Vietnam has KFC, Pizza Hut, and Lotteria. But no McDonald's.
Our main source of water was Aquafina. I hadn't had this in years!
Our ministry was focused in a countryside area called Vinh Long, which is about two hours away from the capital city.
and other kinds of freaking delicious food. EVERY meal was a very very good meal.
But we had our first experience of some heavy humidity on our first night. I helped carry a few bags into our room but was soaked in sweat in a matter of seconds.
For breakfast, we had our first bowl of rice noodles. Everyone got really excited thinking it was pho, but it wasn't. I forget the name, but it was crazy good.
They always gave us this awesome bread that they use for Vietnamese sandwiches.
Ironically, I didn't see a single bottle of Sriracha sauce anywhere.
One thing I never knew about Vietnam was the coffee. SO SO SO good. I had at least two cups every single day.
Here is Jeremy, one of our EM team members who was well received by the KM and especially the Vietnamese.
We often went to a market to buy tropical fruits.
Here is our EM team leader and representative. Definitely one of the most proactive members on our team.
We ate a lot of these
and other kinds of new fruits I had never even heard of.
Here we are on our way to our first day of ministry.
We had a medical team and a house building team. I was asked to help out with the medical team.
There were so many patients waiting for us to come since early in the morning. We found out that many of these people were receiving medical treatment for the first time in their life.
They would first come in and tell of their pains and problems. Grace received the translation from one of the many young Vietnamese friends who were very good at Korean and would write a brief description
for the doctor who would do the actual checkup through the help of another translator. Then he would write a prescription
and pass it on to us. We had so many different kinds of medicine, so it was kind of chaotic in the beginning.
But with the help of these two gentlemen, we were able to get the job done. These two guys were actually deaf, so I was afraid that it would be hard to work with them since I didn't know any sign language. It turned out that they worked so much harder and more effectively than I did. A very humbling encouragement.
The prescription would go to the checkout window to the line of waiting patients.
It was surprising to meet some of the older people who were able to speak a little English.
When we were in the village, we always rode in the back of some truck or wagon since the dirt roads were very small and bumpy.
There were times where we'd fit like 10+ people in the back of this thing while cruising through the BEAUTIFUL countryside area. Definitely one of my favorite memories.
Another awesome lunch.
Jeremy was so good with the kids. Body language and a funny voice can accomplish so much. Being big and white too. Hehe.
After lunch, we got back to work.
After work, we had our wonderful coffee break.
After ministry, we went back to the market to try even more fruits.
After the market, more amazing dinner.
I forget what these are called, but they tasted like a hybrid of apple and bell pepper.
Amazing lemonade drink.
My main buddy on this trip was our youngest team member, 성웅. We called him "웅이." Hehe. He was very very active and so good about talking to all kinds of people from different countries. Absolutely fearless and positive.
Vietnamese candy.
Every once in a while, we'd see a church but more often saw cathedrals.
This is our second day of ministry. Sam was especially popular in Vietnam too.
Lots and lots of rice fields.
This is the tiny convenient store/rest stop that we often visited for a few drinks during the hot hot day. Many people got sunburned pretty badly despite the continual sun block. One of our natives, Mai, told me that you could tell who the foreigners were by looking at how they dressed. All the natives new better to cover themselves up with long sleeves and pants.
Due to some complications with getting approval from the government officials, our medical ministry got canceled, so we all helped out with house building.
I forget the details of this family's story, but one of the daughters had a problem where her entire left side was paralyzed before.
Anyway, half of us got started with house building
while the other half got started with children's ministry: face painting, balloon art, and some origami.
After finishing up here, we went on our way to
lunch.
Then we rode this ferry boat
that was pretty cool
to go to our second site.
Many Vietnamese had some shrine or idol around their house.
On our first few days, I realized that I never had to go to the bathroom...because I was sweating it all out throughout the day. But in these village areas, nature is your bathroom.
Here are some of our scary makeshift ladders.
More children's ministry.
We couldn't fit everyone in the boat, so I went ahead with the first group. It actually started pouring,
but this guy invited us in to his house. He gave us something to drink and showed us
a memorial of his father who lived to be 104 (?) years old.
On our bus rides, we often had 노래방. Our natives were actually very familiar with Korean dramas and music, so they often sang many of the Korean songs too. They especially liked the song, "거위의 꿈."
At the market, Sam called me over to tell me of the best sandwich he had ever had in his life. Haha. Lee's Sandwiches ain't got nothing on this.
Giant fruit.
I loved the eggrolls in Vietnam.
