My time in Vietnam

Hi friends,

Welcome back to my blog. As my time in Vietnam comes to an end, I wanted to give a little update on what the Lord has been doing here.

My last update was about a month ago, and since then there have been so many blessings from God. My team and I have ELLIE Tuesday through Friday in the evenings, and it has been so fun to get to know the students there more. The students there remember our names and I remember most of theirs too. However learning how to pronounce Vietnamese names is challenging, but everyone here is so compassionate to that. The students bring so much joy to class every night, and we laugh together through learning. Sometimes in the older classes, the kids come with questions on their worksheets and I don’t even know. That always makes the students laugh. Although we cannot talk about christianity in these english classes, I hope and pray that the students can have an revelation of God’s love through our joy and just the way we present ourselves. A few of the students in ELLIE also come to the English Club on Saturday nights. I have loved getting to further those relationships in English Club and explore my faith with them more. Each week for English Club, my team has been able to prep and lead it. Getting to know these young men and women more is so incredible. We have been able to have such great conversations, and I am definitely going to miss that. During English club, we have a discussion time where we sit at different tables and talk about the questions together. I’ve been able to talk about my faith journey a little bit and more on God’s character and even just mentioning those things is the Lord planting a seed in their lives. Being able to spread the joy of God to others is one of my favorite things to do. After everything the Lord has done for me in my life and is still doing, I want to tell people about that amazing love and care. He cares for theses students so deeply and it is evident in the way that they keep coming back to English Club and partake in the conversations even when there are disagreements. God’s love overtakes all and I am praying that there will be encounters of Him at English Club going forward and outside English Club. Around the middle of December, our hosts Chloe and Duy set up an opportunity for the ELLIE students and some of the English Club students to go see a animated movie called King of Kings. The movie was about the birth of Jesus and his life. Since Vietnam is a Communist country, this children’s movie rating was for age 13 and up. That was mind blowing to me, because in the United States this movie was PG. I honestly had no idea the rating could change on a movie because of its religious aspects. Miraculously, almost all the parents of the ELLIE students let them come, and we had about 80 kids see the movie. One of the students who also comes to English Club came up to me after the movie, and told me how moved it made him. That same boy went to another girl on my team and told her he wanted to become a Christian. That was honestly one of the most amazing gifts I had heard. It was such a blessing to see how a movie could change the heart of a young middle school aged boy. That moment was so encouraging to me, and it made me so excited to see how the Lord was going to move in his life. Experiences like those are times when I can actively see the Holy Spirit moving. I am praying that there will be a revival in this boy’s heart for the Lord. That same boy has continued to come to English Club each week, and is so interested in learning more about who God is. That student is a testimony to God’s faithfulness on even those who might not have known God. Throughout the movie, the students were smiling and had so much joy. They were paying attention and genuinely interested in the plot of the movie. It was so moving to me see the joy of the Lord in them, even if they didn’t know it was God in them. Getting to see that student’s reactions was also a testimony, and one that I will never forget. The Lord is just so good and this is just all the more reason to praise him every second of every day.

We also celebrated Christmas here, and it was so special but also different. Most Vietnamese do not celebrate Christmas since it celebrates the Birth of Jesus, but they still decorate for Christmas. I was not expecting to see so many Christmas decorations around, especially since these people don’t know what they are decorating for. They take pictures in front of the decorations, and that is how far the Christmas celebrating goes for most Vietnamese. One of the close families we have gotten to know well, had us come help them decorate their house for Christmas. My team I got to decorate their Christmas tree, and it reminded me of being at home decorating with my family. On Christmas Eve, we went out to a nice dinner with the International church. It was a super sweet time to spend with everyone, as we prepared for the Birth of Jesus. That night, some of the girls on my team made cookies and hot chocolate. We watched a Christmas movie together and that was it for the night. On Christmas Day, the International Church and us went to sing Joy to The World at the Vietnamese church. That was our first time in a fully spoken Vietnamese church service, and I truly enjoyed it. The songs that were sang in Vietnamese were also songs in English, so I was able to sing along. We came back home, and my team did Secret Santa for gifts this year. We all sat together and opened gifts and it was a very lovely and intimate time with each other. Although I wasn’t with my family back home, I got to spend Christmas with more family here. I would not want to spend Christmas any other way then with these girls. We read Luke 2 together and reflected on Jesus’s impact on our lives. This Christmas was very emotional for me, because I was just so thankful and full of gratitude to God for sending his son to our world for us. My life has been flipped right side up due to God and Jesus, and there will never be enough thank you’s to God.

Last week my team and I got to go to Da Nang to spend time with the other two teams and also just explore a new city. We went on a train for seven hours and it was so fun. The train went along the coast and the views were beautiful. God’s creation is just so amazing, I was so in awe. We played card games, watched movies, and I got some pretty good sleep on that train. We arrived in Da Nang and surprised one of the girls team’s. It was so good to see them again and there were lots of happy tears and hugs. I really missed these girls so much, so seeing them was such a blessing. We went out to dinner with and the guys team and I got to catch up with them. This made me realize how much I missed all squad in Colombia. I don’t think I realized how special that time in Colombia was until I was spending time with the teams in Da Nang. I tried surfing for the first time, and it was so challenging, but fun too. I will definitely be surfing when I get back to the States. One of the days, we went to Hoi An, which is a city near Da Nang, where it is known for the lanterns at night. My team was surprised with another girls team. I got to see another squad leader that I missed dearly. I spent the day with her and just had quality time with her. We got to pray for each other, and it was such an intimate time spent. That day was filled with so much encouragement given, and I was so glad God put me there to help serve His kingdom. We just got back from Da Nang a few days ago, but we are going to see all squad in a fews days for a mini debrief in Ho Chi Minh City. I am so excited to see all squad again for a short time. My team found out a few weeks ago that for the Philippines,  we are going to be just our team again. I am so excited to get even deeper with my team, but I definitely sad that I won’t be with the other girls teams. I know that God has a plan so I am trusting Him, even with my sadness. We are leaving Tuy Hoa on Wednesday, and it is so going to be a tough goodbye. I have formed some truly sweet relationships with the people here, and having to say goodbye is hard. The community here is so aligned in and through God, and I will be missing that. I hope to stay in contact with the people here, so I can see how the Lord’s planted seeds are doing.

Throughout this season in Vietnam, the Lord was showing me ways he sees my beauty. For a bit, I was struggling with feeling beautiful and I knew that the Lord saw me as beautiful, but I wanted to know specifically. I asked the Lord and he answered me. He showed me that He seems my beauty in my eyes and the way that I view His people. He also showed me that He seems my beauty in my inner self, specifically in my tender heart. That was so encouraging for me to hear and made my relationship with the Lord even more special. God views me so highly and I am so gracious that I was able to finally understand his eyes for me. The Lord had been putting Matthew 7 on my heart recently about asking, seeking and knocking. Time and time again, the Lord answers me and that is so uplifting.

Thank you for your continued prayers for me, my squad, and my team. I hope to continue updating all of you after my travel to the Philippines. Have a blessed day and week!

Prayer Requests:

• safety in upcoming travel
• healing from sickness
• my team (Amanda, Emma, Ariana, Brooklyn, Maleah, and Ellen)
• Team Akouo
• Team Charis
• Team Sheep
• D squad in Malaysia