A special thanks to all our international partners who attended our 25th anniversary event! God bless you for your work, God bless you for your partnership! God is changing nations through our faithfulness together.

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This rural county has 248 churches. Praise the Lord. Please pray for this church as it needs more Sunday school teachers, quality teaching for its leaders and financial support for the leaders of the mother church and its daughter churches. Today the leaders do not receive any compensation even though they are dedicated to their church,

We are having a blessed trip even though weather caused some of us a whole 2 days of travel to get here. Many of us visited the Bible School. The Bible School is important to train much needed pastors. A neighboring province reports 5,000 churches but only 100 pastors. The Bible schools are training Pastors (3 years of study) and Elders (4 months of study), so it takes time.

The rural church is financially poor but they persevere with faith. It takes 8 families to pool their land resources to provide the building site for a church.

The elders report significant and positive change from the existence of the church - families are healed, there is less conflict between people, and even streets are better maintained by the people.

The Elder of this Church asks for prayer for the continual faith of his people as they must seek multiple jobs often requiring long trips to the cities and they are away from the supportive structure of the body of believers.

During our devotion time one day, a team member told us of his goal of finishing strong … and how he was intentional about what steps this would take.  He has a plan and by the grace of God will carry out that plan.

In a lighter sense, we wanted to finish the trip strong and strong it was, leaving our hotel (see Sunday-Go-To-Meeting) in time to attend a  7AM (!) worship service (see Initial Public Offering and A-Choiring A Song) at the same downtown Ho Chi Minh church we had visited earlier in the week (and which ICM had partnered to build).  Around 1,500 gathered with us to praise the Lord and acknowledge ICM’s contribution (see The Wave), all before the Benediction. Fortunately, there was a front row seat available for me in the balcony!  On the way out, we saw the choice of transportation for most of the congregation (and city!... see Yikes Bikes!) and met our Vietnam Partner’s son (see In His Image).

#2 coming up …

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Next stop was for lunch at a Cu-Chi (area north of Ho Chi Minh City) church, where the pastor told our Partner (see Innerview) of his life that preceded his new life with-Christ, the details which are best not mentioned in an email or blog.  During the war, he lost his lower left leg and all fingers but thumb and forefinger on his left hand…. yet he knelt when we offered to pray for him.  Following this time in the church, we moved to their simple living quarters for a splendid lunch (see Table Hands) prepared by his wife (see Soup’s On).  And then on to the Cu-Chi Tunnels.

These tunnels (see Cu-Chi Coup) were instrumental for the Viet Cong, serving as their base of operations for the Tet Offensive.  Much of what we saw was “fascinating”, albeit with a bias (see Watchful Eye) toward one point of view.  Our tour guide pointed out (see Sticking To It) the three levels of tunnels that were designed and employed.  Fascinating as this was, there’s never anything like taking a test-drive, so on to the tunnels we went.  Our next tour guide demonstrated how the soldiers would find the tunnel’s start (from their maps), brushing away the hiding-leaves and then entering (see Going Down) by pulling the leaves-covered top down as they went, totally camouflaging the entry.  But again, there’s nothing like a test-drive, so someone had to volunteer!  (see Tunnel Vision – In)  Fortunately, a flashlight was available, which permitted me to see the bat that flew by me as I crawled through the tunnel, arriving (yeah!) at a larger entrance (see Tunnel Vision – Out) after following some sketchy directions and many loud voices at the finish line.  

#3 coming up …

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After this experience, we needed fresh air, and felt we could best find it at the Ben Thanh Market, which is inside and takes up a city block, having the full range of ‘whatever you want to buy.’ (see Freezer Fruit, If The Shoe Fits, In The Clutch, Pretty Flowers A-Rose, Something’s Fishy & Anybody’s Guess, for samples)   What intrigued me most, however, was the vendors, who came in all styles, from “almost attacking us” to” almost really laid back” (see Nap-ster, noting the young woman in the green t-shirt on the lower right).  Across the street were housing options for those who just wanted to be first in line each day for the market’s opening (see Viet Congdo).

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Strong finish!?  That would have to include another up-town dinner, this time up on a Ho Chi Minh City hotel, which was next to an amazing (can recall the name but see NOT An ICM Church for the picture) government structure.  Entering the hotel, we were pleased to see they had expected us (see Dressed For The Occasion … OK, it was a wedding party we had to walk through!).  At the top floor, we were again greeted beautifully (see Dragonfly Lady) before being seated for dinner.  Of course, my main course was to look over the roof to the action below (see Back-up), realizing our active week was now becoming a blur (see It’s All A Blur).

Having at this point over-extended my international picture-taking limit, I’ll sign off with one more round of thanks to all who prayed for us and to you who sent encouraging emails along the way.  Now from back-home, it’s DigiDon signing off (see Don’s Done) …   Thanks for traveling with us!

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After flying on Friday afternoon to the Highlands (northern point on our map), we spent the night in Buon Ma Thuot, so we could get an early start Saturday morning.  This day brought a full range of the ICM work and possibilities here, starting with a beautiful completed (in 2010) church in Buon Ma Thuot (see Taking A-Fence).  Always finding time to make friends, we also always find time to take the picture of that moment (see New Found Friend).  Driving north, we then stopped at a project under construction (see On The Way, signifying both our stop and the project’s path toward completion).  Here we were able to visit their current place of worship (a tin-framed structure) where we saw their rendition of What’s To Be.  The new church is expected to be completed by mid-year.

Along the way and on the bus, being reminded that I had not been in our pictures, I reflected and rectified the situation (see Mere Image).  However, the real significance of this picture was not revealed until a later stop (read on).  First, however, came our lunch stop (see Branching Out For Lunch) where the picture title, Good Day, Good Meal, represents the thoughts of our bus driver, showing a ‘thumb up’ in this picture and shown earlier in ‘Mere Image.’

But the best was yet to come, as we moved on to visit a completed church building for a congregation that now wants to build an orphanage (see Cross Cultural, which shows the inside of the church).  Here we not only were blessed by a message of singing by the children (see Touching Their Heads & Our Hearts), by the joy of bringing them a jump rope (see Jumpin’ For Joy demonstrated by one of our team members), by spending time with the young pastor and his wife (see Him-posing Pastor), but where we also learned that the Vietnamese conversation with our bus driver during the travel, had been leading him to Christ.  Who knew!  Thus, his former self, a mere image, was transformed into his new self in-Christ.  A cause for joy, this led us to pray for him and the church we were visiting (see Bowed Heads & Hearts).

In the later afternoon, we were taken to Pleiku, where there were two locations where work had been started outside the ICM Partnership, and for which our Vietnamese Partner was now seeking our help.  The first of these can be seen in Big Plans, a building started in 2005 and which is the only evangelical church in this city.  While there, we inspected the work (mostly laying the floor and finishing the inside and outside walls; see Inside Job) prayed for the congregation and pastor (who shared of his great trials) and could not help but notice the presence of a symbol of that Living Water that gives us all new life (see Bottling PheNAMenol Water).

One more stop to visit another partially completed building (for which they were seeking help to complete; it is not ICM’s position to help finish already-started buildings, but with prayer, cause and counsel, we do make exceptions) and then rode on for dinner on the rooftop of a hotel (see Dining Up and When U Come To a Fork, seen from our dining area) … all before THEN driving to the airport to fly back to Ho Chi Minh City where we checked into our next hotel.

Whew!  All in another day’s Vision Trip work.  Thanks for traveling with us,