When we entered Vietnam, we knew that this month was going to be different from every other month on our Race. We were immediately struck with the beauty of the country. As we arrived in the city of Da Nang, we were overwhelmed by the beaches and the mountains. Vietnam is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! We were preparing ourselves for a ‘creative access’ month because Vietnam is considered a ‘closed’ country and it is illegal for us to tell anyone about Jesus or even mention His name in the presence of a Vietnamese person. Our first night in the country, my team prayed over our dinner at a restaurant and our waitress stood and watched us because she had never seen anyone pray over a meal before.
During our orientation, we were told to assume that all of our emails were read, our hotel room bugged, and that every 3rd person was a spy! In order to attend church on Sundays, we had to have foreign (not Vietnamese) passport. We had to figure out how to share Jesus with people when we were unable to talk about Him or mention His name.
To be honest, Vietnam was a hard month for me. My heart burns for those who do not know Jesus to come to know Him. Everything inside of me screams out when I see people trapped in darkness when I know the Light. I would drive past ‘Marble Mountain’ and see hundreds and hundreds of idols made of stone. I would ride my bike to the market and see a man sitting outside of his shop carving buddah statues out of wood. I would see houses and offerings set out to appease the ancestors…there were even ‘parades’ on the evenings of full moons to throw sweets in the streets for the ancestors. I saw so many kids with birth defects (a remnant of agent orange from the war). While I laid hands and prayed for every child I could, when no one was looking or no one in the room spoke English, there is something so different about telling someone how much Jesus loves them and the price He paid for their healing.
The verse the Lord gave me at the beginning of the month was Isaiah 49:4. ‘Then I said ‘I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and in vain, yet surely my just reward is with the Lord and my work with my God’.
When I reflected on the month as I was leaving the country, this was exactly how I felt. I struggled with the idea that we went into orphanages and were instructed to run programs and teach the kids life lessons. We used stories like the Good Samaritan to teach them to be kind to their neighbors and Gideon to show that even though they were small, they could do mighty things. But my heart was broken! I don’t want to teach them to be good moral children…. Who are on their way to hell because no one ever told them about Jesus!
I know that I am a carrier for His Presence and that everywhere I went, He went. Every person I touched, He touched. When people encounter His love, they cannot remain the same, even when we are unable to say anything. My trust is in the faithfulness of Jesus to complete the work He has started in Vietnam. He wants to be known by the Vietnamese people more than I want them to know Him. He is moving there, even when we can’t see it.
My prayer for Vietnam remains that a door would be opened for the Gospel and that the Vietnamese people would encounter the living God. My prayer is that the name of Jesus would be lifted up…shouted from every mountaintop that I saw. That Light would pierce darkness and that Jesus would receive the praise and worship that He alone is worthy of from His Vietnamese Bride.
