I take my nap. Wake up and the girls have already managed to make friends. That whole Jesus thing they got going for them tends to rub off on other people and more or less makes them irresistible to strangers. It’s pretty great. You should see it.
The girls tell us that our new friends are showing us around town tonight followed by fireworks at midnight to usher in the New Year. Well the girls didn’t use the word usher but I’m trying to paraphrase.
They pick us up at the hotel around 8. Their English is good. We walk over to this open courtyard of sorts the length and width of a football field where people are gathering slowly for the music and fireworks show to come. We decide to duck into a coffee shop to kill some time. Coffee here is thick as motor oil and packs a good punch to it. I like it. Coffee opens up into dinner invites, Buddhist temple invites, and Catholic church invites. What a blessing. The Lord puts us on the map as within twelve hours has provided for us. As per usual, every country we go to, people want to know why we’re there. Makes it an easy segway for telling people about Christ.
Also sidenote: telling people about Christ isn’t always telling people about Christ. St. Francis says, “tell people about Christ, when necessary use words.� I don’t want to get stuck in an agenda of lets be friends so I can Christianize you. I want to be friends because Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself. I feel like we are being ministered more to by the people we encounter in Vietnam than the other way around.
We have no contacts.
No plan for ministry.
Running low on funds.
And yet the Lord is our provider.
We finish up tea and coffee. Try to pay. They won’t let us. The Lord keeps blessing us. This whole day has been a blessing.
Fireworks kick off the New Year with a blast.
During the show a few strays works shower the crowd hitting Jonathan’s shoe and Jess’s jacket even though she is managing to stand some twenty feet away from the other runaways. There had to be a couple thousand people in the crowd. Our group got tagged twice. Ha!
Quick Recap: Wine hotel. New friends. Motor oil coffee. Firework clothing burns. And future plans for the week.
I love it.