On our third day of housebuilding, we had kids follow us right behind our truck.
This day was even hotter than the previous day. My sunburned arms went from red to maroon.
There were many muddy paths, so we often had to get out and push the truck.
At our first site
the grandpa climbed up a very high coconut tree just like a monkey
so that we could have something to drink.
Here is the finished product.
This is what most school classrooms look like.
I never knew that the capital city, Ho Chi Minh, was actually named after a person. You'll see his picture EVERYWHERE. He is the country's hero who was responsible for winning the Vietnam War.
There was some square dancing to Abba.
More children's stuff.
Then we played soccer. The men in green are actually young men preparing to become police officers. They were suspicious of us at first but soccer in the rain brought us together.
The girl on the left is Hien. 24 years old. Korean teacher at a university. The two girls next to her are her students. Both are 22 year old Korean majors. Hien's Korean was probably better than mine. Her professor was a Christian and actually introduced Christianity to her. Now Hien is doing the same with her students.
The girl in the middle is Giang (or 양). She decided to start going to church after working with us and hearing some messages from this one other missionary.
The girl to the right is Anh.
I had a chance to share my testimony with these girls.
We had a special dinner.
It was like Vietnamese 삼계탕.
These are our other native helpers.
We had this one dedication ceremony thing that awarded and encouraged students to do well in school.
I was awarded a very special prize by Ho Chi Minh himself.
Then children's ministry.
One of the main things I made for origami during children's ministry was this lotus flower that I learned from Joe, my old Artesia Outreach Vietnamese student.
Since we could not explicitly share our faith, Sam shared his idea of going subliminal. I chose to draw an ichthys underneath all of my lotus flowers.
Sam doing his thing.
Now that ministry was over, we finished up our time in Vietnam with touring.
I particularly liked this shirt.
We went on the Mekong River
to go to this island
and had "elephant fish"
all served and peeled by someone.
More eggrolls.
Then we went to a different area
and had some honey tea
along with a snaky experience.
I was honestly pretty scared during this picture. Haha.
Here is a picture of a guy selling ban bao on a motorcycle.
Coconut rice paper candy samples.
Even more fruit
with a really cool music show
Very interesting fruit that disappeared pretty quickly.
We rode in these small boats
through a pretty cool area
and onto our boat ride back to the main land
with coconuts to drink.
We came back to Ho Chi Minh
and had Korean food just like every mission trip I've ever been on. It was interesting to see how quickly we got full after going from Vietnamese rice to Korean rice.
I always make it a thing to ask as many natives how they came to know God. Hyu said that he was actually brought up in a Christian family but didn't know how his parents became Christians.
This older gentlemen in the middle was like a really cool mentor to me throughout the trip, giving me life advice and encouragement. I think he had a heart for me because he has a son that's the same age as me who grew up in the states too.
We went to another island the next day but not before another coffee break.
I'd never been on a ferry with so many motorcycles and even a bus!
We first went to this are that had all these monkeys that would get super close to us. One of them actually jumped on me out of nowhere cause I was holding an empty water bottle. That was kinda scary.
You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.
Then we went to this area with crocodiles.
It was pretty much a downgraded version of what I had seen in Thailand.
But out of nowhere, a monkey stole a camera from one of the bags on a table. It was a pretty tense moment, but we were able to bribe it with food and snatch back the camera.
More cool things to eat.
This
actually just turned out to be this.
Lots of dried up land.
But the water was incredibly warm. It felt like I was stepping inside soup.
The girl on the right is 수하, the 선교사님's daughter. She told us how some of her friends joke about her name by inserting it into sentences like "맛있솨?" Nice girl.
Pretty muddy water.
More
cool
things
to
eat.
This was an interesting outdoor bar-like scene.
Interesting
options.
We often ran into little kids late at night trying to get us to buy things. When our natives told us not to buy anything, we were informed that they were probably kidnapped and hired by gangsters. It was a pretty sad realization. These kids would be out at like midnight.
This sign says that there are many accidents on this road.
So we obviously went on it to take pictures.
This reminded me of a mix of 한강 and 천계천.
I took this picture while standing in the middle of the road. Kinda dangerous.
On our last day, we did Vietnam War educational touring.
This here is the entrance to Cuchi Tunnel, which was a huge factor that allowed the Vietnamese to win the war.
Crazy small tunnels.
Trap floors. It would not have been cool to be an American soldier during the Vietnam War.
Secret floors.
Cool souvenirs.
Cool Vietnamese drink.
We saw how rice paper was made
and had a chance to go inside one of the tunnels.
