Vietnam a country filled with so much beauty, adventure, culture, history and heartbreak.
Last month our squad made teams changes and we got a new group of awesome people to do life with. The new team that Allyson and I are a part of is officially called SEA Salt which stands for “SouthEast Asia Strong Ambassadors of Light and Truth. Our teams verse is Matthew 5: 13-16. Our new teammates are Khurry, Ailie, Jeff, and Haley. We are going to miss our old team and all of the fun memories that we made together but, change is good and helps propel us forward. We look so forward to the time and ministry we have with this new group.
We started off our month in Vietnam in the city of Vung Tàu where SEA Salt was born. Our team was assigned to an “ask the lord” month or also known as ATL ministry. This means we were not given any formal ministry site/location or any host or local contact to work with for our month. The idea and heart behind this kind of ministry is how are we allowing ourselves to
1.Be interruptible by the Lord
2. Ask the Lord daily and hourly, Where are you? What do you want me to do today or in this moment?
3. Live out the saying “ministry is life and life is ministry”
The idea of doing ATL is initially a little scary. I am about to enter into a foreign country that I have never been to and I am supposed to find ministry? Additionally, none of us speak Vietnamese, so how are we going to communicate with people? All of these questions are valid and at times can provide a challenge to ministry and live out your faith. One of the beautiful things about ATL is that it is a window into how we can choose to go about our lives and our day here on the field, but also in the United States. How am I going to allow the Lord to move through me today regardless of what is on my own personal agenda or to-do list?
As we had mentioned in our previous blog about South East Asia many of the countries that we would be spending time in are “closed” countries. Vietnam is one of those countries where it is illegal to evangelize. The country of Vietnam allows for “freedom of religion” but the government closely monitors all of the Christian churches that are in Vietnam. With all this being said, my team and I were instructed to use a lot of caution and discernment as we moved through the month. Many of us “western” Christians in Vietnam were not in much danger, outside of possible arrest or being kicked out of the country. The local people that we would be sharing with could be in much more trouble and placed in a very bad position. SO we had to be strategic in how we approached conversations.
To begin the month, we spent the first several days praying and asking the Lord where we wanted us to go. Each member of the team sought out their own quiet time and space with the Lord. We met as a team and began to share what the Lord had placed on our hearts and spent some time vision casting and looking up possibilities of where we could go and what we could do. Many wonderful moments and ministry connections happened throughout the month but, I want to focus on one particular story that really defined the month for myself and Allyson. One of the things that the Lord shared with me is, “I want you to go be in the mountains and have mountains all around you.” I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that, but I decided that I would press in and share with my team. Upon sharing with my team Allyson began to talk about during her time of praying and asking the Lord she looked up things in the northern aspect of the country, as the more north you go in Vietnam the more unreached the area is, and mentioned the town of Sapa, home to Fasipan, the tallest mountain in Indochina. Other members of the team also expressed that they had a desire to go to the northern part of Vietnam to visit Ha Long Bay and possibly the capitol city of Hanoi. So away we went on a 40 hour+ bus ride north. The bus ride was certainly filled with its adventures and challenges. A big part of my personal ministry this month was learning more about the Vietnam War and praying for the local people as we drove by or walked through the very cities and towns that were direct conflict zones during the war. I also was praying for the people back in America that were deeply affected by the war and that still have lingering wounds and trauma from the war. I was honored to be able to meet and see the areas where such sad and painful things took place. I know many people on both sides of the war suffered greatly and many people are still grieving, weeping, or angry about what took place. The bus ride provided a great way to see and have the time and space to pray over the land and its people.
*The stunning Sapa/Lao Cai region*
After spending a few days in Hanoi prior to going to Sapa, the Lord had moved in my heart during the day to do a little more research and digging into the people of the Sapa region using a website called The Joshua project (I highly recommend taking a look at the website to learn more about the people groups of the world, especially Unreached People Groups (UPGs) https://joshuaproject.net/ ). Upon looking into the region I learned that there are 3 different completely unreached people groups up there. This means that there is a group of people that has a particular language and/or cultural customs and not a single person in that people group are a Christian or know the Lord. The only people group that knows the Lord in that region is the Black Hmong people. Currently, there are only about 2.5% Evangelical Christians out of all of the Black Hmong people. The Black Hmong people group is the largest people group in the Sapa region. Unreached people groups there include the Tay, Red Xao and others.
