This ain’t Kona, or even Kansas, Toto! It is Hà Nội, Việt Nam. The pace of life has changed, 7.1 million live in this city. It feels like the busiest place we have ever been, but I was surprised, when checking Wikipedia, to discover that the population density is only 1/4 of that of Santiago, Chile. Ha Noi is very different from our own life experience, almost everything is new and our senses are being stimulated by the food, the traffic, the people, the red and yellow, and our eyes and hearts are open to all it has to offer.

Our first morning, waking up in our rented apartment/, provided us with a view across West Lake, Tây Hồ locally. The sunrise rivalled many sunsets in Hawaii, the beautiful colour due to the morning mist. Work begins early and ends late, construction starts at about 5 a.m. and can continue late into the night, seven days a week, lots of manual labour and no sign of a 40 hour week for many of our neighbours. Almost every home has a business operating out of the  ground floor rooms: coffee shops next to granite cutting, next to moped repair and Phở restaurants, mini-Marts and vegetable shops. There are areas of town that seem to specialize in one thing so you will find Camera Street, Toy Street and Shoe Street in the Old Quarter. All over the city, mopeds and bicycles, pedestrians and cars, buses and taxis all compete for space on the road. After the first week the initial sense of total chaos is fading and it is interesting, as the patterns become clearer, to observe how well the traffic really flows. We have seen up to 5 people riding one moped, mopeds towing trailers full of sand and dragging hundreds of pounds of rebar behind them. Mercedes, BMWs, Lexus, three Bentleys and an Aston Martin crawl by in stark contrast as they push their way through the traffic; the buses are an awesome way to get around town, just 7000 VND (U$0.33) and they come every 15 minutes.

The city feels very industrious and yet many take time to sit with friends at one of the many places along the street to enjoy a cup of Ca Phe or green tea and people watch. Everyone we have met has been very friendly, there is a great national pride

In many ways we are experiencing a lot of freedom and lightness of spirit, there is genuine openness to Tây, westerners. There is a growing middle-class in Vietnam, we regularly see joggers and recreational cyclists passing our home on their way around the lake; many tourists are visible in the Old Quarter; and there is a sense of hope and power.

Lots of Power!! 

That’s all for now, until next time be blessed and be a blessing, A&G.

Some pictures from around town…

Anti-smoking campaign?

Girls waiting!

Flower patch

Construction site

Cardboard re-cycling 🙂

Our tree!

Running a week behind…

Going into the last week of the lecture phase seemed unreal. This last week of lectures by Don Stephens covered Worldview’s and the Kingdom of God. To introduce worldview Don began by describing glory as “God’s invisible character reflected in the visible world.” As humans we are created to reflect that glory, to understand glory, to hear glory, to see glory and to speak glory; God loves beauty, harmony, justice, romance and grace, and so we love them because we are made in his image to reflect him. He went on to teach how the Christian life is Grace, emphasizing that grace and legalism means life and death. We looked at worldview and how it has changed and we compared world views from different cultural and religious backgrounds and the influence they have on our thinking and actions. With these teachings in place the last day was spent on the Kingdom of God and what it looks like now, (or should look) “may your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” and what it will look like.

Takeaways are many but here are a few to ponder…
* we live to reflect God
* the law is a widower, the dead spouse is me, being under the law is like a woman married to a husband who expects perfection.
* Conversion is the miracle of a moment, sanctification is the labour of a lifetime.
* Worldview is like a story that organizes your beliefs about the world, but we all view the world through the distorted lens of sin.
* many Christians have a “born-again spirit, Babylonian brain.”
* The Kingdom is a story written in your heart.
* The Kingdom is a culture of power Luke 10:9 Heal the sick, and as you heal them, say “the Kingdom of God is near you now.”
* The Kingdom is a culture of radical inclusion and hospitality. xenophilia love of strangers, hospitality. A culture that values people, not just converts.
* The Kingdom is a journey – disciple-making is a process, not a one-time conversion event. When did Peter get saved? or Matthew? The scriptures don’t say, Jesus invited them and loved the “hell” out of them.
* Jesus had no circles, he hangs out with all the wrong people, it was all about relationship.

Joy to the World! Thursday evening at Ohana Court , at YWAM Kona, 54 teams representing 50 nationalities were commissioned and sent out to 39 nations to make a difference in this world. Loren Cunningham led the commissioning of the teams.

Before leaving Hawaii we watched the Big Island Christmas Parade –

it was held on Saturday evening, somehow Santa on a sleigh, with his bright red suit with white fur trim being pulled a long Ali’i Drive with a backdrop of Palm trees and the Pacific Ocean seemed a bit surreal. St Michael’s RC youth group had the tallest Wise Men I have ever seen in their walking nativity scene.

One last Hawaiian sunset. Our days have been full and time has passed very quickly, if it wasn’t for our journals and the weekly blog post we would have argued that we had only just arrived. We sent our first team off in true YWAM style, they boarded vans heading to the airport and Fiji.

Many of our fellow Crossroaders and other friends, came out at 5:30 a.m. to send us off! We piled into 15 passenger vans for the short trip to Kona airport and a long day of flights to Hanoi.

I began writing this about the time we crossed the dateline, as we sat in an Asiana A330-300  we gained 24 hours, and Sunday had become Monday. The fabric of the seating on Asiana is a light brown, rather than the blues and purples that I am used to, the lighter colour makes the inside appear larger, but in reality the seats are wider and there is more room between rows than I recall having experienced in a long time. The cabin crew is very attentive, regularly offering water and juice, and lunch was Grilled Beef Tenderloin with a marinated shrimp starter, the dinner menu has Chicken Cacciatora with steamed rice or mixed seafood pasta. We even got to watch “Good Morning Vietnam” as one of the many free in flight movies on the way to Vietnam.

Arrival in Hanoi airport, these are my flatmates – Sophie, Glenda and Leslie.

Seems like Vietnam has excellent internet, wifi everywhere and we can communicate with you all quite freely. So until next time, be blessed and be a blessing! A&G

S.D.G

J.J.

Our class met in Ohana Court for Impact Week with  hundreds of DTS students all together for the same teaching. However, the week did not start as expected. There have been many times, during the past eleven weeks when I have thought about YWAM as more of a disorganization than it is an organization. Almost always it is in the little things. Things that often frustrate task-oriented folk but in the bigger scheme really don’t matter. Yes, it could be done more efficiently or more effectively but we are people and God is love and He freely offers us His grace.

We have noticed YWAM excels at releasing young people to try, to fail, to learn and to grow. In fact, to Champion Young People is the #6 foundational value “YWAM is called to champion youth. We believe God has gifted and called young people to spearhead vision and ministry. We are committed to value them, trust them, train them, support them, make space for them and release them. They are not only the Church of the future; they are the Church of today. We commit to follow where they lead, in the will of God.”
But, and it is a big BUT, whenever it really matters the leadership comes through with flying colours. This week’s Monday morning worship time, in Ohana Court, had to be used to notify the University of the tragic death of a student due to a hiking accident on the long weekend. While Loren Cunningham, the founder of YWAM wandered among the students consoling and praying with individuals. Andy Byrd, leader of the Fire and Fragrance DTS,  Sean Feucht & Rick Pino who were leading worship for Impact Week, and other young leaders guided the school through the notification process and a time of grieving. To close the morning, Danny Lehmann and Loren Cunningham added their words of comfort and encouragement, all based solidly in Scripture. Monday’s scheduled program was cancelled and the Counsellors at the counselling school went to work with students. Our Crossroads school adjourned to our classroom and spent time in prayer and counselling with each other.
The regular Thursday evening in Ohana Court was dedicated as a memorial service, again it was very well done.
For those who need more information, I have copied YWAM Kona’s release at the end of this post.

Back to the schedule on Tuesday, we were preparing for outreach, we spent Tuesday exploring Unity and Agreement with an excellent teaching by Andy Byrd; Wednesday, after worship, our outreach teams were divided up (interesting term after yesterday’s teaching on Unity) between 5 stations: Children, Technical Evangelism, Fitness as a Platform, Teaching and Preaching, Word by Heart. I attended the technical evangelism one and Glenda went to Word By Heart, and learned to tell a Bible story from memory! She is awesome! Thursday was Evangelism taught by Johnny Gillespie.

