Tag Archives: University of the Nations

Wk 17.5 -19 – YWAM Kona, At the Crossroads – Exit

Well, we are back in Kona!

Our last two weeks in Viet Nam were very busy. When we arrived in Ha Noi, just 9 weeks ago, we knew no-one, as we began to develop some contacts from the 3 telephone numbers we had this changed rapidly. We are now exiting this phase of our training and leaving Viet Nam behind. Now there are so many people to say “goodbye” to, all hoping that someday there will be a reunion, on this side of heaven. There was so much favour, God opened doors and many things happened that were beyond our wildest dreams. The country has very quickly become one of our favourite places away from home. For us, standing out from the many highlights was witnessing the joy and the power of the early church at work. Viet Nam is indelibly etched into who we are now.

When we came back from the trip to Sa Pa, we were winding up our english teaching and english clubs as we began preparing to leave.We had lots a special meals with good friends, one included crab! Actually,
there were many celebrations and parties arranged and attended. It was more difficult than usual to get around the city as traffic was building in anticipation of Tết holiday. The sidewalks, or pavements, normally cluttered with motorcycles were now filled with crowds of peach blossom branches and orange trees leaving us no option but to walk on the street. The trees are the Vietnamese equivalent of our Christmas tree. We see them frequently being delivered to the buyer’s home by motorcycle. Tết is the Vietnamese Lunar new year which began on Feb 19th this year. The holiday lasts a full week in Viet Nam with many businesses closing up as people travel to their family home in the country. We were leaving on Valentine’s Day, Feb 14th, and there were many of our new friends asking us to stay longer, but University of the Nations and our “graduation certificates” were calling, as was our family back home.

Some of our English club friends got some extra English practice by acting as tour guides as they showed us some of Hanoi.They took us to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which includes a museum and the grounds of his home. The history of Viet Nam is very interesting. We also visited the Temple of Literature, a 1,000 year old university. Glenda visited B52 lake with some students from another English club, it is site where a B52 bomber crashed during the war with America.

Part of our team debrief took place on an overnight excursion to Ha Long Bay, literally: “descending dragon bay”) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Tuesday and Wednesday. This is a spectacular site, we cruised on a ship, visited a cave and Glenda went to a pearl farm, while I kayaked.

Be
blessed and be a blessing, A&G

Week 15 – YWAM Kona, At the Crossroads – 40 and counting

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As we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary in Okotoks, Canada, this time last year it occurred to us that we had no idea where we would be celebrating our 40th. To be honest, Hanoi, Vietnam did not even cross our minds. We had applied to attend Crossroads Discipleship Training School at the University of the Nations in Kona, but that was all we knew. In fact, at that time YWAM Kona didn’t know. Vietnam is a new location for Kona, our outreach team is the first longer term team to visit Hanoi. In the past there have been a couple of teams from New Zealand and one from California that have been here for a couple of weeks. It looks like eight weeks is better for establishing relationships. With the help of some local contacts we have been exploring opportunities to make a difference. Vietnam is is hungry. So far most of our time has been spent in the city of Hanoi, but we have made a couple of trips to a village in the countryside west of Hanoi, where we held English camps for some pre-teens and in-betweens. Last Saturday Marjo, one of our leaders, Glenda and I, headed out into the country to assist with a special English club, while there we spotted our first Vietnamese wildlife in a tree near the building we were in. I believe it is a long-tailed macaque. Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me so I have only a zoomed-in iPhone picture.

Our anniversary dinner was shared with our team and hosts, 18 of us at The Republic, we had an excellent roast beef dinner, with the biggest Yorkshire pudding, very tasty gravy and roast potatoes. It was an awesome treat that reminded of us the many traditional Sunday roast dinners we had before moving to Canada. Unfortunately, the Hanoi winter has kicked in and some inclement weather forced us to sit inside to avoid the rain and wind. The restaurant has a great balcony which we had reserved for the occasion, it overlooks Ho Tay Lake and the city skyline.

We had the opportunity to share an evening with two teachers that we have worked with. They took us out for coffee and Bun Ngan, this is a very popular dish that can be found at many of the street soup kitchens, most customers sit on plastic stools on the sidewalks/pavement. The best eating places are obvious by how far the clientele is spread down the street from the soup pots. This place was very popular. The link I put on Bun Ngan is to a blog site which describes the experience very well, there is much discussion in the comments around what Ngan is, duck? goose? swan? It was described to us by our friends as a big duck, more like a swan, but with no definitive answer we can only vouch that it was very, very tasty. The chilli pepper and garlic dip had lots of garlic.

Vietnam continues to surprise us, every day brings a new joy, we even have a dog that likes to walk upright on its back legs as it passes our apartment.

Until next week, be blessed and be a blessing, A&G.

Week 6 – YWAM Kona, At the Crossroads – Holy Spirit

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For me, this was a full week without leaving the University of the Nations campus, and Glenda just walked down to the ABC Store and Farmers Market, with a couple of girlfriends, for Papaya and Lilikoi.

One thing is for certain, if we came here with any religious spirits they would have been complaining quite strongly this week. Any concerns we had that this was going to be a flaky, orchestrated, manipulative, pushing-people-over kind of week were quickly dispelled. We sat under 15 hours of captivating teaching, (including lots of prayer and some expelling) on the Holy Spirit by Gord Whyte of Healing Gate Ministries. And then we voluntarily signed up for a weekend “Beyond Freedom” seminar with another 14 hours going deeper into the healing ministry of Holy Spirit. This was a very positive week for everyone that I talked with. Most people received healing spiritually, emotionally, physically and felt freer than ever. In the physical realm we saw one leg grow about 20mm in length, I personally, have much less pain in my heels than I did at the beginning of the week.
Some takeaways: As a believer, the Holy Spirit is a dove, it sits on your shoulder wherever you go; as a believer don’t pray for stuff you already have; as a believer you cannot operate in someone else’s anointing; the dark-side is real but Jesus has won; escape the “church” and become a prisoner of Christ; as a believer you have the power in you to do more than Jesus did (John 14:12); healing is the #1 evangelism tool used by Jesus.

On Tuesday I celebrated the twentieth anniversary of my rebirth in Christ. Our suite-mates Kyu Hup Hwang and Gui Ja Lee sang me a birthday hymn. Fortunately, I recognized the tune 🙂 although going by my humming I didn’t really, there is a video posted on Facebook please enjoy, it really blessed me.

Are You Washed in the Blood of Jesus?

On Thursday night at Ohana Court the speaker was David L Cunningham, who is “an international filmmaker. Besides his documentary credits in more than 40 countries, Cunningham has also directed several feature films including To End All Wars (2001) and the TV miniseries The Path to 9/11 (2006). Cunningham is represented by the United Talent Agency.” Wikipedia Bio.
David is also the son of Loren and Darlene Cunningham, the founders of YWAM and the University of the Nations. He spoke about how his Christian worldview has influenced his career in the sphere of Entertainment. One great story took place while he was filming in Romania, when he arrived he was asked what the crew would need and he asked for a school so that the film crew could take their kids, which never happens in Hollywood, the Romanians built one almost overnight.

All the effort made to get excused from Work Duty this week was really unnecessary as there was a shortage of rocks to fill the holes we have already dug and we ended up with very little to do for three days. On the plus side, we did have time to stop and smell the plumeria flowers. This is an awesome work crew, it never ceases to amaze me how few complaints there are when we don’t have a paycheque tied to our labours.

This weeks wildlife shots include a roach that decide to share our bathroom and a herd of feral pigs that tried to surprise me by running out of the brush at full speed while I was walking around the campus wild area.