This is the first in what will hopefully be a series of blogs to close out this 100 day trip. Tomorrow is our last day in the village so prayers for closure, especially for the people we’ve met, would most definitely be appreciated. We head to Ho Chi Minh for a couple of days Sunday and will begin our journey back to the States on Wednesday (the 28th) evening.
Top 10 Favorite Moments (in no particular order)
Falling asleep to the
rain in Binh Minh. On the way
home from one of our many trips to Ho Chi, we had the opportunity to visit a
church in Binh Minh and spend the night there. They had set up thin mattresses in the rooftop Sunday school
classroom for us. As we prepared
for bed, it started to pour rain, making for a loud but absolutely incredible
evening. There’s just something
about falling asleep to rain coming down on a tin roof overhead that brings
peace to my soul.
Standing on the
bridge taking pictures. A few
weeks into the trip, as we were walking home from the coffee shop, I stopped to
take some pictures on the local bridge.
As I stood there and simply watched life around me, camera in hand, I
felt like myself; I felt alive. It
was an invigorating feeling that I haven’t been able to really replicate much
since, but a great one nonetheless.
Riding a tractor. I’m not a country girl. I didn’t grow up on a farm and never
had the experiences many of my friends who did have. One day, Hoang called us to come work in the rice field (or
so we thought). Upon getting
there, we saw a tractor harvesting the grain and not much we could really do to
help. As we walked up though, the
driver of the tractor began to make his way over to let Heather and I hop on
board. Heather helped fill some
bags while I simply sat there and took it in. It was a simple, yet fun day.
Tandem bikes in Dalat. Back in August, we had an
opportunity to travel to a mountain town called Dalat. A popular nighttime activity there is
riding tandem bikes around the lake.
We decided this sounded like it could be fun, paired up, and began our
adventure. It didn’t take long for
the chain on mine and Bill’s bike to pop off, in the middle of a traffic circle
mind you, turning this into quite the entertaining evening. We managed to survive the evening
without any casualties, though I did manage to rip my pant leg when it got
caught in the chain, as well as bang up my knee from the fact that I’m about a
foot taller than the average Vietnamese woman. Like I said, it was quite the entertaining evening.
Seeing Ba Tu smile,
wave, or say, “I love you.” Oh
Ba. She’s always making us laugh
for various reasons. But as much
as she’s made me laugh, this woman has brought warmth to my heart that I’ve
most definitely needed in this season.
Whether she remembers who I am from one day to the next doesn’t entirely
matter when I see her smiling face.
One of my favorite things to do is wave to her, pretty much all the
time. She never ceases to smile
and wave back. I’ll definitely
miss her crazy antics but most of all I’ll miss that smile of hers.
My marriage proposal. I think this was one of my favorite
moments because it was one of the first, “yep, this is my life,” moments for me
of this trip. I talked about it a
bit in this blog but, in short, this guy came to meet us. As he was talking to us, his questions
started to shift to just me, as he started to ask when I graduated university and
if I’d be interested in marrying his brother-in-law’s son. He even had our translator take a
picture of me and everything. It
made for quite an entertaining conversation, though I must admit I was relieved
when he finally left.
Story time with Si. While visiting the orphanage in Ho Chi
Minh, I had the opportunity to sit down with Si and read with him. He chose the story-a Bible story from
Matthew-and we took turns reading to each other. It was a completely unexpected, yet absolutely perfect
moment with a precious child who stole my heart. In addition to spending time reading together, Si learned
how to use my camera and spent a good portion of that morning taking pictures
and video for me. These are most
definitely pictures I’ll cherish, as they’ll always remind me of this day.
one of the pictures Si took. unfortunately I can’t post pictures of him but I love this picture he took!
Getting to be the
caboose of a Chinese dragon. Okay
so maybe not quite, but it was close.
As we were walking back from a carnival like thing in town, a couple of
us got caught in the rain. After
trying to wait it out a bit in someone’s home, we decided to try to walk
back. The lady at the house gave
the four of us one poncho to try to stay dry as we walked back so, naturally we
held it over our heads with me, the tallest person in the back. We walked down the street in town in
Chinese dragon fashion, unable to see before noticing that it had stopped
raining. Unfortunately nobody
captured this on video, but it was pretty great.
Hanging with
Horatio. So this wasn’t one
particular day but has actually been the highlight of many days for me. Awhile back, in need of alone time, I
stayed in Ho Chi Minh for a couple of extra days while the others went back to
the village. While there, I
realized I wasn’t spending enough time worshipping. Since then, I’ve been spending a lot of quality time with
Horatio, my guitar. The other
night, as I was plucking away at the song, “As the Deer,” I heard a soft voice
nearby singing along. I looked
over and saw Hong with a big smile on her face as she recognized it. Later Sen joined in. It was such a simple, yet amazing
moment.
Boat ride home. A few days ago, we had an
opportunity to visit Sen’s family who happen to live in a village that hasn’t
seen white people since the war.
After spending some time there, her brother took us home on his
boat. The 15-minute moto ride to
the village was over an hour ride by boat, but I loved it. I had the opportunity to take pictures
and just let the Lord love me as I took in the surroundings. It was pretty great, despite the fact
that my knees look like that of a lobster.
