We went on prayer walks almost every day. Our ministry contact, James, called it spiritual sniping! I love that visual! He said prayer walking is about interceding and asking God to, somehow, impact them. James taught us, “Most of these people have never been prayed for before. God has never heard their names from someone else before.” Wow! What an honor to be able to lift their names up to God for the first time!
So, we walked and we prayed. Some days we’d target only the internationals. Some days we’d sit outside on a bench and watch people on the balconies of their apartments. Each apartment building has at least 25 floors, so we had a lot to watch for. When someone stepped outside on their balcony, we listened for God’s prayer requests for them and then ask for his blessings on them. When someone else steps out, you shoot your prayers at them… Spiritual Sniping! We chose a different location of the city every day to walk.
It was a weird feeling to be walking down a street praying for people in Vietnam. There were guards on every street corner just… watching. It’s kind of like the life guard at the swimming pool. If you try and do anything fun or remotely dangerous, the whistle blows to tell you to stop. You all know what I’m talking about! And you think, “This lifeguard is so LAME! Not wanting us to have any fun.” Well, in Vietnam, it’s kind of like that except they’ll “blow their whistle” if they hear any talks about God, praying, heaven, ect.
So, we usually walked around in pairs so that, as we prayed, it looked like we were just talking quietly to one another. But, it’s weird to know that if one of those guards discovered that I was praying or that I was NOT there as a tourist, or if they even heard the name Jesus, they would have kicked me out of the country! It’s kind of awesome if you think about it. I think the squad was having an informal race to see who could get kicked out of the country for talking about Jesus first. Thankfully, no one did.
The girls on my team were able to prayer walk through the “Backpacker’s District” at night. This was where most of the prostitution was headquartered. I know it impacted them a lot to see what happens in that district at night.
Each month on the World Race has seemed to have a theme for me. And the theme of this month was “My prayer life.” Before entering Vietnam, my prayer life was not where it needed to be. And it wasn’t growing. But, this month, I was discovering, all over again, that a relationship with the Father requires a 2-way conversation. And I wasn’t holding up my end of the deal.
But, after logging over 50 hours of prayer walking through Vietnam, my conversations with God have come back to life! You know, kind of like the way it is when you first become a believer and you just start spilling out any and all things from your life on the table for God. It was an amazing month of prayer for me!
What was that?…… You want to see more pictures?….. Sure……
On our day off, we were able to see the War Remnants Museum. Major points for whoever can tell me the name of this chopper.
What was cool about this museum was that you could touch EVERYTHING!
We were also able to take a tour of the Mekong Delta by canoe. This was our guide.
