Tag Archives: YWAM

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

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 14 – YWAM Kona, At the Crossroads – Hanoi Christmas

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We are losing track of time, I am quite sure we missed a week blogging as we got caught up with timezones and got synched with our new life, so I called my last post 12+. We have now calculated that in less than 6 weeks we will be debriefing back in Kona, Hawaii, followed by our return to Okotoks. So this post must be Week 14! The lack of 13 really has nothing to do with triskaidekaphobia.

Metro Cash & Carry is a very different shopping experience in Hanoi, it is a bit like Costco, or perhaps Real Canadian Wholesale, but there are noticeable differences.The fish section really stood out for me, it was larger than the meat department, with all of its beef, lamb, chicken, duck and…

The fish is fresh, very fresh. Some as fresh as it can be, we have seen lobster and crab in live tanks at the stores in Canada but here there are many more live choices in large aquariums and row upon row of ice trays displaying many varieties of fish that I didn’t recognize. Many of the small stores in peoples houses must get there supplies here, so it really isn’t our first choice to support, but it does have the advantage of being able to purchase many items in one place.

An easy walk from where we live, in Tay Ho District, is the Donkey Bakery. As a bakery and cafe this business is a socially responsible company. The owners hire people with disabilities to perform the majority of tasks; 80-90% of the staff are blind, deaf or missing limbs, although the owners are quick to communicate that we are all handicapped it is just not so visible in most of us. The bakery has European style breads and pastries, and all of our team have enjoyed lunches and delicacies and even ministry times with the staff. On Christmas Eve when Glenda and I visited with a couple of others from the team, we were surprised to see that there were Vietnam TV cameras in the shop. They were filming for a news story for morning TV.

We went to the Christmas Eve service at Hanoi International Fellowship that meets in the Hanoi Club Hotel every Sunday. It is a registered Christian church and has two campuses in Hanoi. The congregation is made up of english-speaking ex-pats, from many countries, and a growing Vietnamese contingent. The Christmas Eve service was very well attended with extra chairs having to be brought in. We were very surprised to see the Vietnam TV cameras were in the room, then we realized that the staff from Donkey Bakery were performing two of the carols, they were amazing, one of the blind workers played a đàn bầu, one girl led the singing and many others performed a liturgical dance. Part of Silent Night is in my cellphone video here.

The TV station was filming this for their news documentary and part of Israel Houghton’s Jesus, at the Center was broadcast on national television, and… one of our team leaders, Marjo from Finland, was interviewed for the broadcast. Here is the english version of the clip that went out on national TV, see if you spot anyone you know.

We have to say in all our riding buses and taxis and walking around, even walking across the road between speeding motorcycles, we have never felt unsafe. We feel Hanoi is one of the safest places we have ever visited. To our western eyes activities like these young men riding a cement mixer down the street at about 50kph (30mph) with a front wheel that was very buckled, or the guy delivering rebar on his moped to the concrete workers cutting and installing it in flip flops would cause a safety inspector to have a heart attack.

We are settling into our role as volunteer English language coaches with a couple of post-secondary schools, some of the classes have little English yet which is a bit challenging, but the more advanced classes are becoming a lot of fun as we develop relationships with the students and begin to exchange some of our different cultures and worldview. Of all the university students we have met so far, only one had parents that are not still together, it seems that the divorce rate is really low. On Christmas Eve we were blessed by a surprise delivery of cards and cake gifted to us by the staff and students of one university which we show off in the picture above.

Glenda and I found a Christian coffee shop a few days ago near where we have classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. We arrived a few minutes before closing and bought Ca Phe Sua Da which came with a glass of green tea, not unusual, but we did say “Goodnight and God bless” to all the staff as they left except for the one who stayed late so we could enjoy our drinks. This is typical of the way we have been treated since being in Vietnam. Our new favourite dish Bún chả is just 25,000 Dong ($1.25), it is grilled (BBQ’d) pork in a tasty broth with bamboo shoots and carrots and sides of vermicelli noodles, and fresh green herby plants that vary day by day, lettuce, mint, marjoram, nettles, cress, beansprouts, etc.

