Police in Vietnam
This weekend proved to be very home-like for me. We left Ho Chi Minh city, after debrief, on Saturday afternoon to spend the weekend encouraging the 10 Christians living in Ming Thit, a village of around 4000 unbelievers. The nearest church is 30 minutes away from them and pretty difficult for the family to attend regularly. After a five-hour series of bus rides to the countryside. we arrived at Koh Shang’s farm around 9 pm and had time with the family of three to chat and introduce ourselves. They were very welcoming and excited for us to be visiting.
My team and I slept on our cots and sleeping pads surrounded by bug nets that night. The house was very basic with concrete everything and no windows, just shudders and open doors. I woke up Sunday morning at 5 am and tip toed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face out of a bucket. When I looked outside, there were chickens, ducks, puppies, trees and fields everywhere. The simple farm life reminded me so much of my childhood. I was able to collect the eggs cooked for breakfast and then we all walked to the market to get materials for lunch. About fifteen kids joined us as we walked and ended up following us all day. Tourists never go to Ming Thit, so we were quite a crowd pleaser!
After the market we walked along the river to the grandmothers house for a Bible Study, with our translator friend Ann. We went home to the farm for a rice, meatball, and vegetable lunch and then walked to the rice field, played Frisbee with the children, had some conversations, and played with the puppies. We walked into the town again and had a Sting (red pop) and walked to the carnival where I ate kettle popcorn and we taught a group to do the wobble!!! For dinner, we ate delicious fried noodles, fried pork spring rolls, and fried green stuff. I will go back just for her cooking!
All this to say, we left at 6 Monday morning for the five hour bus trip home. While crowded in with the aisles packed, the door patrol, with a stern face, handed me a piece of paper that said, “POLICE”. My heart dropped as I began to think about what I could have done wrong, or if he thought I was part of the police force. So many thoughts and fears as he was speaking at me, yet I couldn’t understand a word of his Vietnamese. Come to find out, he was just letting me know that he asked my teammate Zach to sit down because of the road laws in Vietnam. He laughed at my fearful reaction for the next half hour of the bus ride home
