(Awesome musical in my opinion when I saw it for the first time in the West End in 2014, also def has one of the top 3 Act 1 finales of a musical next to Les Mis & Wicked)
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT!!!!!!!!! I AM FULLY FUNDED!!!!!!! THANK YOU TO ALL WHO HAVE DONATED FOR THIS MISSION COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT YOUR SUPPORT!!!!! ALSO THANK YOU FOR THE PRAYERS!!!!
I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT HERE IN VIETNAM!!!!! The big city, the history, the food, the people, the culture, just everything! Vietnam is on God’s list of countries that he could call me back too long term, but first I gotta figure out what he is calling me to go to grad school for first before he let’s me know the next move.
Sorry for the lack of blogs this month as the whole password protect thing has really put a damper on my blog writing excitement, but in Cambodia we can take off the password so be sure to read my past blogs especially check out my photo blog titled The Hands project as that is gonna be a series (shameless plug, I know haha).
Our days are slow, and for someone like me who is the active independent type who likes to go out on her own, the days have been painful even our “off” day, so God has been teaching me alot about patience & stillness, and it has been a hard lesson to learn.
ATL has hard on me as I feel like I haven’t been able to contribute anything to the team, and so to me that sucks because I want to be a team player, and I feel like I am letting my team down, which makes me feel bad.
I have a feeling that this is partly do to God going quiet with me this month, and the fact that I’ll admit that I think I have mentally psyched myself out before the month even began. But I have also learned that when God goes quiet with me then he is planning something big for me so we will see about that. Thank God for awesome teammates who have a better sense of direction from God, and I have been mostly following them, and sitting in on meetings with our contacts.
So yeah this post is really more about God and them then me, and I’m giving God and them all the glory as far as ministry goes this month, and I’m just doing my job as the storytelling leader to tell the story (I really hope I am still the storytelling team leader for my new team when team changes happen in 2 weeks-more to come on that in a later blog), and yes blogging is a form of ministry in my book.
Anyways here’s what my teammates have done this month for ATL/Unsung heroes:
– attended a local church to find possible connections that way, and were connected to various English Clubs in Hanoi, and went out to brunch with some of the young adults from that church.
-Attended English club meetings, and actually taught the English lesson as finding native English speakers are in short supply here.
-Simply hanging out with the locals, and getting to know them as well as interacting with others as we go about daily life here in Hanoi. This includes meeting and chatting with people who are staying at our hostel, which is so cool as I’ve met people from all over the world just by sitting down eating breakfast, as well as the workers of various places where we have shopped, eaten at, and stayed at.
-arranged and attended several meetings with possible organizations to establish a partnership with AIM
– One of my teammates has a huge passion for ministering to girls/young women who are involved in the sex trade, so her and another one of my teammates have been going out at night to the red light district, and talking to girls that they meet, and learning their stories. I totally admire her passion for this as I know this is something that I could never do for alot of reasons (which makes me a little bit worried about our ministry in Cambodia), so I give her mad props for believing so strongly in this cause, and doing something about it.
While it may seem like we have been all business during our time in Hanoi, we have managed to find time for fun as well:
– I got to cross another place off of my historical bucket list by going to visit the Hoa Lo Prison Museum aka “The Hanoi Hilton”
– Shopping at the night market & enjoying the local street food- pretty much living my travel channel dream
– Celebrating Jillian’s birthday by attending church, going out to brunch and having a spa day.
– trying out alot of interesting coffee shops
-exploring other museums & historical sites
– chilling at the hostel
Also the people here are very passionate about their National soccer team as we got to see the city when there was a big match on the other night: Vietnam vs Jordan in the round of 16 of the Asia Cup. I really wish soccer was bigger then it is back in the states cause I have learned to enjoy watching it since being on the Race.
So yeah that’s the update on my life here in Hanoi this month. I’m not gonna lie as it has not been all peaches and cream as I have struggled in so many ways both personally & spiritually especially Not being able to openly talk about God has been a challenge especially when people ask what we are doing here in Vietnam, and we pretty much have to watch what words we say to them for we can’t even say the word missions here when talking to people. I feel bad about telling people this, but I know that its gotta be done for our protection.
It’s also weird to me to realize that for the rest of my race I’ll be on the other side of the world from now til August. Plus I have been on the Race for over 100 days! Both of these are crazy to think about, but so cool at that same time.
It’s on to Cambodia next month for month 5 that involves debrief, new teams & ministry
Til next time,
Bonnie
