First week in Vinh

We made it through our first week at Vinh. One more week left. It's different than Hanoi not a whole lot to do or variety either. No American food here. (I can get french fries at the one resturant :)
We are co-teaching with the Vietnamese so we don't have as much lesson planning to do. The students are at a low level of English and would have a hard time understanding us if we just spoke to them in English. Our classes are in the evening 5:45pm-9:45pm. We are just helping mainly with pronunciation.
The eight of us went and sang Karaoke last night after class. It was alot of fun.
Tuesday afternoon we spent some time at the orphanage. It was fun. The kids are great and well taken care of. They really wanted to practice their English. They'd ask the same questions over and over but it was nice that they were willing to talk to us. We sang songs and played some games with them. The orphanage is set up like a compound with eleven different houses, each house has a "parent" who looks after the children. There are about 11 children per house. So that is their family.
Saturday was really nice. The school administrators took us to the beach. It was beautiful!! I didn't swim. I walked along the shore and found some nice seashells. Then we ate very fresh seafood. One minute it was alive and kickin and the next we were eating it. There were women walking around with basins of water and live shrimp, crab, squid etc.. The administrators ordered squid, shrimp and crab. So the women cooked it for us and then we ate it. The shrimp was really good (though I had never had it with the heads on.) I had to learn how to eat them and the crab. I had never eaten them that way before. Then we went to Karaoke with them that evening. It was alot of fun and a really good day.
There have been more opportunities here for sharing with others. I haven't had the chance but those who have been here for the whole month have had some really good opportunities. They like it when we sing, so we've sung some good songs for them.
There is no church here so we've had devotions as a team. Steven bought a guitar in Hanoi so we've sung alot. Yesterday I did laundry and just relaxed. We watched movies on the computer.
Marsha is leaving tomorrow for Hanoi. Pray for her as she travels by herself.

Vinh

We are in Vinh. We arrived about 1:45am by train. It was a rough trip. The train was pretty crowded. Thankfully they helped us get our luggage on and off. At first there was no one there to greet us at the train station so we got a little worried but a guy from the school came at about 2:00am. We packed up our luggage into his SUV and he took us to our hotel. The hotel is okay. (Not as nice as hotel in Hanoi.) The city is much quieter and cleaner than Hanoi. It is a nice change. The school is only about a 3 min. walk from where we are staying. So that's nice too.
We will have orientation tomorrow morning so we will find out more details but there is talk of team teaching for the next two weeks which would make it a lot easier since we will only be here for two weeks.

Steven with his students.

Women at the museum--making of the Vietnamese hats.

A different type of house. Also at the Vietnamese Museum of Ethnology.
Those stairs are high and narrow!! I was almost afraid I couldn't get down.

The long house. We went inside and had tea and waited for the water
puppet show to start. This was at the Museum of Ethnology.

Fun with students

Wednesday night we took a bunch of students next door to the hotel for dinner. It was nice. They brought us flowers. I got beautiful sunflowers. We all wore our traditional Vietnamese outfits to teach in and for dinner. Everyone was staring at us. It was rather amusing. They liked that we wore them. I'm not sure if they ever saw foreigners wear them before.

Thursday my class asked me to go to lunch with them. We went to a nice resturant not too far from the school. Then they wanted to go sing karaoke so I went with them for a little bit but I had to be back at the school because I had a 1:30pm class. It was alot of fun. I got to ride on the back of a motorbike!! It wasn't quite as scary as I thought it would be. Then my 1:30pm class got me a gift. It was two beautiful seashells with an intricate jungle designs in them. They are delicate!! I hope I can get them home in one piece!

