Good Morning Vietnam!
We are in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam for March, Month 3. This month Team Overcome is doing something a little different, we are in our Unsung Heros (UH) Month.
During a UH month, a World Race team does not have a ministry contact. The team does not have a place to stay or a schedule or a plan. During a UH month the team is dependent on God: seeking His will, His schedule, His people, and His divine appointments. We will be spending this month ATLing (Asking the Lord) and Prayer Walking around HCMC. We will get in touch with contacts provided by AIM, squadmates, and friends. When we find Unsung Heros we will meet them and interview them about their ministry.
So what is an Unsung Hero?
Men and women who are dedicated to serving some of the most impoverished populations in the world, yet rarely receive recognition for their dedication and service. These givers may also live with meager conditions but give consistently from an abundance of God’s love. Their names may not be in history books, their acts unknown to the rest of the world, while unrecognized, they shake a generation and move a culture and ultimately build the Kingdom.
The vision of a UH month is to connect and network with Unsung Heroes in an effort to come alongside them and uplift their efforts to further the Kingdom. Our team’s role is to identify persons that are working to further the Kingdom then assess how we could serve them and their potential host status. We meet with contacts and interview them about their ministry, their hosting ability, their language ability, and the wifi and transportation situation. Many of these persons may be doing ministry alone, with no community or network for support, and we want to acknowledge the impact of their ministry and uplift them in whatever way possible. (Unfortunately, doing UH in a closed country means we cannot blog about the cool people and ministries we are meeting. I can tell you about them but no pictures and no names.)
However, UH is more than just meetings and interviews. It is a month of following God’s voice and allowing Him to lead us to contacts, to individuals who need His love and His hope, and to opportunities for us to grow. In our first two weeks in Vietnam we have had meetings with potential ministry contacts, have had ministry opportunities, had a day of divine appointments with a fellow traveler, attended two church services, and toured the city with God.
- We met pastors of house churches through alumni racers who are back serving this month. These pastors have never had an international team work with them, but have many ministry opportunities. March 9 we attended their women’s conference in an illegal, house church.
- They and one of our squad mates introduced us to two Korean pastors working in HCMC. One of the pastors oversees orphanages; however, teams would have to be smuggled in as it is illegal for foreigners to work in the orphanages. The other has an English school for university students.
Overcome leading worship at the English school with 15 minutes of prep. (photo credit: Victoria Pierce)
- At breakfast a teammate noticed a man eating alone. She was burdened to pray for him and told to buy him a coffee. The coffee was appreciated; the action greatly confused him. We then saw him at a convenience store. Finally another teammate saw him in a coffee shop and God directed her to go in and pray with him. A woman there saw and stopped Debbie on her way out. The woman is an American living in HCMC while her husband studies and they are Christians. She prayed over Debbie, and we gained a new friend. The following week we had a girls night out with her and offered some suggestions for reaching out to the bar girls near her home.
- One day we had two coffee meetings with women serving in HCMC long term. Both are single, American women around thirty. Most likely their ministries will not fit AIM’s needs; however, we were able to connect them. Our meetings may have been so we could make new friends or to encourage them or us or to connect them. Only God knows. We did our part.
- University students form English clubs that meet in the parks to practice their English with tourists. This has become a ministry opportunity. We are building relationships with students we have met.
- Today we did an ATL Scavenger Hunt around HCMC. We prayed as a group for things God wanted us to find and formed a list of ten: a red blanket, an American, a tourist in a purple shirt, etc. We prayed then followed His lead. The things we found where not what we thought they would be, but what we found was right.
God has been so good and so faithful. He is growing us and teaching us to better rely on Him. He is refining us and bringing us into closer community. As we left Cambodia, He told me, “Each of you are fighting me in some way.” This month we have each been surrendering. We are learning His voice and obeying.
We were given Matt 10:16 for this month. Do we look innocent as doves yet wise as serpents?
