I wrote this about halfway through
our month in Vietnam, as an email to my family. Already on our journey,
the Lord had provided for us in ways we never even imagined. It’s
amazing what He can do when we let Him; when we stop making our own
safety nets, it gives Him a chance to step in and catch us.
Just
a little background about ATL: ATL months are almost completely
unplanned. We decide which country to go to, and we find all of our own
lodging, ministry, and transportation for the month. So last month in
Cambodia we had a morning of really intentional listening prayer about
which country He wanted us to go to this month. Several of us wanted to
go to Malaysia, but despite that, we felt a pull towards Vietnam– when
we talked about it, we all came to an agreement that this is where we
felt we were supposed to go. And Jonathan said that a name popped into
his head–Dong Tau– a name he had never heard of, and had no idea where
it came from or if it was the name of a town or place or person or
what. So he googled it, and it came up as a spot on the map in Northern
Vietnam. So all of this that you’re about to read has been a journey to
get to that spot.
(February 5, 2011)
So
on Monday of this week, we took four different buses over about 42
hours and headed north! We’re in a smaller city called Thanh Hoa, about
three hours south of Hanoi. It’s incredible what a huge climate
difference there is between the north and south. Down in HCMC we were
hot and sweaty all the time, and now we’re so cold! All layers on all
the time– it feels like waking up on a winter morning in Colorado. Love
it.
We came to Thanh Hoa because it’s the city nearest Dong Tau,
which is barely a blip on the map, and most people here haven’t heard
of it. But even this pretty large city is completely un-touristy. We’ve
been here days and we’ve only seen two non-Asians. I was in charge of
trying to find a place for us to stay while we’re here, and there is
almost nothing online. So at about 2:30 in the morning, our bus dropped
us off literally on the side of the highway in this city, in about 40
degree weather, with all our big packs. We had a general idea of where a
guest house was, but no idea of exactly how far we would have to walk
to get there. Thankfully, two taxis pulled up, and we were able to mime
our way into getting a ride to a hotel about two blocks away.
Our reality: dropped off on the side of the highway in northern Vietnam at 2:30 AM, with no clear idea of where to go.
His provision: two incredibly helpful taxi drivers who took us to a safe, and affordable hotel nearby.
So
we crashed there, then the next morning loaded up our packs and set off
in search of that guest house. After walking about 2 miles down fairly
busy roads and getting gawked at by everyone we passed (like I said,
they rarely see westerners here, let alone six of them with packs that
look like turtle shells) we finally made it to the guest house.
HOWEVER…
because the owner spoke no english and we spoke no Vietnamese, we were
denied. He said that because it’s the holiday, the police might come
asking about us, and he didn’t want the hassle (we called one of our
friends from down south and had them translate the conversation over the
phone). So we set out yet again. We stopped in a little “restaurant” to
get food and think of what next. We had a couple more hotels to try on
the list, so all we could do was start walking to try and find them and
see if they’d let us stay, but we were afraid they might all say the
same thing as the first guy. At that point, we had no idea where we were
going to sleep that night, and had yet to encounter anyone who spoke
more than ten words of english. It was a little bit nerve-racking, but
at the same time really exciting!
So as we were walking, Andrea
happened to look up and see the word “hotel” over a nice little wine
shop. She and I poked our heads in to ask the girl about rooms in the
hotel, and she spoke english! But the hotel was closed because of the
holiday, so there “wasn’t any service,” but she called a hotel down the
street to ask if they had any rooms. They too were closed, and at this
point I was just like, “We really don’t need any kind of service or
anything, we just need a place to sleep!” She took pity, and called her
mom, and they agreed to let us stay there even though it was closed! So
we went from homeless, to having an ENTIRE hotel all to ourselves! This
place is huge, too– there are several restaurants and dining rooms and
bars– all of which are closed, so we have the run of the place! It’s so
crazy to be the only ones here. But I have to constantly keep myself
from thinking about the Shining– a big, empty, freezing hotel is a
little too much like the Stanley Hotel. So fun though 🙂
Our reality:
no place to stay for the two and a half weeks we’d be in town, a total
language barrier, and no way of knowing if any of the hotels would be
open or accommodating to foreigners. Also no clear idea where those
other hotels are.
His provision: our very own hotel all to ourselves, complete with a girl who spoke some english and was very willing to help us out.
(Sidenote:
We got here on their new year’s eve– they celebrate the Chinese lunar
new year. And it’s their biggest holiday! Everything is shut down for
the first three days of the new year, and most people get at least a
week off work and two or three weeks off of school. So that’s why
everything was shut down)
Later that day, we were on the hunt for
food (most things are closed for the holiday), and we passed a patio
restaurant near our place. As Tracy was checking out the food people
were eating, and she stumbled upon two girls who spoke great english!