Immediately, I was moved by the Lord and I knew that this was what we were supposed to be doing, we are going to trek to these different unreached people groups and pray over these villages and sing worship from the mountainside. We booked a trek with a guide that would take us into these various unreached villages as “undercover tourists” of sorts. The town of Sapa as a whole is very popular due to the stunning mountainous landscape, however, a very small number of people choose to continue to hike or travel outside of the main tourist area of Sapa and into these various small villages. The villages have places that host foreign backpackers called homestays. These are very similar to hostels except they are literally part of the people’s homes and they are in the middle of all the action in village life. Our guide was set to take us on a 3 day trek across the valley, into the mountains, and into these village areas that we knew were unreached. We would get within about 15 miles of China we were so north. Our guide was a man in his 20s, we will not share his name here for safety reasons, but will call him Joe. Joe guides for a living and was excited to lead us on our journey. Our trek began through the bamboo forest and the unreal landscape of rice paddies that are carved out of the side of the mountains. During our trek we passed many water buffalo in the rice paddies. At one point on the first day, Ally asked Joe if they ever ate the water buffalo and he went on to explain that they only eat the water buffalo if they die or if a member of the community dies then they kill the water buffalo along with a pig and a chicken. They offer the animals up as a sacrifice to go with the person into the afterlife and to provide food for people at the funeral. The religious belief in the area is all ancestral worship. He went on to mention that if you are a Christian you just serve the animals for food at the funeral and they don’t believe they go into the afterlife. Ally was surprised he said the “C” word and shared with us all, the whole team very surprised. Joe had just casually mentioned the word Christian which is typically very out of place and character for this region. Later on during the day Ally was in another conversation with him and she felt prompted to ask what he believes in. Our guide was a bit hesitant and visibly nervous to share, but after several seconds he revealed that he was a Christian! What?!
Ally was shocked and very excited! She revealed to him that our whole team was also Christian and he was also shocked and very excited. He exclaimed I have never met any foreign people that are Christian and brothers and sisters in Christ! Ally shared the wonderful news with the rest of the team and we all celebrated together and were in utter amazement that the Lord had placed us with another Christian. Of the 2.5% of Black Hmong people that our Christians, our guide was one! We began to ask him several questions about how he came to know Jesus and find Christianity, as well as if goes to church. We also shared with him the true intent of our trip in Sapa was to travel into these unreached people groups villages and pray over them and sing worship where no one possible ever has before. He was so excited and began to tell us that his heart is also for the rest of his village and all of the unreached people to come and know the Fathers love for them. All of us were feeling so amazed by the Lords goodness to pair us up with Joe as our guide. After he began to answer more of the questions that we asked him we learned that he is the only Christian in his family and by being Christian it has deeply strained his relationship with his family. He also told us that he was a part of a church in his village but, they have had some trouble with the government watching them and trying police them or get them into trouble so the building that they meet in is a utility building that they have registered as a “community” building. Being that it was Saturday when we found out about Joe being a Christian we asked him if they would be meeting for church tomorrow on Sunday and if so, would it be okay if we were to join for church? He spent several moments pondering whether or not this would endanger his friends and church family. He responded with yes, we could go with him and join him for church! Conveniently, or really planned by the Lord, the church was somewhat on the current trekking route that we were all ready going on. As we were climbing up the hill to the church the next morning, the weight and magnitude of what we were doing was fully beginning to settle in. When the church was about 100 yards away we began to hear singing faintly rolling down the rice terraces and the closer we got the louder it became and felt like water rushing down over the rice terraces. Hearing the Hmong people worship in their own language and hearing their praises to the Father was breathtaking. Walking into the church seeing the 30 or so members and their joyous faces was simply amazing. We were asked to come in front of the church and sing a song for them. We sang a few worship songs to the people and a random woman sitting in the congregation popped up and began to be our defacto translator and she spoke very good English which was quiet a pleasant surprise. She helped translate our explanation of the worship songs that we sang and the prayer that I spoke over the people. They were able to receive the encouragement and the word from the Lord that I was sharing with them thanks to this wonderful lady in the congregation. To help give you an idea on the heart of this church and its people, I will share the Bible verse that they had on a banner which was displayed as the backdrop for the front of the church.
Romans 14:8-9 “For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.”
Reading that I was so moved emotionally for these people and their hearts for the Lord and how they view the importance of His love and relationship with Him. After the church service we got to talk with a pastor of the church and the woman who was translating for us was his wife! She helped relay sentiments of gratitude from her husband and how happy they were to have us there at their church. They had never had foreign people come to their church before. They have been hoping for people to come and help disciple people and teach about discipleship in the church. Outside of the pastor and his teaching there is not much discipleship that is currently taking place. The pastor and his wife also expressed their desire to pray for and evangelize to the unreached people groups in the area as well. They have been praying for them and that the Father would come and show His love to them. That He would make his love known to them. They also shared with us that they have a homestay and would love to host believers that want to come and work with their church, safely under the cover of tourism. What?! The pastor and his wife were on fire for the Lord, their village, and the surrounding villages and people that they want to reach.
