Because my last post about the first half of Vietnam was so long, I thought I’d just do highlights for the second half.
1. Visit Dong Tau. We drink some tea, bless some houses, start up games in a field and draw a crowd of 50+ people, get kicked out by the police and escorted to a hotel, drink more tea, have a massive dinner with a family who speaks no english, stay at their house, I throw up for the first time on the race, drink more tea, then hop a bus back to Thanh Hoa. We took only our daypacks with an extra change of clothes, food (which we never had to eat because people feed us all the time), and our tents (which we set up for only 3 hours before the police made us stay at a hotel). Crazy couple of days!
2. Make more friends. After our 5 college-aged friends had to go back to Hanoi for school after the holiday, we made some new friends– high schoolers! We got to go to their houses, visit their English class, share Jesus and our purpose for being there with the class, eat lunch at their English teacher’s house (who’s married to a policeman, by the way), play basketball and cards with the kids at school, and just love on them and share Christ with them!
3. Street ministry. We passed out flowers just to brighten people’s day and bless them, and even did a FREE HUGS campaign! Got turned down a lot, but also got some really great hugs from a lot of people who looked like they needed to be hugged. Definitely drew some stares when 5 Westerners went traipsing by with open arms, grinning like fools, with giant signs that say “TU DO OM!” (FREE HUGS!)
4. Team Sequoia fun nights. Dance parties (complete with ridiculous clothing), Valentine’s Day movie marathon (Stranger Than Fiction & Wait Until Dark), complete with flowers, wine, chocolate, and ice cream from our sweet boys.
5. Trip to Hanoi. We took a train about three hours north to Hanoi, where we stayed for two days before heading out on our trek to Central America. We visited some of our friends at University up there, and were even able to share Christ with some of their other friends. Enjoyed my last two days of delicious Vietnamese food!
Overall, I really, really loved our month in Vietnam. I loved not having any plans, and just going with whatever the Lord put in front of us. It was incredibly freeing, and I think we all learned so much from it!
