had liked it last week, but as I mentioned, I felt a little discouraged because we didn’t really talk to anyone last week. This time, we got to talk to two women. The first one was a Vietnamese lady who appeared to be homeless. She had a big bag and a little bag filled with random stuff. She didn’t speak any English, but I had found a seashell on the seashore (haha), and I showed her my shell, and then she looked in her bag and showed me a shell that she had. She then gave us the shell, so I gave her my shell. I thought it was funny that we exchanged seashells. I later gave her the Bible verse John 3:16 in Vietnamese and I showed her the location and times of the church here. We then thought it’d be a good idea to bring her some food, so we got her some, and she put it in her bag. Later, we were walking on the beach and we weren’t quite sure how to approach people, so I suggested that we just ask someone where they’re from. So we saw this woman sitting by herself, and she said she was Vietnamese from this city, but she had been living in England for 30-40 years now and that she had left after the Vietnamese War. It sounded like she had left for safety reasons. She talked so much and told us places we could visit and to remember to be safe because someone had mugged her in this city before. She asked us why we were here, and we said that we were volunteering with a church, and she said that she wanted to know what church we were from because she would like to do some charity work too. She said that she did some charity work at home in England, so I asked her if she was a Christian and she said that she was Buddhist, but she just does charity work through the church and that she goes to church sometimes with her friend. She said that she’s Buddhist and her husband used to be Catholic, but her grandchildren are Christian. She seemed to say that they were all equal to her. She said that she wanted to visit the church here sometime, and that if we saw her again on the beach that we should talk to her. She was so nice and friendly. You should pray for her that she would come to know and follow Jesus- her name was Jasmine. On Friday, we went bowling with some of our ministry contacts here at the mall. It was so fun! I haven’t been bowling in a while because many countries don’t have it. We also went into this 5D simulator thing that makes it seem like you’re on a rollercoaster. That mall also has a movie theater, karaoke, and a food court with food from all over the world. It was one of our ministry contacts first time bowling and the other contacts 2nd time.
Spiritually, during the beginning of the week, I was feeling rather dry and complacent. We’ve had a lot of free time this month, and I remember saying that I was “bored” at one point. We listened to a sermon that actually talked about being “bored” and how when we think about the magnitude of God and his work that there is no room for boredom because God and his work is so awe-inspiring and we have a purpose on earth. It inspired me to look to God in how great he is and to make the most of my time and to think of ways to work for God even if I’m not required to. It helped the rest of my week to feel more lively and joyful. The verse that I loved that was talked about in the sermon was 1 Peter 2:9- “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” I love this verse because it shows our identity, our purpose, and why. I feel like lately God has been showing me how great, holy, and able he is, so I can cast all of my burdens on him and remember that everything isn’t all on me and then through that it helps me to have more security and confidence because I know that I can rest and rely on God- that it’s not all up to me all the time. That I have God who is all-powerful, the body of Christ, my team, my family, my friends, and so many others around me- that I am part of something bigger than myself. Another thing that I’ve been processing through is how God speaks. I’m still currently processing through that, so I can write about it more when I process through it more haha.
Today, I prayed for all of you my supporters just so you know. 🙂 Tomorrow, we’re going to church and then meeting with the youth group, and then on Tuesday, we’re going back to Ho Chi Minh already. With only being here for 2 weeks, this month has been our shortest month staying at our ministry site. This has been my first month where I've lived in a house with the family that is our ministry contacts too, I'm going to be sad to leave them. Next week we have a a “debrief” with our squad, and then it’s off to India!
