Jesus in Vietnam Ministries

Dear Friends,

I apologize for the lateness of this update. On the evening of Day 2 my age caught up with me. The days events didn’t end until close to 10 pm and I have to admit I was tired, but full of joy. God gave us another blessed day and even timed the afternoon heavy rain when the kids were inside for their team Bible studies. The rain helped cool the temperatures down for the big outdoor event scheduled in the evening. The electricity was off for most of the day, but our generator held in there, only stopping a few times, but starting up again pretty quickly.

Today’s activities mirrored the first day with plenty of Worship, Bible studies, and fun and games. The only exception being the food contest in the evening. We had 6 teams who prepared finger food or drinks to sell to the kids and adults. We did this event last year and it generated a lot of excitement. The teams compete to see who finishes first. The church then gives the money raised to the hamlet the church is in to support their program to help needy kids with school supplies. Mai wanted John and I to host a booth so we made 150 cups of jello in the afternoon. All the ladies got a kick out of seeing us make the jello. John asked if they were making fun of us and I told them no that they were just shocked to see men doing anything in the kitchen here but eat.

We were “hawking” our jello and sold out. We made the most money so we were feeling pretty good. Then we found out the contest winner was the booth that sold all their product first. We ended up last because we had twice as many items as any other booth. Guess we should have checked the rules beforehand. Oh well, it was a lot of fun and we raised almost a $100 between the 6 booths. We needed to refrigerate our jello cups to get them to jell, but we had no refrigerator space so Mai helped us pack them layer by layer in 3 ice chests, which worked great. After the event was over, our booth had all this half melted shaved ice in ice cold water. Mai came over, picked up a hand full, and put it down was of the teenage kids shirt. That’s all the kids needed as we all had an “ice fight” over the next 20 minutes. I even got a handful of ice down Elder Nhan’s shirt which really delighted the kids. Some of were pretty wet after it was all over, but we had a ball doing it.

We take so many pictures ( I alone took over 1,000 for the 3 days) that it really is hard deciding which ones to send off and not fill your computer up. I narrowed it down to 23 and will divide them up in this email and one more to follow. We thank God for His blessings and we thank you for your prayers and support. We are humbled and blessed that we get to be your representatives and God’s servants to all His precious children here. We are here physically, but you are all here in Spirit. Chau Ban Phuoc (God Bless You)!

Love,

Dennis and Mai