We check out of our hotel tomorrow morning. We leave by train tomorrow night for Vinh. Pray for us!! I think it will be difficult for us to adjust. We have been so spoiled here in Hanoi. The hotel rooms here are beautiful. They do our laundry for us and provide us daily with bottles of water. They call taxi's for us when we needed to go to school and the school pays for them as well as our meals here at the hotel in the dining room. We just had to sign for them. Vinh will be quite different. Students have also told us that it is hotter there too. It also doesn't get too many foreigners so we will be more closely monitored and stared at as well. Marsha has had some interesting experiences with being stared at. When we went to the one place, a girl came up and stood beside her while her friend took their picture. It's been funny. She's like a celebrity.
Pray as we head into new experiences.

Sick

I got sick yesterday. It was a struggle to teach. I am feeling much better today although I haven't eaten much. Not sure what caused it. Please pray for all of us as we will be joining the Vinh team on Saturday. The e-mail I received from the Vinh team sounded like they were struggling as well with sickness, homesickness, teaching and losing voice from teaching so much. That too I'm experiencing. My throat does hurt today as well. Three hours is a long time to teach.
It is a joy to spend time with our students. They are wonderful.

Day with our students

Yesterday was a fun day. We spent the whole day with our students and they took us around Hanoi. We first went to the Silk Village where they make beautiful robes and scarfs and ties and shirts. I saw some beautiful robes. We also got to see the machines they use to make them with. It was interesting. They then took us out to eat and fed us alot of food. Whatever it was, it was really good!! I think I had fried squid and some type of beef and spring rolls and of course, rice-white and fried.

Then we had a nice change of scenery and went outside the city of Hanoi to the countryside and visited the pottery village. It was nice. There were lots of different tea sets and dishes. The ride out there was a little rough. The roads are very narrow and scary when two cars had to pass. We left there in a hurry because a storm was coming and the wind kicked up a lot of dust. I think the taxi driver was afraid we would get stuck out there. Vietnam is a very poor country and it is hard seeing the houses some people live in even in the city of Hanoi.

We then came back to Hanoi and went to a nice little coffee shop that overlooked the one lake. It was beautiful. We had tea and then had some ice cream and then they brought us back to the hotel. It was a really nice day to spend with the students and get to know them a little bit more.

I also picked up my Vietnamese outfit. It fits perfectly and is beautiful!!

Pray for opportunities to share and for another full week of teaching.

We just found out about the next two weeks after we are done teaching here in Hanoi. We will be leaving the night of July 21st for a train ride to Vinh where the other Vietnam Team is and then return to Hanoi all together on Aug. 7th for a bit of a debriefing before we head out Aug. 9th (Marsha, however, will come back to Hanoi on Aug. 1st so she can fly out on the 3rd). Her visa was not extended. Please pray for safety traveling to Vinh and back to Hanoi and then of course, home and continued strength and wisdom in teaching.

Hello!! All is well. We just finished our first week of teaching. Three hours is rough. The first two hours are fine. The third hour I have a hard time and keep running out of material. I just wing it, they don't know the difference. Next week is the same schedule as this week. Then after that I'm not sure where we will be teaching. The students at this school have summer break, starting July 21st. They are suppose to be arranging places for us to teach after that. So, I guess we'll find out when the time comes.

I had lasagne last night for dinner. (It wasn't really lasagne, it was more ground meat with melted cheese and one lasagne noodle, but it tasted okay.) We went to a pizza place called Pepperonis. We've had rice almost everyday except for last night and the night before, we went to place called PAPA JOES, it has "American" food. (Close, but not quite American..) I had a sandwich with chicken/bacon/tomato and french fries. it was pretty good. Something other than rice anyway..

I got a traditional Vietnamese outfit made, we are going to pick them up this afternoon. Hopefully it'll fit.

We attended the Hanoi International Fellowship yesterday for church. I was surprised. It was held in a hotel ballroom. It was just like a church back home with a good praise band and familiar worship songs. The fellowship is for foreign passport holders only. Vietnamese nationals are not allowed to attend or will get into trouble. There is a Vietnamese church in Hanoi that they can attend. There were many different nationalities including Australian, Korean, Japanese, and American.