Around campus. These are the stairs that run through the middle of the school here in Kona, we get to climb 96 of them on the way from the front gate to our room. The GO centre is at the top of this picture and past that are the Flags. On Saturday the campus hosted their Christmas Fair and the Amazing Race (5Km with 15 obstacles). The campus has been decorated and it certainly looks a lot like Christmas, although the 28C highs strongly contrast with the snowy trees. The children were entertained with inflatable jumping castles and a water slide on the soccer pitch by our bedroom window. And there was singing in the cafeteria most of the day with worshipers rotating through. The open house meant another chance to visit to the Natural farm where Aquaponics and permaculture techniques are being taught and researched for the developing world. Two young inventors are working on water aeration using gravity as the drive system, and others are working on wind generation making prop blades from PVC sewer pipe. This is a quickly growing new part of the Science & Technology Department with lots of exciting opportunities for making a difference in the world.

Our Crossroads leaders hosted a fantastic Love Feast for us on Saturday night, the meal was amazing, we began with three tables of appetizers, followed by Prime Rib and Coconut encrusted Mahi Mahi, with lots of vegetables and salads, all followed by delicious desserts. Everybody dressed for dinner, almost didn’t recognize people. It was the first time in long pants and socks for me since leaving Canada. The entertainment was a wonderful variety show performed by our own classmates and leaders, ranging from hilarious to serious, Glenda and her ladies small group had a lot of fun demonstrating a western line dance as one of the acts.

Not much on the wildlife front, this gecko is unusual in that it is not green.

At Living Stones Church on Sunday morning Pastor Bill Barley started a new series called Roots, this week he looked at Pride as being the root of all sin, a gateway sin. It is like bad breath, we notice every one else who has a problem but we don’t notice our own. CS Lewis said that “anger, fear and drunkenness are mere flea-bites compared to pride.” Pride locks God and other people out, it diminishes our capacity to confess, to repent, to apologize and to acknowledge truth. Take some time and listen by clicking on the church link at the beginning of this paragraph.

We are a bit late posting this week, we are in the last week of teaching on Worldview with Don Stephens, preparing to pack our bags and clean our rooms as next Sunday we will be on the journey from KOA to HAN, for the next phase of our pilgrimage. We will be seperating from many of our new friends as we split up into outreach teams travelling to Malaysia, Thailand, Fiji and Vietnam, so this week has that bittersweet taste. Most will be returning here in February for a debriefing period which will provide a short reunion before we all move on.

We are not sure when our next  blog post will be, until then, be blessed and be a blessing, A&G

S.D.G.

Below is taken from the YWAM Kona Facebook page:

On Saturday, November 29, 2014, our campus experienced the tragic loss of a student, Lindsey Nickerson. Our campus community mourns deeply for the loss of a treasured daughter and friend, and we send heartfelt condolences to Lindsey’s family.

The Hawaii County Fire Department reported that Nickerson became separated from a group of about 25 hikers about 20 to 30 minutes into their hike Saturday. Her body was recovered Sunday afternoon. An autopsy report showed that she suffered from asphyxia due to drowning. For more information, please read the following article:http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/friends-remember-kona-student-killed-waipio-accident

When faced with loss we are reminded of what it means to live our life to the fullest — in light of the reality that the moment we are born on earth we start to die. In her short nine weeks with us here in Kona studying to be a missionary to the nations, we saw Lindsey embody a life lived to the fullest! On Thursday evening, the campus gathered to celebrate Lindsey’s life. Her fellow students created and shared the following video: Lindsey Nickerson Memorial Video:http://youtu.be/cOG3aCKczf0

Please join us in praying for Lindsey’s loved ones as they — and we — reflect on Lindsey’s life and and grieve her death. Counselors have been made available to students all week, and will continue to be available through the quarter.

Finally, we are mindful of the words of the apostle Paul to the Corinthians:

“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?'”
1 Corinthians 15:54-55

Sincerely,

Matt Whitlock
University of the Nations Kona