Team 2 7 one spent the month in Ho Chi Minh City working with both local and American missionaries. Our month was spent teaching English in various settings. We all enjoyed the month and made some very dear friends.
One of the places we taught English was a Cafe, Grace Cafe – which was run by an American couple and a Vietnamese man where they served coffee, a few desserts and had English classes. Sometimes we would participate in a more class- like setting, and sometimes we would just serve and talk or play games with customers. We made such good friends with everyone there, and we even got to see one of our sisters give her heart to the Lord. Grace Cafe and all the people we met there will always hold a piece of my heart and I truly hope that the Lord allows me to return there someday.
We also taught English at an Orphanage just outside the city in a more run-down area. We instantly fell in love with these children. They would just sit in our laps and stare into our eyes, because they had never seen anyone who did not have brown eyes before. They were rambunctious and loud, but they were quick learners and hungry for anything we could give them. They were so precious.
… they were also the source of the lice that we all got in Vietnam. Getting lice was a big deal for our team. Not just because of all the special shampoo and combs we had to buy and not just because of how many hours we had to spend checking each others hair – but because of everything we learned. We learned a lot about each other and grew much closer together because of the lice. It was something none of us wanted to happen, something we had avoided for the previous 9 months… but it got all of us. Each evening we would spend hours combing out each others hair and sharing all our stories from our days. During the month we had devised a schedule so that we each would be able to do all the ministries each week. We would teach at the orphanage and go to the cafe every day so divided them into day and evening shifts and we would rotate and change groups each day. During our combing sessions we were able to join together and share stories about what each team did at the orphanage or at the cafe that day. We learned that lice was not really as scary as it seemed and that we could work together as a team to build each other up and help each other out. We also realized that none of us was willing to give up hugging, let alone teaching any of our kids in order to avoid lice- because “Hugs are worth bugs!”
I loved our time in Vietnam and it was one of my favorite months on the race!