They’re both twenty, and so incredibly sweet. We got comfortable enough
to tell them we were Believers, so they wanted to take us to the
cathedral around the corner, just to show it to us. We ended up chatting
with them for quite a while, and they invited us out that night for new
years eve! We went to the main square of the city, which was packed
with thousands and thousands of people, and watched the CRAZY fireworks
show– some of the fireworks literally went nuts and fired into the
crowd– I now have a hole burned through the arm of my jacket, and a
really fun story behind it 🙂
Over the next few days, we got to
go to all kinds of New Years celebrations with our new friends. Four of
the girls we met invited us to their houses, where we had traditional
holiday meals– some of the food was really really good, and some of it
was really, really sketchy. We tried several cold “mystery meats,”
simply because we couldn’t refuse their overwhelming hospitality. Plus
we didn’t learn until much later that if you don’t leave a little food
in your bowl, they’ll assume you want more and refill it. Oops.
The
Tet celebrations last for three days, and during those three days
people just keep hot tea ready and waiting, and everyone goes around and
visits their neighbors, friends, and families. They are always welcomed
with a cup of bitter tea, usually a toast of family “wine” (pretty sure
it’s moonshine liquor), and a whole table filled with candies, homemade
sweets, cigarettes , and fruits. If it’s around mealtime, you get a
whole meal as well. They say that the visitors you have during the first
three days of the new year are very important for the rest of the
year– the more visitors, the more luck and blessing you get. So all the
families we met were very eager to have six foreigners come visit, and
they were all so sweet. We even had karaoke at one house! Meals with
that “wine” can be dangerous though– they just keep toasting and
refilling glasses– soon we were up to three shots of this homemade
liquor, and it wasn’t even noon yet. I’m pretty sure the Lord
neutralized it in some way before it hit my stomach though, I never felt
a thing, thankfully. 🙂
It wasn’t all parties though. One of the
girls who is really interested in Christianity took us to a mass at
that cathedral– no idea what was said, because it was all in
Vietnamese, but it was a beautiful building. We have been able to share
the Gospel with her a lot, but we still want to talk to her more. Two of
the other girls wanted to show us how they worship, so we went with
them to their pagoda (temple). They knew before we went that we wouldn’t
participate at all, but I think it meant a lot to them that we showed
an interest in what they believe. And things took an amazing turn of
events– we ended up having tea with a few of the monks and the girls,
and were able to really share Christ with them. At one point there were
four different conversations going on at different ends of the table,
where we were able to share at least a little bit…in the middle of a
Buddhist temple! Crazy.
Our reality: no known ministry, no ministry contact, and no way of communicating with anyone on the streets because of the language barrier.
His provision:
an incredible ministry and friendship with 5 girls around our age who
speak english, and are very open to hearing the [illegal] Gospel.
Definitely
looking forward to hanging out with these girls more and sharing with
them more– even if nothing happens in Dong Tau, I think this will be
one of those “journey is more important than the destination” months. So
far, this unplanned ATL month has been the best. We’ve seen the Lord
provide in ways we never imagined already, and we still have until the
16th. I just love how our ministry has been nothing but basically
hanging out with people, loving on them. We’re learning how to be
intentional about it– we’re listening for what He wants us to say and
praying into it, and they have been such incredible conversations. It’s
also really difficult up here– we have to feel it out, make sure no
one works for the government before we can talk about anything. And
trying to find the balance between friendship with an agenda and really
loving them and being genuine is difficult; boldness vs. pushiness vs.
fear of man vs. discernment… it’s all kinda sticky. But it has been so
satisfying to just lean on the Lord’s provision. We asked for
opportunities, and they have been poured out on us. We are constantly
meeting the sweetest people who want to help us out or cook for us or
host us in some way, and we meet them just by being friendly and open;
they come to us!
Tomorrow we are hopping on a bus down to Ben
En national park, and then we’re hiking our way up to Dong Tau– who
knows what we’ll find! No one has heard of this town, we can’t find it
anywhere else, but when we search for it on google maps, this spot pops
up, and it looks like it’s in the middle of the woods. Who knows! Like I
said, this might be a case of the journey being more important than the
actual destination. Even if this spot is literally just woods, we’re
going to pray over it like crazy and who knows, maybe it will be the
location of a future church or something! This is like a really big,
exciting scavenger hunt.
