*In order to protect the ministry we worked with, I will not be sharing any names or photos of faces.
Vietnam is a “closed country”. This means that you can be a Christian in private but if you are caught preaching, evangelizing, or doing ministry in any capacity not only are you at risk for being arrested or kicked out of the country but you put the ministries that you are working with at risk of being disassembled and those running them in an even riskier position.
Our first few days in Vietnam was spent with our entire squad at Debrief. We spent time resting, going to sessions put on by leadership, and we had worship sessions every night. Being in a closed country, I was confused as to how we were going to have a corporate worship session without putting a huge target on our backs. We did it anyway. It was a bit nerve-wracking if I’m being completely honest. We had people that worked for the hostel we were at watching us and I could tell most of our squad was apprehensive to worship freely. After the first worship night, I figured if I was going to jail, I was going to go out with a bang. Spoiler alert…no one got arrested!
Once we got to our ministry site and settled in, we had lunch with our host so he could explain the rules and what our month was going to look like. He told us that we couldn’t evangelize or just walk up and ask people if we could pray for them without having a relationship with them first. He told us that this month would be different in the sense that we couldn’t talk about Jesus, we needed to show them Jesus.
We had English classes 3 days a week where we built relationships with students and hung out with them outside of class. After we built a friendship with them, if the subject of religion came up, we could freely talk about it because we had built trust. I had two students come to dinner with me and Chelsea one night and they asked us if we were Christians and we got to talk to them about what we believe and why. They both practice Buddism but 1 of them is on the verge of accepting Jesus so please be in prayer for him!
When we weren’t in class or hanging with students, I was heading up the project of designing and making 70+ hats for the children’s Christmas choir which we were able to complete the day before we left! Saturday evenings we had beach parties for the students or huge scavenger hunts and on Sunday’s, we taught Sunday school to the children and had pot lucks with the congregation in the evening. (They loved our cooking!)
We had much more free time this month than I’ve ever had on the race and I spent it being intentional in the Word. The Lord revealed so many things to me this month and even gave me a promise for my future that is an answered prayer! Our team had multiple insane worship sessions filled with teachings and prayer and it was incredibly life-giving! I even faced my biggest fear and the Lord used my worst nightmare to teach me about trusting him. Blog coming on that soon!
I never would have thought I would be a missionary in a country where it’s illegal to preach the Gospel…but God. Never say never, kids!
Hope you enjoyed this recap! My next 2 blogs will be about my spiritual journey so be on the look out!
Much love,
-H
