Hi everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season filled with friends, family, food, and of course celebrating our Lord and Savior! My squad and I arrived in Cambodia just a few days ago, but I would love to share what we have been doing the past few weeks in Vietnam!
Vietnam was so much more than I could have expected, but also a lot harder than I expected. (I will explain more about this further down in this blog.) The city we did ministry with was called Da Nang which is about a 16 hour bus ride north of Ho Chi Minh City.
Ministry!
Our ministry in Vietnam for the duration of our stay was working with college students through CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ). While in Guatemala we had a very scheduled ministry schedule, knowing what we would do everyday. In Vietnam though, our schedule was way more free! Our main ministry was working with CRU by teaching English to college students. My team and I would create English lessons for these 18-21 year olds and then teach them new words based around a topic! Along with teaching English at these clubs, we had the opportunity to share the gospel, share how the Lord has been working within our lives, and encourage these young adults in their faith. Each member of my team had about three English clubs, working with one or two other members of our team at each club. I had English club on Tuesday afternoon/evening, Thursday morning, and Saturday afternoon. The rest of the time when we didn’t have a scheduled English club, we had the opportunity to spend time with students! We would play games with students, do worship together, and go get coffee! Most of our ministry time was then up to us to create and not planned.
There were many times when our ministry host, Sang, would show up to our front door and have a few students with him ready to go get food or play games for a few hours! There was one time when a couple of my teammates were still out hanging out with their club, but Claire, Kayley, and I were just finishing eating fried rice for dinner and then Sang FaceTimes us saying that he is at our door. He comes into our apartment/house and says we are going to go get food… it’s 9pm at night at this point. So we clean up dinner, wait for the rest of our team and then Sang, and two other students go out to eat some local food! Those unexpected food runs, game nights or worship nights were some of my favorite nights in Vietnam! Fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ halfway across the world!
Difficulties While in Vietnam!
- Coming from Guatemala, a third world country and working in villages, to Vietnam, a second world country and working in a city with 1.5 million people was definitely a culture shock for me! The bustling of people, and way of life was a complete 180 turn for me!
- Buddhism is a very large religion in Vietnam. They are an ex-communist country so their government is much more strict on religion. Being a Christian is not illegal, but sharing the gospel with the locals is illegal. While in Guatemala we could openly share the gospel and pray for others, but we could not do that in Vietnam. We had to be much more secretive about talking about Jesus with students and other Vietnamese people.
- Two of the six teams on my squad worked with CRU, (mine included), and the two teams who did were heavily watched by the government. Since CRU is with the college, it’s a registered club. This means that wherever my team and I went, there were government eyes on us. We weren’t able to interact with other teams because their ministries weren’t yet known by the government yet. If we interacted with them, then the government would follow them to their ministry and find out about their ministry host’s ministry. Whenever we saw our squad mates on the other side of the road, or in a restaurant, we could not interact with them other than a small hello. This was very difficult at first, since my whole squad is like my giant family! As Vietnam was coming to an end, my team and I realized that we were honestly so blessed in this sense. Here me out. Yes, we couldn’t talk or interact with the rest of our squad, but we lived as a college student. We went out to eat with college students multiple times a week trying the local food at 10pm and then playing board games until midnight. We lived as a college student for those four short weeks, being truly integrated into the culture and it was a HUGE blessing!
- Since we had so much free time, and not much scheduled ministry during our time in Vietnam, I was struggling the first week or so. I felt guilty for not doing ministry 8-4 daily. I felt like I was doing nothing in Vietnam, and felt very discouraged we didn’t have much scheduled ministry. The Lord reminded me that we all have busy seasons, and slower seasons. Vietnam was a season of resting in the Lord’s presence, learning more about His grace, His mercy, and His character!
What did the Lord Teach me?
- Resting in His presence is so critical for our faith journey! When we rest in the Lord, and not just the things of this world, we gain strength that only comes from the Lord and Holy Spirit. We have that choice to make. Do we want to rest in the power of the Spirit, or take a nap then continue on with our day? It’s not the easiest decision to consistently choose the Lord’s strength. It takes tremendous humility to make this choice in the first place. To say, “Lord, I cannot continue on and I need your strength. I cannot love people with my own flesh, but only with your love that’s within me.” I challenge you to ask this question to yourself. Where in your life are you not resting in his presence?
- The Lord also taught me the importance of representing Christ through our actions, and not always our words. In a country where it’s very difficult to verbally share the Gospel, showing the love of Christ is fully available to do! Loving others through our actions, words, and thoughts is so very important! Your actions and words could lead someone to wonder how you are such a forgiving person, or such a joyful person. This would directly lead to your answer, that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of your life!
Getting to Cambodia was a disaster! Going to two different borders, staying an extra two nights in Vietnam, a 30+ hour bus ride and one flight later we finally made it to this country! Currently in Cambodia, we are living at a school, grades 6-12 consisting of over 1,500 students! We have the opportunity to teach English classes, love on the teachers who work here, and play lots and lots of soccer and basketball with them! I’m excited to share an update here in Cambodia soon with you! For now, I hope you are all having a great start to 2024 and learning more about the Lord every day!
As always, please reach out if you have any questions or want to learn more about ministry!
Alexina (:
