Friends,
What an amazing trip! Overall this was a trip of confirmation. We left convinced that the ministry of Young Life is a perfect fit for Vietnamese kids and the principles of incarnational ministry, humor, and winning the right to be heard work here! It works everywhere. From downtown Ho Chi Min City, to Hanoi, to the highland provinces, to small tribal villages across the country. We left confirmed that Johnny & Pearl are the right national directors and the ministry is in great hands. (They are likely coming to our All Staff Celebration in January, and also staying a few weeks after for some gatherings).

As you can see from the attached picture (can you find me?) we had about 70 people from around the country for our 3 day training. About half were from HCMC, another 25 or so from the central provinces and tribes, and 4 from Hanoi. Some great seeds were planted for new clubs, a camp next spring and summer, and potentially a similar training next year in Hanoi if our friends that attended really go for it this year.

One of the coolest moments is when we had all the leaders pray for kids they knew, kids they didn’t know, names of towns, villages, and provinces, cities, districts, and schools, and for the whole country of Vietnam. They wrote down their prayers, and names of kids, and put them on the maps on a white board. Above the maps the Young Life mission statement is written in Vietnamese.

After 4 hard days of vision and training we took a day to see a little bit more of Vietnam. We went to the Cu Chi tunnels. This was in the middle of the former DMZ (Demilitarized zone) where some of the worst jungle fighting of the Vietnam war took place. The propaganda machine is still churning here, and it was interesting to walk through exhibits and see videos about the "American enemy." Lots of mixed emotions, but the predominant one was respect and admiration for our troops who served here. What a horror that must have been. At the end of the tour I did get to shoot an M60 and AK47 J. We also got a chance to visit the Mekong Delta area. On the second video below (it is a bit long) you can see some of the interesting (non-ministry) experiences I had while there. Just be warned, I eat some weird stuff, shoot some guns, and join a public work out session. Oh, and they eat dog there and I shot a video of a basket of them heading to market….so the video is a bit PG-13.

At the end of the week we helped put on a Young Life ‘Birthday ‘ club in the middle of a worn down part of the city. Kids came streaming in from the streets and were greeted with smiles, music, laughter, and the name of Jesus proclaimed. The room we had club in was so hot I joked to the kids that this was the first club ever done in a Sauna. No kidding, it was about 110 with 100% humidity. You can see in the pictures in the club video my shirt is completely soaked…that is not water! Somehow us ‘Westerners’ were the only ones bothered by it as all the kids seemed just fine. At the end of this email I have a link for you to see club and some pictures. They call it a ‘Birthday Club’ to avoid suspicion from officials.

Overall, the Young Life movement is well on its way in Vietnam. It has been a true joy and honor to see it start and thrive. Thanks to those of you who have stepped in and become regular prayer partners and donors. I hope to introduce many of you to Johnny and Pearl in just a few short months. More to come on that…


Videos:

Birthday Club Video: Starts with a few pictures and then the footage is a bit dark as the room was not well lit, but you will get the flavor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm4iX-JRJfg

Jamie’s other Vietnam Adventures: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9D8R1P8K5Q

Fish Head Soup and 70 new YL Leaders!

You got it! Fish head soup, lots of fish head and a little soup. Incredible close to our 3 day training. I was not able to post yesterday because our internet was down. We are in the midst of a strategic planning day with 19 of the 70 leaders from around Vietnam. We are meeting with leaders from Hanoi, the highland provinces, and HCMC. They are dreaming for thier country and planning camps, clubs, and leaderships. It has an unbelievable experience to see thier passion and broken hearts for kids and Jesus. They are embracing the Young Life principles and speaking vision for thousands of transformed lives!

Guess who the crazy loud American is in the front row??

What a blessing to walk with these friends. I gave a devotion this morning on Nehemiah and we talked about walking the walls and having a vision for broken kids all over this country. Johnny (our national director) was sitting next to me writting out every high school in HCMC and praying over the list! Wow.

More late.....

Day 2 - Training

We started today at 8am and didn't finish until 8:30! Long Day with some great friends. The picture to the right is all our friends ready to learn some great Young Life principles! Tonight we put on another Club and also did a skit night.

