This morning my team returned to Ho Chi Minh City after about 10 hours on a sleeper bus (side note, a sleeper bus is a charter bus with bunk beds instead of seats and disco lights instead of regular lights. It’s the actual best way to travel). We had an incredible adventure day and Christmas in Nha Trang and returned ready to continue ministry in Saigon.
I went to a bakery a block away from our hostel to regroup and refocus after being away for a couple of days. I was thinking and praying about the time we have left here. I was reflecting on what the Lord has been doing here and praying about what else we will get to be a part of before we leave for Cambodia.
There are six and a half days before we finish month three.
One hundred and fifty-six hours until we say goodbye to Vietnam.
The thought came to me that I have a choice to make: mentally check out in these last few days or partner with the Father and commit to fighting for the kingdom in every hour that I will still be in this country.
This week our squad was asked the question “What is something you hope Vietnam will know you by in this last week and how can you start to walk that out?”
I’ve had this question in the back of my mind all day, and this morning I was reading in 1 Samuel about when David was asked to go check on his brothers who were in battle against the Philistines. He heard Golaith’s threats to the Israelites and volunteered to fight him. There’s a lot in this story that I love and could talk about for a whole blog post, so I’ll skip to the point.
In the last few verses of the chapter after David defeated Goliath, Saul and some of his commanders are amazed at what David did, so they ask him whose son he is. What David did and the way he acted made people want to know whose son he was. They had to know where he came from, why he was the way he was, and ultimately why he did what he did.
From that simple question I realized that I want to live my life in a way that makes people ask whose daughter I am. I want my life to reveal that I am a child of God. As I think about what I want to be known for in the places I go, I want to set that question at the forefront.
That brings me back to the 156 hours I have in this city (or approximately 148 now). Like I said, I don’t want to just check out and prepare to move onto Cambodia. I want to keep going in the next 6 days with full force. Like David, the Lord has been preparing me through my whole life for this trip – for these moments. I don’t have to try to equip myself differently and go out and do just to do and tell the stories. That is, in fact, the opposite of what I should do. I am equipped to use my abilities to partner with what the Lord is already doing here. For the next 148 hours my team and I can try to find the Lord in each hour and see where he wants us to partner with him. That is exactly what I want to do.
As I was sitting at that bakery this morning I was thinking “Wow, this is sweet. I am called to fight for the kingdom in each hour of the day. I get to do this for the next 156 hours and set that as a goal before myself.” Then I was telling myself that at the end of the week I could post this rad blog about my last 156 hours in Saigon and all the wild things the Lord did in those six and a half days.
Instead, I decided to post it now. Mostly because my reasoning for posting it six days from now was stupid. I’m not doing this thing to post well-thought-out stories about it. I also felt like posting it now provided me with an opportunity to ask you all to pray about our last week here.
Individually, my team has connections and relationships with people throughout this area. We’re going to continue to spend some time in the parks this week and hope have conversations with students that want to practice their English. There’s a few students we’ve already met that we’re hoping to have some opportunities to meet up with in the next couple of days. If you will, we would love your support and prayers over these next 148 hours. I am confident that we will have stories to tell about what the Lord did in our last 6 days in Saigon, so I am praying boldly now.
