**Spoken like Forrest Gump**
“Jenny… they’re sending me to Vietnam.”
And they really did. I didn’t think they were really going to go through with it, but you know what? They really did send me to Vietnam! The “they” that I’m speaking about are those crazy people in charge of the World Race. I was hand-selected out of a random group of three people (Kim, Rusty, and myself) to journey forth with the July squad on their adventures into the wilderness many of us refer to as, “Vietnam”… or just ” ‘nam” to the veterans…
Let me paint a picture of Vietnam for you. I like painting pictures of places for my readers. If you’ve never been to Vietnam, crossing the street is an excellent way to welcome yourself to the wilderness you’re now a part of. Explaination: you have to be Moses with staff in hand to part traffic in order to cross the street. Did that make sense? You have to pray with such vigor to adopt a supernaturally ability to dodge cars, vans, trucks, and the world’s largest flow of motorbikes. I think I stood in the middle of the street for ten minutes today (yes, in the middle of a crosswalk) praying to God Almighty that I wouldn’t have to call my mother back home and say, “I’m a pancake.”
But, alas, the World Race trains us to dodge traffic. It’s more of a learned-on-the-field ability, but I’m trying to think of ways they can infuse it into Training Camp.
In case you all haven’t heard, my squad is in Thailand doing all kinds of ministry. The girls have gone all over the place doing ministry in Red Light districts and beating Satan’s face in the midst of sex-trafficing. It’s the toughest ministry, spiritually, at this point in the Race. It’s easy to just feel “heavy” the entire time. So please turn them over to the Lord in prayer. The guys are busy doing other things with refugees, schools, and the like. And I’m a man’s man in Vietnam.
My ministry this month is to raise up a worship team amidst the July squad or something like that. It’s been a lot of fun thus far and I’ve been warmly welcomed into their family. The challenge? I’ve practically been married to MY squad for the last 9 months, so it feels like I’m having an affair or something. The July squad’s really cool. These are literally fire-breathin’ Kingdom-bringers. I’ll admit, I had my doubts at first, but after being with them for what seems like a week now, they’ve really taken charge, been wild (which I wasn’t expecting), and are bringing the Kingdom in some pretty crazy ways.
Sometimes I wonder why I was really sent to be with these guys.
But it’s been cool because I’m able to share my stories, answer the typical questions that we all had in this stage of the Race, walk some of them one-on-one into revelations of something new, exhort, encourage, teach, etc. It’s been amazing. I think most of my ministry thus far has been done on an individual level.
The biggest challenge has been getting to know everybody because I only have 2 1/2 weeks and there are 32 of them! Nevermind the fact that 27 of them are girls (there are more girls on their squad than there is on MY entire squad…). The name-thing has been fun *insert sarcasm*
I get to plug into ministry with them this month too. We’re doing some hospital visits, college ministry, orphanage ministry, amongst other things. We’ll see what happens, but it never surprises me when the REAL ministry happens between all of that. Those are the stories I like to pick up.
I’ll keep you updated on life… hopefully.