The other picture is of Phi and Sing. Sister and Brother from the central provinces who are doing Young Life work in remote villiages. Their brother Lung was at our training 2 yrs ago and was an amazing young man. He was a our clear leader for Young Life in central Vietnam. Tradjically he died 6 months ago in a horrible scooter accident. His sister and brother came to our training to carry on what Lung had started. I am attaching the picture from 2yrs ago of Lung.

It is late here (almost midnight), so I will leave you with one last picture. Today it rained harder than I have ever seen rain before. I would estimate about 8 inches in :45mins. Took a little video of the down pour for your enjoyment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Np9NQK-jy8

Blessings, and good night (or good morning where you are reading this)

Day 1 - Ho Chi Min City Young Life Training

What an amazing day. As I sat at breakfast this morning the word that keep coming to mind is unworthy. Who am I, we, to come all the way around the world to teach these amazing people? Yet that is exactly where I am and what I am doing. Today we took time to unpack 'What is Young Life' and the Incarnation. Two small subjects :0. In my first picture Johnny (one of our staff people) is standing next to Josh Powell (AD from Seattle), and Denae Wood (from Singapore). On the White board is the Young Life mission statement and the 5 C's of Young Life translated in Vietnamese.

Here is a quick video when we took a break and had all the leaders play (Human Knot)...great stuff..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjmhV2Mnybc

After a crazy travel day, and it being past 11pm, I am DONE for the the day. I would to go on about the fish head soup we had for lunch or the black eggs...but will save the food update for my next post...enough to keep you interested right??

Blessings....

JH

International Travel is not sexy! Day .5

Welcome to my journey 'back' to Vietnam! Trip started fine, right up until I had to sprint to make my Hong Kong flight in the San Fran airport only to stand there sweating and panting as the door closed. Then I got to argue with several United agents to finally find out I had to wait a full 24hrs before I could fly to Tokyo and then to Ho Chi Min City!

Now I am sitting here in Tokyo waiting for my plane. I did get to go into the Air Japan lounge and got to shower! And I did experience my first bidet. Wow, I have seen them but man HELLO if you ever need a good wake up after a 10hr flight, try that!!

Looking forward to seeing my friend Johnny tonight and connecting with Josh and Denae. We now have 70 leaders attending our training, starting on Monday morning (8pm on Sunday night PST time)

I would appreciate your prayers for safe travels as many of the leaders coming are riding long bus rides and scooters to get there.

Blessings,

JH

Silent Night in the Church of Nativity with a little Stars and Bucks!

Our day ended last night and started today with some great meetings. Our topic was the Developing Global Leaders program. For Asia. Africa, and Latin America we currently have 115 of our best Young Life leaders getting a college scholarship and leading YL clubs. We fund this by donors giving $230 a month for 4 yrs. The impact has been incredible so far with the average Global Leader taking 20 kids to camp, leading 2 campaigner groups, and knowing hundreds of kids names.

We took time to discuss our decision to commit to 60 more students for year 3 of the program. While the impact of these leaders is uncomparable the commitment financially and on our leadership is huge. Our decision... we are in! Another 600k to raise, although much of this funding will come via individuals sponsoring partial students or full sponsorships. Want in? We also hope to add some students in Palestine in the next few yrs. as well. You can see the year 1 and 2 students here: http://www.ylgloballeaders.org/

We started today with a little coffee stop at Starbucks - they have one right here in the West Bank!! (see picture, and look close) It is just across the street from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. To be honest the double Americano they made was excellent Arabic coffee, better than the real Starbucks!

We took some time in the church and the singing of Silent Night in Latin in the place Jesus was born was an incredibly moving experience. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIZIQ_yC2bY

We then drove down to Jericho on the Dead Sea, and before we got there I led a study on the blind man and Zacheaus - I did this just under a large 2000 yr. old Sycamore tree. Who knows right, could have been a wee little man up in that tree a few yrs. ago. If not then one very close to it.

We then went down to the Dead Sea and took a swim! I will post these pictures tomorrow as they are on another camera. We went out to dinner with some key Bethlehem leaders who are living in community with Muslims and doing amazing incarnational work.

The second picture is me outside the restaurant and you can see a Jewish settlement just over my left shoulder. Remember I am in the West Bank, in Palestine and the Jewish settlement is technically (at least the Palestinians and the international community would say this) so are the Jews living in the settlement. I will post the pictures of the 30 foot wall that stretches 800 kilometers around Palestine.