That’s all for this week and this year, our next post will be in 2015! Until then, be blessed and be a blessing, A&G

Week 9 – YWAM Kona, At the Crossroads – Evangelism

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With Thanksgiving and Black Friday eating up two of our days this week our speaker, Danny Lehmann, packed a lot into just 3 days. Danny Lehmann lives here on the Big Island, and travels extensively, preaching the gospel and teaching on evangelism, missions, and the disciplined life. He is the Dean of the College of Christian Ministries, YWAM International’s teaching arm. Teaching us from his latest book “Beautiful Feet: Steps to a Lifestyle of Evangelism” and the Acts of the Apostles. Danny shared that in evangelism there is always a messenger, a message, a motive and a method, he unpacked each of these in great depth revealing five levels under each. We talked a lot about the importance of seed planting, watering and reaping, and the need to develop relationship and walk alongside. For the Cursillistas reading this, he built on both our Action statement to “make a friend be a friend and bring your friend to Christ”, and our talk about the Study and Evangelization of our Environment, but with great enthusiasm coming from his experiences in world-wide missions and he has us pumped up and ready for sharing our faith with a greater boldness.
Our study of Acts 17 saw Paul using 5 examples of how to share the gospel in 5 different places. Paul reasoned, explained, proved, proclaimed, persuaded and they joined, in Thessalonika, in Berea and 3 locations in Athens; the synagogue, the marketplace and the Areopagus (Mars Hill).

Some takeaways from the teaching:
* You don’t have to become a Christian to be saved, you just have to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
* In their extremes Calvinists become lazy & Armenians become neurotic.
* Quantity causes quality to be diluted.
* Do your best, pray that it is blessed and let God do the rest.
* Good disciples make good disciples.
* Too many Christians live in Romans 7 we need to launch them into Romans 8.

On Thursday we took part in the campus Thanksgiving Celebration.

It was a great expression of gratitude that began with a time of worship and praise followed by Darlene Cunningham sharing about many of the great things God has done through the first 54 years of YWAM, especially here in Kona. She related one story from the early days where there was nothing to serve for Thanksgiving Dinner and after praying for a solution to the problem, some ladies from the local Episcopal Church showed up and invited the 150+ YWAMers to Thanksgiving Dinner for free. Loren Cunningham shared the BIG plan for future development of the undeveloped portion of the University of the Nations campus. The area inside the gold box on the map is in existence today the other 3/4 of the land has yet to be developed and will include a 3,500 seat, sound-proofed theatre (noise complaints are common), with IMAX, the Lokahi multi-media studio, K-12 school, classrooms, student and staff housing, workshops and storage, an athletic park with tennis and basketball courts, football field & swimming pool.

So, we all set off on a prayer walk around the outside of the property, stopping to pray for all the expansion plans, for funding to be released, for students to come and for the world to be changed. Walking the 1.5 miles cemented the “bigness” of the vision and the need for God to continue supplying miracles reinforcing the simple fact that this organization is founded on supernatural principles and cannot exist without God.

Then on Thursday evening we picked up a rental car with plans to head around the northern coast road over to the east side with Jon & Joyce, two of our suite mates. The Big Island has 11 of the 13 climate zones that occur on the Earth, we were about to travel through 8 of them. Along the way we visited some historic sites, some scenic points, the towns of Waimea and Hilo,along the coast some were very windy, some very wet. Near Hilo we went to the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Gardens, we walked down through the spectacularly colourful and lush tropical rain forest which was in stark contrast to the very black and white scene that was waiting for us when Onomea Bay came into view. It was hard to believe as we looked out to sea that behind was such greenery and colour.

We stayed overnight at the Hilo Seaside Hotel, then enjoyed a relaxing morning, well, I was out walking with my camera early, then breakfast at Ken’s House of Pancakes

followed by a drive over the Saddle Road back to Kona. Sunday morning we took Andy & Beth to Living Stones Church then down the coast to Kealakekua Bay & Captain Cook, Ho’Okena Beach Park and back up to Mauka Meadows coffee estate. A busy weekend but fun to relax and get away a bit further away from the base for a while.