Saturday was my last day of ministry on the World Race. Woah. I’m sure you want to hear about the year as a whole and about my plans for coming home. I’ll write another blog about that later this week. For now, I want to share what I have experienced in Vietnam for the 11th and final month of the race.
Since the end of May, my team has been in Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon), Vietnam. This month’s version of becoming all things for the sake of the Gospel entailed putting on our English teacher hats as we taught students at English learning centers, a church, a mall, and a park.
No matter where we taught, our students possessed one unified trait: an energetic eagerness to learn the English language.
I remember learning French in middle school, high school, and college. I loved learning the language, but that love pales in comparison to the passion we have seen in these Vietnamese students.
We taught adults in their 20s and 30s who give up hours of their free time every week to practice their English. Some drive two hours on their motorbikes to talk with Americans in a park. Some go straight from a long day at work to English lessons, finishing at 9pm when they have to be up at 6am the next morning. Some study English at university, but still want to give up their free time to speak with Americans to work on their accents. A good portion of our students are nearly fluent, but have an intense desire to learn more advanced vocabulary. When I ask students what they do for fun, they say that they like to study English. It is true—our Friday and Saturday night classes are packed!
Teaching English to these students was a joy because it ultimately came down to building relationships. Our students wanted to keep our conversations going for as long as possible, so we talked about anything you can imagine. Nothing was off limits. I could learn the details of their family life, their thoughts on the education system in Vietnam, their thoughts on charity and community service, and all about their passions. At the same time, they were eager to hear about my life in America. It was easy to ask about their thoughts on religion, and easy to share what I believe.
One of our ministry opportunities was to teach English in a church, where students could learn English for free by reading the Bible verse by verse. Nearly all of the students in that class are not Christians, but they are intrigued by the tenets of Christianity and the opportunity to work on their English skills with Americans and English speakers from the Philippines.
This is the first time on the World Race that I have so clearly seen an illustration of Matthew 9:37— “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.” We have heard this passage in numerous countries where there are desperate needs for missionaries. In those areas, I always saw the need for workers, but to be completely honest, the harvest was not always so evidently plentiful. And that is okay. We are called to share the Gospel to everyone, not just those who are easy to get to know. God needs workers everywhere, even if they are only sent to pursue one person. But here in Vietnam, the harvest is truly plentiful.
Where else do you have people flocking to foreigners at the expense of their free time, simply to have conversations about anything? In this passage in Matthew, Jesus “saw the crowds” and “he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”
As we held conversational English in the park on Sunday afternoons, I saw the crowds flocking to us. I think we generally had 40 or more Vietnamese friends hovering around the 7 of us, all fighting for the opportunity to speak with us for 2 hours. And I see how they have an aspect of helplessness to them. One man told me that this is the first time he can speak English slowly, because normally when he tries to approach foreigners on the street to practice English they immediately brush him off, clearly wanting to get away as soon as possible to go about their own business. He was so excited to tell me that I am his first foreigner friend on Facebook, and the first foreigner he has really been able to get to know.
He is not alone. It is normal here to have a local stop you while you are walking down the street, simply because they want to practice their English with an American. It has been a real test for me to act like Jesus, patiently stopping and having compassion, even when I just want some time alone after having the same types of conversations all month with every person I meet.
All of these people are seeking truth and learning, and it is likely that they have not heard the truth of the Gospel before. While Christian persecution is declining in the big cities like Ho Chi Minh City, Christianity is not widely welcomed in Vietnam. On the World Watch List ranking countries with the most persecution of Christians, Vietnam ranks #17. Our contacts here have said that things have improved greatly in recent years, and by the grace of God they have only had to deal with minor harassment and corruption from government officials. Even with the climate for Christians improving, the Vietnamese people are very sheltered from hearing the Gospel.
The conversations I have had with the young Vietnamese people have shown that this generation is recognizing the problems with the religion of their parents. Most students I spoke with told me that they have no religion. They think it is better to have no religion than to become a hypocrite, going to the pagoda to worship and then living an immoral life.
I see these young adults seeking happiness anywhere they can find it. One night at English class, our discussion topic was “happiness.” I was shocked to hear student after student tell me that money is their happiness. Dresses and skincare products are the height of happiness to some of the women. While the material things are so highly valued, I could see God working through the English lessons to point these students to find true joy in loving relationships.
During one student’s graduation speech, he choked back tears because the community of English class had meant so much to him. While he may not see the Lord’s hand in these relationships now, it was apparent to me that these students are recognizing their desire to be fully known and fully loved. The desire to be in a place where there is no judgment, where people from all walks of life come together with a common purpose, and where they can form deep friendships that delve into discussions about the deep philosophies of life. That is God. God is the only one who fully knows and fully loves them. And He is pursuing these students by introducing them to community with Christians who are sent by the love of Christ to know and to love them.
That English school only has Christians come to teach once or twice a year. The missionary who provides English lessons at the church and conversational English in the park is always looking for new mission teams to help. We simply do not have enough time in one month to build all of the relationships that are waiting to be built here. And the missionaries in the area are too busy to meet with all of the students who are interested in building relationships with them.
The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
It would be so easy to move to Vietnam and start a ministry or come alongside an existing one. I’ve been told that it is incredibly easy for an American to get a teaching job at a school or university, and the ministry opportunities with the people here are endless.
After Jesus has compassion on the people, he tells the disciples, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” We are to pray for God to send workers.
I am praying. I ask that you would pray too. And if you find yourself with free time or a crossroads in life when you don’t know where you are going, maybe ask God if He wants you to come to Vietnam. The beautiful thing about ministry here is that as Americans, God gave us the only skill we need at birth. The English language. You don’t need a teaching degree to teach English here. You don’t need tons of ministry training. You just need to be open to God using you as a worker, and open to loving the Vietnamese people. That is pretty cool.
I am currently at what the World Race calls “Final Debrief,” a four-day processing period before we make our long-awaited voyage back to the homeland. Please be in prayer for my whole squad as we try to deal with the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions surrounding this year and the impending re-entry process. Be on the lookout for my final blog post from the field that will be posted later this week!
Thanks for reading!
