Wednesday, March 2, 2011

4th Vietnam Entry

So, it's Wednesday night, and we are officially half way through with our trip.  This is super exciting because while we are having a very fun time and an amazing and purposeful trip, we are missing our kids tremendously.  It's SOOO hard to not be with them.

Today was a GREAT day!  It was full of joyful moments.  We got to assemble wheelchairs (well, really it was Steve and Truk) and give them to people in true need.  The first man that we met was such an inspiration.  I just LOVED him.  He was eighty-years-old and had had a stroke three years ago and left one side of his body paralyzed.  He had been in bed for literally the last three years.  He was blind in one eye, but sat up in his bed with the biggest smile and just the best attitude.  He and his wife have been married for over sixty years, and they have lived in the same home for over fifty.  They have TWELVE children and 40 or 50 grands and greats.  He wasn't sure on that :)  He had been in the military for many years fighting with us in Southern Vietnam.  When Robert was done "interviewing" him with standard questions (with one of the girls translating), he told the man that he wanted to apologize for our country, for pulling out of the war in a way that left him to fend for himself (Apparently, many of the military from South Vietnam were imprisoned, sent to brain-washing type of camps, treated terribly, etc.)  The man reached his good hand out to shake Robert's hand, then went in for a hug, and he just sobbed and sobbed.  Which meant that most of us cried, too.  It was awesome to witness such healing and forgiveness.  Robert said to us later that this man had probably been waiting for an apology for forty years, and I believe that is true whether he realized it or not.  It was clearly a very loving moment.  He was thrilled to get in his wheelchair and cruise around outside with the help of one of his sons... absolutely thrilling to be a part of. 

We ended up walking to the houses that followed because there were a small handful in the same neighborhood.  I think it was our next recipient that had had his stroke 18 years ago.  He has been immobile and virtually bed-ridden for the last ten years (due to another health issue that came on at that time).  Again, it was just exciting to see the sheer joy in him as he anticipated getting in that wheelchair.  It's not just freedom for him, but it's freedom for his family to an extent as well. 

Another stand out recipient was a 57-year-old man. He had had a stroke three years ago and had been in the bed since that day forward.  The Vietnamese culture encourages keeping your emotions to yourself, but some of the people simply can't contain their emotions, whatever they may be, and this man was one of them.  Clearly, he did not want to be emotional in front of us, and I believe he was trying to retain as much dignity as possible as he sat in his pajamas with 1/2 of his body contorted and uncooperative.  But he couldn't hold back.  I think above anything else, for him, getting a wheelchair and mobility is about regaining some of the dignity that has been stripped from him.  It was very touching, and you just can't walk away from that without feeling love for that person and a real sense of satisfaction.

After we finished delivering the wheelchairs, we headed back into the downtown area to have lunch at Bread of Life.  This restaurant is an impressive place indeed.  It is run by an American couple that has been in Vietnam for 13 years.  They came initially to serve the disabled and have ended up serving the deaf community.  This need was and still is huge as deaf people in Vietnam are looked at as dumb and incapable of a job, etc.  Many are uneducated and can not read or write or sign.  Some, especially in the rural areas, don't even know about sign language.  Apparently they have no means of communicating even with their family (I would think that they must have a self-developed language of some sort for communicating with an immediate family member at least...).  Anyhow, this restaurant is so much more than a restaurant run by and staffed with the deaf.  The floors above the restaurant are a girls' dorm and boys' dorm where they stay for free.  The kids are 16 to 26 when they enter the program.  Then they can stay as long as they'd like.  They attend school, are taught sign, are given jobs and paid WAY better than their counterparts.  They have insurance and all sorts of other benefits as well.  They cook and bake everything from scratch, and these kids do it all!  Anyhow, I just loved everything about it.  This place has seriously changed lives! The food was great, and I was able to sign with a few of them, which was very cool for me.  Imagine, I can't speak Vietnamese, but I'm in a restaurant there and for the first time can actually have a conversation with someone who can't speak my first language either.  Actually, only three of the staff can sign ASL (American Sign Language).  The others have learned only Vietnamese Sign Language, but it was close enough :) 

We came home and had a couple of hours to hang out on the beach, really our first chance to get in our suits and have some beach time.  Then we headed out to dinner with the some of the team and some of the GIBTK staff.  We went to a pho (pronounced "fu" with a short u sound") restaurant.  It was like a fast food place for noodle soup.  It was plenty good.  Pho is a Vietnamese staple.  They even have it for breakfast.  After that we went to karaoke.  Steve, Ashley, Yuna, and I expected that they were taking us to a bar-type of set up, what you'd expect at an American karaoke place.  Well, here it's more like how we do bowling.  Your group pays for a private room to karaoke in, and you pay for however long you use it.  They bring you food and drinks if you'd like, and away you go.  There's a BIG screen for the karaoke words and a remote control to enter the codes to keep the songs coming.  It was SOOO loud and hilarious!! We loved it!  We karaoked and danced around in full goofball mode to our hearts' content.  I think we need karaoke places like that in the States.   ;)

We're flying back to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow evening after visiting some Compassion Houses that have been built, including the one that we sponsored with our friends.  It should be exciting!!

Here are pics from today.
Love to you all!

Fishing boats off of China Beach

Niehm translating for our first wheelchair recipient

Yay!!! Sitting up in his chair with his family (some of them anyway :) )

Me and Yuna with him.  We loved this guy!
What a great soul!

This is just a vacant lot, but we see this often. 
They will use any extra, unused piece of land to plant a garden.

Out of the house after TEN years.
These wheelchairs only cost about $60 US each!

This is the other guy that I really liked.
I'm just so thrilled for him.  He has so many other concerns due to
his stroke (like how he'll make money), I'm just glad this
is now off of his list.

Steve and Truk assembling the next chair to go

Vietnamese are just beautiful people.  I'm always wanting to snap
the picture of some little kid or older person.

Part of our team in one of the neighborhoods we visited

Ashley and Steve headed to our next stop with a wheelchair

He gave me a big smile!! Truk went back to his home
later in the day with a cerebral palsy kit to extend the height
of the back of his chair.

These huts are from the war.  They were used to store/protect Hueys and Tomcats.

This is the pricelist here at the hotel for water activities.
We took the pic because the prices are crazy cheap compared to most places.
The really bizarre thing is that you can hire a ball boy for when you're playing
tennis for $2 an hour.  And this would be good wages for him.
A teacher makes $90 a month.  Many families that we see make about $30,
and some as low as $10 per month!  That is of course why they can NEVER
save enough to pay for surgery for their child or build a small home.

Our pho ga (noodle soup with chicken)

Our karaoke room

Yuna rocked it, and we all got into it!

This is Beverly and Don (pronounced more like Dong).
Don is the husband of Tam, the program director for GIBTK.  He can't speak
a word of English, but that boy can sing English karaoke like nobody's business!
Beverly is the "mom" at Father's House.  She's a pastor's wife living in
Ho Chi Minh City.  She flies up here every week and a half or so and stays for 4 to 7 days
usually to check in on the girls and their supervisors (two Vietnamese women on staff
that live there).  She has whipped that place into shape: loving those women and their babies
 and teaching them how to discipline, care for their babies, clean... You name it!
They love her and we do, too!

Yuna and Ashley

Steve, Yao (our driver), Beverly, Huhn, Huong, Yuhm, and Niehm


Me and Thao
We're going to miss these sweet people ;)


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