Traveling in Vietnam is how we gain real insights into the country, and in our case, into the Church Growth Partnership we have.  Yesterday (the 24^th here), we achieved the quintuplet of travel (or is it the ‘high-five’?), as we went from start to finish by plane, car, bus, feet and boat, gaining those insights as we went. 

What made the day really wonderful was the interaction had along the way, hearing over and over how God has blessed this nation in ways we will never see publically reported (nor would they be in our country).  Keep reading for details, noting now that there are 21 pictures in total, broken into 5 separate emails for those on that distribution list, and shown in reverse order for those viewing the blog (sorry I haven’t figured out how to show the picture names with the pictures).

 

When we talk about this trip-to-date, we might as well say “our plate has been full!”  That would cover the early mornings (Out of the hotel at 4:30AM yesterday morning to catch our flight!) and late evenings (Minh, Janice and I returned to our next hotel about 9:15pm), but we might also be talking about the food we’ve been fed…always plentiful, always wonderful.  Indeed our plates have started out full at every meal, and yesterday morning was no exception, as we buffet-ed among more food categories than we knew existed (see where we stayed and ate, Overnight & Over-easy).

 

This day of travel was spent in the Ca-Mau Province, beginning with (after the group picture, of course, this time wearing our new ‘cone hats’; see Get The Point) an hour-and-a-half boat-ride (check out our mode of travel in Rear View) to the 1^st church, a sizeable congregation (180 worship weekly in this thatched structure) that has outgrown its home-and-worship ‘building’ (see Out-Growing People) and will now apply to ICM for a Chapel.  Here we also heard the voices of angels, as the children were prayed for and then sang “This is the day the Lord has made” to us (see Got Your Back). 

 

STAY TUNED FOR PART 2