Inside a temple at the First National University in
Vietnam. Now mainly just a tourist site. Some Vietnamese
still come and offer prayers and sacrifices.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum. Security here is very tight.
They X-ray your bags. No camera's, water or large bags
allowed inside. Skirts and shorts have to be to the knee and
tops must have sleeves. This is to show respect for Ho Chi
Minh whose body is on display inside. Mausoleum is only
open in the morning and closed longer at certain times for
them to continually prepare his body.

Picture taken at our field director's house
in Vietnam. Our last day together as a team.
Vinh team left by train that night.

Around Hanoi

Yesterday was a full day. The school arranged a tour for us around the city of Hanoi. We went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the first National University and a few other Historical sites. It was a full day. Today we are going to the international church and tomorrow we start teaching.

Yesterday we checked into our hotel which will be home for the next two weeks. It is beautiful!! The rooms are really nice. We each have our own room. I have a nice view of the lake. All meals are paid for by our school and they will provide us with taxi's from here to school each day we teach. I start teaching on Monday 7:30am-10:50am--Yes, three hours a day. Tuesday-Thursday I teach from 1:30pm-4:50pm and Friday's we all have off. We are teaching at the VietNam National University--high school age kids. Today we met with the administrators of the school and then went exploring. We went to the Old part of Vietnam. I got my Vietnamese hat and a beautiful fan. Please pray for us as we are all nervous about teaching on Monday.

Welcome to Vietnam!

The Vietnam Team at the LA airport.

Chopsticks!

Our first attempt at Vietnamese food in LA.

Beach

The beach again.

LA Beach

Huntington State Beach

We're Here!!

We are in Vietnam!! It's exactly like the movies that I watched. It is a beautiful country. We left Tuesday night from LA at 1:15am and after a 13 hour flight we landed in Taipei, Taiwain for a two hour layover and then flew into Hanoi. The flight didn't seem that long because I slept most of the way. They fed us twice on the first plane and once on the second plane and then they took us out for lunch once we got to Hanoi. We met our field director, she is very nice and has helped us out alot. We checked into a hotel and spent last night there. Today we are at Sandy's house until 4:30pm and then we are splitting up. The Vinh team is leaving and the Hanoi team is going to be set up in our permanent hotel. Monday we start teaching. Today we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausolem which was closed but it was nice to just walk around. We had fresh cocunut milk right off the street and sugarcane juice and lots of different fruit--rambuttan and other stuff. So far, so good, stomach wise. I'll upload more pictures as soon as I can.

A Wonderful Day!

Yesterday the team had worship here at WCIU in the morning and then we went to the Vietnamese Alliance Church in Orange County, California. It is Steven's home church. The pastor had us come up front and prayed for us. There was a guest speaker from Southern Vietnam. The whole service was in Vietnamese so I didn't understand any of it. They did put a translator in the middle of our group but I was unable to really hear her. It was just awesome to be there. It was the first of the month so we had communion with them as well.

A couple from the church took us all out to eat at a Vietnamese resturant. It is Vietnamese custom that whoever invites pays for everyone. They ordered for all of us, we had rare steak noodle soup and spring rolls. It was difficult at first trying to eat the noodles in the soup with chopsticks but I was starting to get the hang of it. The spring rolls were good with shrimp and a little pork in them. We had what was like tapioca pudding for dessert.

Then we went to Tanh's church which is a smaller church and didn't start until 2pm. We got there for the end of the service. The pastor also had us all come up front and prayed for all of us. they also had communion. Then they had fellowship time which consisted of eating a type of bun that had meat and egg in the center. It was good. and also a drink type, a different type of tapioca dessert. I think they called it "ja" and there are all different kinds.

Then we went to the beach--Huntington State Beach. It was beautiful. I'll download some pictures as soon as I can.

Then we stopped at Target for some last minute shopping and came back to WCIU where we had pizza. It was truly a wonderful day and introduction into the Vietnamese culture.