We are up early tomorrow for a morning of work and meetings.

Blessings,

Jamie

West Bank Leaders and a walk through Jersusalem!

Tonight is a quick post as my battery is running low and I lost my little converter. I got permission to post a picture and first name of our newest YL director in the West Bank, Yousef. He is an incredible leader and follower of Christ. He already has 15 leaders and has had clubs of over 150 kids.

The other picture are several of thier women leaders. Wonderful young ladies who knew so many kids as we walked through town.

This last post is of me walking the streets of old Jerusalem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhZne46KNLk

Much more tomorrow.

Jamie

Cana, Nazareth, and the West Bank (Palestine)

Today started well as we travelled from Tiberius to Cana, stopped to visit the historical site of the wedding at Cana. My first picture is of one of the large jars they unearthed that they believe was one of the jars that held the water that was changed to wine. It was HUGE, much larger than I had in my mind. Then went on to Nazareth. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? You bet, Jesus home town, and Young Life is starting here! This is where we started ‘working’, and work did not stop until just now as we pulled into Bethlehem at 10:30pm. In Nazareth we went to the Nazareth Baptist School which is the only acknowledged evangelical school in Israel. 1000 students attend this school with mostly Muslims and ethnic Christians attending. This is a place where we have begun some Young Life work and started exploring ways to partner with this school. Nazareth is also the place that we will most likely send our new staff person and his family to live in the next year as our Middle East Initiative Director. We met with the head master of the school, Botrus , who is a Arab Israeli Palestinian Christian (say that four times, and it starts to give you an idea of how crazy things are here). He understands what Young Life could bring to his school, with incarnational ministry training, we met for about 2 hours sharing and dreaming about what this would look like.

We jumped in the car with Botrus and went up to the Precipice, this is the historical site in Luke 4 where Jesus is rejected in Nazareth and the crowd try and throw him off a cliff, but Jesus avoids them by walking straight through the crowd. This is actually quite a large hill, more a mountain, and we spent some time up there with Botrus praying and dreaming as we overlooked the Jezerell valley (where the battle of Armageddon will take place). (see picture)

We left there and started our journey into the West Bank and Palestine. The political dynamics here make things very confusing and ever changing. Our guide that is with us is a Palestinian Christian so it is very interesting to get his perspective on the situation. (I will try and remember to tell you the story he told us about when he was an interpreter for a documentary on the #1 wanted person in Palestine Authority army in 2002, wow) It is jaw dropping to be driving down the road and look to the left side and see a Jewish settlement with neatly built buildings, very organized, and then look to the left (over a 30ft wall) and see refugee camps with large black water drums on top, and basically a slum. You drive through an Israeli check point, and then 4 miles later you get stopped by a Palestinian Authority solider (who this evening boarded our little van, singled two of us out, took our passports and drummed us with questions, came back 5 minutes later and sent us on our way with a smile). It is hard to put into words the stark ethnic and religious divisions here as both sides walk so close to each other with big guns and big walls, and no answers.

We came into Palestine today because our best Young Life work is happening here. I won’t name towns or people, but these friends are amazing. Arab Palestinian Christians living in the West Bank and reaching out to teenagers, doing incarnational ministry the Young Life way. We walked the streets with about 10 leaders, meeting kids, shaking hands with locals, and finally eating a great dinner together finishing with a commissioning prayer over their ministry. We then drove down to Jerusalem passing through two more check points coming back into Israel, then, back through another check point, back into the West Bank and to Bethlehem. (I didn’t know Bethlehem was in the West Bank until I got here). Tomorrow we will meet with some key leaders here and visit another school we are partnering with.

It continues to be an incredible time with the International South Team as we drive together we read scriptures about things we have seen and places we have been. In the next 2 days we will visit Jericho where I will give a little message about Zacchaeus, and then in the north part of Jerusalem speaking about the healing at the 5 pools.

Tired and Blessed!