As we finished up our time with the church and the pastor I walked away feeling awestruck. I felt that the Lord had pulled back the veil and allowed me to see how was working in the reaching of thousands of people in those mountains and valleys. He allowed me to see His church at work as they pursued after the Lord and His people. He allowed me to see the infrastructure of how the people can be reached. Through the pastor’s wife and her homestay and by the fact that foreign people coming into this unreached villages are not uncommon because of the local tourism. Wow, God I see You moving right before my eyes I can see parts and people moving like the inner working of a grandfather clock. Humbled, I trekked through the mountains for the rest of the day in worship and thankfulness of what the lord had done.
Our final day trekking with Joe took us to some of the high villages and places where we could pray over the people and sing worship over the mountains and the valleys. A very powerful experience that was capped off by bluebird skies and sunshine. Which was very significant because when we began the trek on day 1 there was a very heavy fog that was covering all of the land and it was hard to see more than 200 yards in front of you. Initially we were pretty bummed because we wanted to see the full splendor and glory of the Sapa valley, Fasipan, and surrounding mountains. Then as Ally was praying to the Lord while trekking that first morning, He spoke to her and told her that this fog is a physical representation on the spiritual heaviness on the land. The people here don’t have a clear view of Me, even though I am all around them. That became a part of what Ally and I began to pray into each day as we trekked along and each day the fog and clouds became a little bit less and less till finally at the very end of our trek and final worship session all of the fog and clouds were gone. The Lord spoke again to Ally and shared with her how He is clearing a way for His people to finally see Him in all of His glory in this place. Feeling the full weight of those words was invigorating. God is pursuing His people not just the people in Sapa, but each of us in the exact place that we are in wherever we are in the world.
*The foggy first day trekking*
*Stunning views from atop one of the villages we prayed over*
Our time in Sapa was truly life changing. Encountering the Lord and His people in that manner was unbelievable. Ally and I are walking away from our time in Sapa with a confirmation in our heart that in some sort of capacity that we will be back to see these people again. Maybe not for many years but, we will be back. More importantly we know who we can be praying for and what we can be praying for and tangible ways we can support them as well. That is one of our requests for you is to pray for the Christians in Sapa but, not just them, continue to include the rest of the people in the world who still have not even HEARD of Jesus!
My first reflection question that I would like to ask is
- How are you asking the Lord each day what He has for you? Then more importantly, how are you allowing yourself to be interruptible to what He is Speaking?
I know all too well how easy it can be to wake up go about my day, get home go to bed, rise and repeat. Even though I am reading myBible every day, praying, going to small group, and church, how am I truly engaging with what the Lord is asking me to do daily? I know you might be thinking well it would be easy if I didn’t have to go to work, take care of my kids, and take care of the house, chores or bills. What I am asking you to do is allow the Lord into each of those moments and things and give Him the permission to interrupt those things and respond. This doesn’t mean it will always be a physical action, it could simply be a moment to truly pause your day and simply be in the Presence of the Lord wherever you are and whatever you are doing.
- How are you praying for and interceding for the global church? What are you doing to affect the lives of those people who live around the world who haven’t heard who Jesus is, and how are you intentionally seeking the people in your community and city who haven’t heard of Jesus before?
As Christians it is imperative that we are engaging in the global church in some sort of capacity. Whether that is prayer, financial, or physically going. We all have a role to play, especially in the unreached people groups of the world! I want to really encourage you to step out and take an opportunity to look into your own city and see where there may be people that are from all over the world who you can go and share your faith with and just spend time building relationships. Are there immigrant or refugee communities? We live in such a global world, UPG’s are even in the States now in the form of refugees. The Lord has brought the nations to you! So cool. Look for these people and make time to go and walk the streets or attend their church. Visit their restaurants and ask intentional questions and build a relationship with these people.
Ally and I would love to hear about how you are seeking the Lord in your life and creating that space to ask Him and respond to what HE tells you. We both would really love to hear how you are going out into your cities and communities to engage with different people groups. Please comment what you are hearing and where you plan on going so we can be praying for you and those people.
Once again, we are so very humbled by all of the love and support that each of you have given us to make this journey possible. I wanted to thank you again for supporting us and helping us have the privilege to see how the Lord is reaching Vietnam and the Sapa region! You have helped make a connection that will continue to change the population of Heaven!
