Friday, March 13, 2009

Funerals & Factories



Day 3 – Saigon

Woke at 5:55am to a nice AC room. 30 minutes later I was outside with 90 degree temperature and it was humid. Did I mention it is REALLY hot here? Today I noticed it, mainly because I had pants on. I was teaching after all, had to look the part. Rob and Clif took the morning to talk about the Incarnation of Jesus. How the mystery of the gospel is that Jesus lives in us. Most had not heard it articulated like that. They understood Jesus, but that Jesus now lives in them? Nope.

We then had lunch. Oh boy. This time it was white rice and on top your choice of beef or fish. I was late so all there was left was the fish. It was a whole little fish. Head, tail, just a fish. I picked with my chop sticks but just could not do it. I put it down and went for my power bars (love my wife she packed like 30 for me, clearly anticipating this very moment for Mr. high maintenance). My Vietnamese friends clearly noticed because about 5mins later they brought me a whole new lunch they had gone out and bought. What servants, I was overwhelmed. Whatever it was they brought me I just ate it, and just swallowed and just said thank you, thank you. I still ate the power bar later.

I then took the afternoon to talk about Contact Work. This is what makes Young Life so different. We go where kids are. Leave the comforts of the church and enter the world of kids. This was a new concept for most. But we took time to talk about how these leaders could enter the worlds of Vietnamese kids. I was expecting to hear about soccer fields and tutoring. Which we did. What I heard next shocked me. They talked about doing contact work in factories. There are literally thousands of factories within a few hrs of the city of Saigon (8mil in city limits). One young believer (LanG) idea was to go and start befriending the teenagers working in these factories. Hundreds and thousands of teenagers work 15hr, 7 day a week jobs in manufacturing factories. I was speechless. Another young man stood up with his idea. He would take teens with him to funerals. What? In his world many friends and family die and these funerals are celebrations. Apparently enough that he could take kids with him and do Contact Work with kids both with this family and friends and the kids. Again, I did not know what to do with that idea. The point, this was taking a life of its own. Young Life was starting in Vietnam.

A few other highlights of the day:

We did a full blown entertainment night. 5 skits all done by the Vietnamese. It took Rob and I about 2 hrs to teach these, in very hot and sweaty little rooms. The night was amazing though. So much laughter and I think it was one of the best entertainment nights we have ever done.

I polished off an entire bottle of hand sanitizer in the last 3 days.

3 men afflicted with physical aliments came and asked that we pray that they be healed. I have certainly prayed for people to be healed before but this was different. One man had been in a scooter accident and broken his leg which had never healed properly. He showed us how his knee didn’t function right. He needed his leg to work and asked it be healed. There were two others with similar stories. We prayed hard for the Lord to heal. I have never been so overcome. I prayed like I have never prayed before. Who knows what the Lord will do, but there are many people here that have been healed by prayer from disease and physical aliments. They really NEED Jesus here...can't say the same for us in the US.


Please for for the protection of my family (Jenny, emma, jack, lanni, and jmmy). Please pray for a great finish to our conference, pray that leaders would go home and implement these principles. PS - any idea which shoes are mine??

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