I’m Emily Werness and L squad has been in Vietnam for almost two weeks now! I bet you are a bit curious as to what we have been up to. You’ve come to the right place.
My team, Burning Joy, is in Ho Chi Minh City, working with University students. The University has about 100,000 students, many of which are eager to practice their English with a foreigner! We teach an English Club three days a week which consists of teaching them English songs (last Friday we had the pleasure of teaching ROAR by Katy Perry…they loved it), playing some ice breakers, and going over English vocabulary and idioms that are focused on one topic such as holidays or food. The rest of the time is spent in small groups where we practice the vocab and work on conversation – it’s so much fun! I love seeing their curiosity manifested in thoughtful questions about American culture, through their concentrated looks as well as their bewildered looks when they find a word or aspect of our culture completely bizarre. The rest of the week we do have planning meetings and team meetings, but the majority of our time is spent scheduling appointments with students we have met in English Club. We go grab coffee or milk tea and build relationships with them by practicing English and Vietnamese, laughing, getting to know each other, and eventually steering our conversations toward sharing what God has done in our own lives and opening the door to conversation and questions about God. Mostly, we are just here to love them and pour into them. I love it.
Vietnam is a closed country to Christianity which means the government likes to keep a close eye on regulating religious activities – most house churches are illegal and there is a special police force dealing specifically with religious activities. It seems more of the regulation and threats are in rural areas and not as much here in the big city, at least not that I have seen personally. The third Hunger Games movie most likely won’t air here due to the film’s plot focusing on an uprising/revolution in 12 districts; there are 12 districts here in the city.
The first night we arrived in Ho Chi Minh my team was in a taxi heading toward our hostel. We were just having conversation and the name Jesus came up a few times. It didn’t go unnoticed by the taxi driver – his head shot around at the mention of Jesus and he had a strange look about him, but it didn’t go beyond that. I was walking to church on Sunday, carrying my Bible in my hand, out in the open like I always do, when my teammate noticed and I quickly put it in my satchel while she blocked the view. When we go out to lunch or dinner we still pray to our Jesus, but we keep our eyes open and don’t hold hands like we normally do. One day at the University half of our team got kicked out by security because they didn’t like that so many students were hanging around us foreigners. In his eyes we had no reason to be there and he straight up didn’t like it. It is in the midst of all these little moments I realize how much freedom I have in America to worship my Jesus without even thinking..do I take it for granted? Yes.
But, I also see such boldness in my fellow believers here – they do not hesitate to share their faith or make it known. One girl was walking around campus with a “Know Jesus Know Life” t-shirt. When we went to breakfast one day with our host they didn’t hesitate to bow their head, close their eyes, and thank Jesus out loud. We do not hide the fact that we are Christians at English Club – in fact it is one of the first things they mention when giving an overview of the club to new visitors. One student openly told us that the English Club and people at this ministry have poured into him and made him feel like there could be some truth behind this whole God business. He let us know that he is still “experimenting” and thinking about it all – he’s wrestling with God! He told us this the first day we met him and then said, “I know God is real, and I know he sent you here to me.” Another woman we have met who helps lead the Club was talking about how tired she is at times and how sometimes she gets discouraged. She followed that thought with this one, “I know I have times of trouble and fear, but when those moments come, I tell myself and tell myself that greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.” One day when we were working out at the gym some song lyrics bumping over the speakers stopped me in my tracks, “God is good, do you believe it now?”
Vietnam may be “closed” by their own standards, but I can tell you from the short time I have been here that the Heavenly gates are wide open. Jesus is everywhere here. He reveals himself in each of these little moments, acknowledging one simple truth: the Gospel is alive and moving!
I’m Emily Werness and please pray for more!
