Hey Friends,

This will be the final blog for this years trip.  I’m currently in Taipei sitting around, so I’ll update.  I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to update after Siem Riep but alot has happen and I’m trying to think digest, reflect, and really think about what I experience, saw, and shared about.

Lang Noi – The Floating Village
A trip (meaning ride) over there was physically gorgeous.  God definitely gave us favor that day and helped us enjoy a smooth boat ride (1 hour from the mainland) to where this village is.  We continued our work with doing VBS, a Puppet Show, and our skit on Jesus’ miracles.  This was the program part of our trip – but we ended early on each day to have a chance to do visitations and prayer paddling.  If you didn’t get a chance to read Kimberly To’s comment, we did something similar to the team from New Orleans.

What are visitations and prayer paddling?  Visitations means we have a chance to go and literally row up to people’s home and ask them if they want to talk or hang out.  Prayer paddling was just having a chance to go around the community to pray for things as we saw them and hope that God may reveal himself to them.  The river culture is very welcoming and conducive for getting to know people.  What we did was row around and prayed for home as we saw them and decided if we wanted to ask people if we can just come up and talk to them.  We had a chance to visit three homes and have a conversation with them about things like – life and what they believed in.

The Beauty and Glory of the Gospel
There are people right now that you know and don’t know that simply have not heard or do not understand the gospel.  I hope that some of you as you read this would pray for these people and even for people in various countries.  This simply breaks my heart.  People may hear about the church, about doing “good”, and love, but do they hear and understand the gospel.

One woman we had a chance to visit had never heard this message before.  As I tried my best (with the help of a few of the locals) to explain that GOD himself would send down his son to die a bloody, human-torturing, humiliating, and sacrficial death for our behalf, that if you with repetance believe in him, you may be saved- she began to break down and cry.  “Why would someone do that?” 

The Gospel is the greatest and finest LOVE story ever.  I’m not certain that she is ready to believe but in a humanly sense, the fact that one person would give up his life for another was praise worthy in her eyes.  How much more praise worthy is it if this person is to understand that it is God himself that is givng his life for our sins.  The cross is the pinnacle moment in redemptive history.  How can we not give glory to the one that is deserving of it. 

Challenged from Prayer Paddling
I got a chance to go prayer paddling with MS Hoang and it was very encouraging.  My heart at that moment began to break as we just got to see the homes and family as they were waking up and pray for them.  By and large, my hope as you read this would be to pray for them also.  Our goal is to allow them to see us pray and allow God to work throughout the community.  Because the community is isolated from the city and not many missionaries have had a chance to make a connection with these people, there are few Godly men in the community.  One of the things in my heart is that God would really raise up Godly men to lead the community and redeem those whom God is calling.  Other things we prayed for is the protection from the evil one, the world, and their flesh.  The families in the community struggle.  Drugs and alcohol is a problem.  Fathers may abuse their families.  Animosity between neighbors.  They don’t worship God.  There is inadequate drinkable water.  There is not enough food.  Prayer is powerful.  Lets PRAY!

Summary
A few things I’ll list out about the floating village.  For dinner the first night we ended up having cobra-snake soup (chao).  For lunch the next day I had turtle with rice.  I saved the shell to share with my physical science students this year.  At night, I got to experience the community gathering on the boat with singing and story telling.  Later that night I spent it sleeping under a mosquito net- real cool.  The boat ride home felt like we were going to capsize at any moment.  Thank God we didn’t.  We were planning to jump into the water but the winds were too strong and the boats engine seemed like it was going to give out at any moment.  So we decided against it.

Future
The future- I don’t know.  But I do pray that as some of you are reading this, you may have the growing desire and conviction to be here next year or in the future.  God is truly a mighty-awesome-majestic-amazing-holy-glorious-transcendent-powerful-beautiful-loving-forgiving God.  PRAISE GOD!

There are alot of things to share about but I think this is fine for now.  I will be arriving in Memphis, TN at 7:00-7:30 am.  I’m extremely anxious to get home, so I will be driving immediately.  Hopefully I will see or hear from everyone soon!

For God’s Glory,
Vinh