It is Sunday morning April 11, 2010. We left the hotel in Hoi An around 8:00 am and wound through the streets until we came to a small United Methodist church located in a residential area. Here we joined about 60 Vietnamese for Sunday worship. I gotta tell you, these people have enthusiasm! Their worship was joyous and loud! Together we sang Amazing Grace, them in Vietnamese and us in English.
One of the members of our group was born in Vietnam, but his family escaped by boat to Thailand when he was nine years old. His name is Sun To, and he is currently pastoring a church near Dallas, Texas. This is his first trip to Vietnam since his family escaped, and today he is preaching! He speaks fluent English and Vietnamese, so he is able to translate his sermon for the entire mixed congregation. I cannot describe the emotion of Sun To or the entire group as we share this moment in his life.
After the service, we are back on the road heading south. Around noon we stop at a road-side restaurant, some had rice with fish or chicken or beef. I had a fried egg sub sandwich! After lunch we continued south on Highway 1A.
In the early afternoon, just north of Quang Ngai, we turn off the main road and head off into the countryside. We ride for over an hour...the road becoming less and less paved, more and more gravel and dirt. Eventually we turn off the dirt road and bike down a dirt path into the jungle...we have arrived at a very small jungle village. We park our motorbikes and are met by a handful of villagers (the busses could not negotiate the dirt path and so they park out on the dirt road and the team members walk back the lane to the village).
The villagers lead us off into the banana trees, down a hill, and around a corner, suddenly we find ourselves surrounded by over 300 people! There is a United Methodist church tucked here in the jungle and when the congregations in this area found out the Americans were coming, they gathered here in this remote location to wait for us. Over 300 men, women, and children met us in the jungle. Some had been waiting 4 or 5 hours just to see us. But there was more...much more awaiting us.
The people had come together from their respective villages to participate in a baptism service. And so the American pastors in the group found a room inside the church, filled a large pail of water, and began taking turns baptizing those who came and asked. They were brought in to the room in groups of 10 or so, and then baptized two at a time. This went on for over an hour as over 100 persons were baptized!
One of the most amazing stories we were witness to was about a father who had become a Christian a few months back, and wanted his family to be baptized. So he brought his entire family to this remote location, all of them having walked about 30 kilometers, about 18 miles! It was a very emotional, happy time as the Spirit of God was poured out upon villagers and team members alike.
We spent several hours with these amazing people. Together we laughed, we cried, we prayed and we praised God! I'm not really sure who was blessed more...those who came and were baptized, or the stunned Americans who witnessed such amazing faith and grace in the jungles of Vietnam.
Over the next few days, several of us would have long, deep discussions about what we witnessed in the jungle. There are lessons to be learned here for all of us, clergy and laity alike.
First, God loves everyone, everywhere. It truly matters not who you are or where you come from. I think that here back in the States, we have a tendency to ignore or discount those who are not like us. God, in His infinite wisdom, looks beyond our clothing, our careers, and our stuff and looks deep inside to see what we are made of. The people we met in a remote jungle had the right stuff and God blessed them for it.
Second, the love of God will make you do crazy things. How many of us would walk across town much less 18 miles to church? How many of us love our families so deeply that we would be willing to do almost anything to see them saved? Half-way around the world we found God's Amazing Grace!
Reluctantly, we leave the church and the jungle behind. It is late afternoon and we must be back on the road. It takes another hour or so just to retrace our path back to a semblance of civilization. We ride to the coastal city of Quang Ngai. Here we will spend the night and dream of God's Holy Spirit moving mightily in the jungles of Vietnam!
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