Jamie

Capernaum & Swimming in the Sea of Galilee

Day 1 & 2 - First off, I just have to clarify one thing. Travelling, and especially travelling internationally is not glamorous or fun. I mean the actual plane and airport, and bus, and taxi, and security, and body cavity searches. The getting here and being with amazing people part is awesome. I say that because what started as a great day turned nasty when, because of some unknown delay, I missed my connection to Newark, and thus missed my connection to Tel Aviv. They re-directed my flight through London and I got put on a EL AL flight (that is the Israeli national airline) down to Tel Aviv, getting me in at mid-night and to our hotel at 2am. Round trip = 36hrs from door to door. Not fun.

I did get to experience El Al air however, which was an adventure in itself. I now understand why El Al is considered the safest airline in the world. I went to check in and they told me to go through security, I responded, I don’t’ have a boarding pass, they said..before you get a boarding pass you go through ‘our’ security. Thus my introduction to ‘the safest airline in the world’. 2hrs later with, 1 full bag emptying, 2 quarantines, my passport being shuffled between multiple security people, every piece of electronic questioned, tested, and swabbed, I made it into the boarding area, plus I am pretty sure I sat next to an air marshal on the way there.

Anyway, on to my first day in Israel. Today was one of those days that I will never forget in my life. We took today to travel around the Galilean area visiting many places where Jesus walked, talked, and healed. Tomorrow we will meet some of our potential staff and volunteer leaders in Nazareth. But today was a day to experience Jesus’ footsteps.

We started our day in Capernaum. I am not sure what I thought Capernaum would look like, but it is not much. Very small little town on the edge of the lake. After years of reading Mark 2 where the 4 friends carry their paralyzed friend to Jesus, lowering him through the roof to get him to Jesus’ feet, seeing the actual houses that this took place was surreal. Just a few yards away was Peter’s house and then just a sand wedge from there the water’s edge where Jesus called Peter, James, and John, taught from a boat pushed out from shore, asked Peter to let his nets down for a catch on the other side, and launched out only to calm a raging storm half way across the lake. Amazing to say the least. Here is a short video I took standing on shore and of the foundations of the houses in the town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsKRZWvZ4DE

At the end of this trip I will try and go back and summarize the rest of these days, there is just so much packed into a day it would take a long while to write it all down and I need some sleep! Just to summarize, we also saw:

- Historical site of Sermon on the Mount

- Dipped my hands on the Jordon River

- Took a boat ride out into the middle of the Sea of Galilee (Clif Davidson did a wonderful job of bringing the scripture of Jesus calming the storm to life, well I guess he had it easy given the setting!)

- Ate a lunch of what the locals call “Peter’s Fish”. See picture…yum!

- Ended the day with meetings and finally a swim in the Sea of Galilee!

Tomorrow we travel to Nazareth for meetings with prospective Young Life staff and current volunteer leaders, then we go to the West Bank and Bethlehem tomorrow night. More tomorrow, need sleep

Blessings,

Jamie

'One of Those Seasons' - Start of Israel Trip.

Israel Trip April 2011

I am boarding a plane this morning, flying to Newark and then overnight to Tel Aviv, Israel.  I will join our International South team there for a week of meetings, time together for planning, and reflection in the Holy Land.  We are just starting Young Life in the Middle East and this will be a strategic advance trip to meet with key leaders and prospective leaders, pray, just ‘be’ and ‘dream’ together for what Young Life will look like in Israel, Palestine, and the entire Middle East.  Picture is the family Easter picture.  So fun to be travelling to the Holy Land the Monday after Easter!! 

DAY 1 – Travel Day (April 25)
DAY 2 – Arrive Tel Aviv, Israel – Arrive (April 26)
DAY 3 – Tour of Galilee Area (April 27)
Visit the places of Jesus’ Galilean ministry – CapernaumKursi, boat ride on Sea of Galilee.
DAY 4 – Nazareth(April 28)
Visit Nazareth Baptist School, Nazareth Village and Precipice. Afternoon drive to Zababdeh to meet with Young Life Palestine leaders / dinner.

DAY 5 – Jerusalem(April 29)

Begin at Mt. of Olives, Garden of Gethsemane, and tour several holy sites in Old City of Jerusalem. Strategy meetings with key leaders.
DAY 6 – Bethlehem(April 30)
Spend the day in Bethlehem visiting Bethlehem Bible College, Church of the Nativity and other Bethlehem area sites.
DAY 7 – Departure Day(May 1)
Attend church service, depart for airport.