We were told for ministry we’d be going to a Water Park and
playing with kids. We didn’t have much details about the kids or what kind of
water park, but we were excited. And then I started imagining what kind of Water
Park it would be. I knew it wouldn’t be close White Water or Lake Lanier
Island, but I was still hoping for a lazy river, slides you can ride by yourself,
slides you ride with rafts, a wave pool, and buckets that would dump water on you.
I continued to say these out loud to my team on our way there.
The entrance to the Water Park didn’t look like much. It
made it seem like the Park was indoors. We got inside and bam! Everything I
imagined, just not as big. We have a Water Park just like it in South Georgia where
I went to college. It was a strange sight though – instead of being surrounded
by grass and trees, the park was in the middle of apartments and other
buildings. It was so weird!
Another difference between this Water Park and America’s is
that there were no rules. You could run, you could go down the slide at any
time and didn’t have to wait for the other person to get off; you can splash
everyone, and go down the slide wrong. There were people supervising, I guess
some kind of life guard, but it was so strange to me no one was blowing their
whistle.
There were four water slides, a lazy river, two buckets, a
bridge to run across in the water, a zip-line, and more.
The kids we met up with
were underprivileged and they come to the Park four to five times a year. It’s a
good thing we were there because they wouldn’t have had anyone to play with.
A girl named Mary, who is 13, hung out with me the whole
time. She clung to my arm and hand, I loved it! She didn’t speak any English, but
we still had so much fun together. There were two buckets one in each pool,
they’d dump water at separate times. So we wait for one bucket to fill up and dump water on us, then run to the other pool and wait for the next bucket to
dump on us a few seconds later. We also rode the slides several times.
We did Martha Washington hair dews… Shelley’s is the only one that worked.
Since you didn’t have to wait for the person in front of you to finish the
slide, Mary and I went down together. She’d go first and I’d come after her,
being the bigger person I’d catch her in between my legs and we’d ride the
slide together.
I taught all the little girls with us a hand stand under
water. Then they wanted all of us to do them at the same time. They’d clap for
us and ask us to do it again. We also played their game of hold our breaths
underwater while holding hands. They loved to play with us, I guess because we
can hold our breath for so long.
I left telling Mary I loved her and she told me it back! I
was so surprised because I thought she didn’t speak any English. I am hoping
we’ll get to see the kids again. We all had so much fun with them!
I can’t ever say I’ve been to a Water Park in December, but
that’s the thing about Vietnam. You can go year round!
