Hello everyone! I am so sorry that I have not been active on my blog in such a long time. As you likely know, I am in Vietnam right now. The switch from Guatemala to Vietnam has been quite the change for our team, not just in the time changes. Our ministry, living space, and really just free time in general has been extremely different than what we have ever been used to. I have honestly struggled to find something to write about, not because the Lord is not moving, but because I believe I had unfortunately slipped into a place of comfort and stagnancy. It is of course no excuse, but being given a nice place to live, a ministry with plenty of time to rest, and being kept inside most days because of rain made branching out more difficult.
Our ministry is actually with Campus Crusades for Christ, but posted in Vietnam! This really is a fun ministry, getting to simply form friendships with students and people our own age and pouring into them, trying our hardest to show God’s love in whatever we do. Every night, myself and three of my teammates simply go to a coffee shop for an hour and a half or two hours to just chat with these students who are hungry for the Word and, in truth, learning English. Some mornings, we will study the Word with our ministry hosts in our house as well. With the Christmas season coming to a close, we also end many things that we needed to plan, a Christmas party of our own, along with attending several church services and a church led Christmas party. We enjoyed seeing the faces of our ministry hosts’ children light up as we presented them with some early Christmas gifts and singing praises to the One True God with the students in our apartment.
I would like to share the true reason for writing this blog, as I said no astounding events have transpired since the last time that I wrote, but last night, we clearly saw the Lord move. As we were returning home from a good day of English Club, it had finally stopped raining and we had decided to take a walk home, spur some conversation between the four of us and enjoy one of the dryer days available to us in Vietnam. As we crossed a crosswalk, we all hesitated. To our left was a man using a crutch on his left side, dragging his left leg along behind him, and holding his right arm at an angle, clutching that hand. As we all noticed this hesitation in one another, we knew that we had to stop for this man. I gestured to crosswalk and the man nodded, we stood on the side of him that was towards traffic and slowly made our way across the crosswalk. Douglas brought out his Google Translate and began to ask questions. Asking the man if he needed a taxi to get anywhere or if he needed anything led us to a conversation somewhat skewed by Google Translate, but what we understood was that this man needed medicine from the hospital and money to get it. Douglas then asked if we could pray over this man, right on the side of the road. This question is the nail biter of the story, not because he may say no, but because sharing of the Gospel is still illegal in Vietnam. However, I believe it was clear between all four of us that we were not going to let that get in the way of this opportunity.
The man nodded his head and as he sat down, we all crouched next to him and began to pray for healing. Healing for his leg only at first and for his family. Once we had finished, Douglas asked him if he felt any better, Luke, John, and myself never stopping our intercession. The man sadly shook his head. “Okay,” said Douglas with some confidence, “then let’s go again.” This time the man explained his condition. He had been burned by a fire, which had left a large graft on the inside of his left thigh and had made it to where he could bend his right arm no further than perhaps 90 degrees. We dove right back into prayer, more passion, more energy, casting out our doubts and fears. We finished this time, and Douglas asked the man again if he felt better, the man nodded his head yes. “Praise God,” Douglas said joyfully to the man. We dove into conversation with the man about what we believed, whether or not he believed in Jesus, which he said yes to. We then asked if he believed that he could be healed, and he shook his head no. We told him that we believed that we served a God that does not desire for His people to be living in pain, injury, or illness. We told the man that we wanted to bless him with some money for the medicine that he needed, a taxi to the doctors, and that we would like to pray for him once more. He nodded his head gratefully, and we prayed once more. Once we had finished, we handed the man some money, and Douglas explained that the money that we were giving him we were only able to give because we have been blessed by the Lord, and the Lord moved us to part with this to help this man in need. John left to get a taxi for the man and when it arrived we helped the man over. The man did not say much, however we are confident that he felt the love of God over him.
We paid the man driving the taxi and as they left John said, “We should pray for him one more time.” We all circled up and began to pray. Douglas closed with a great prayer, that we would not feel discouraged because we did not see a healing, but that we would be ENcouraged knowing that the Lord is moving in this man’s heart, healing him from the inside out.
I know that this story does not sound overwhelmingly crazy, and it really isn’t in the grand scheme of what God can do. The crazy part is the fact that we finally began to step out of that comfort and stagnancy and stepped into one of the things the Lord had prepared for us. Please, continue to pray for more moments like this one, and a desire on our team to see these moments. Thank you so much for your unending support, I am so happy that you are a part of this with me!
