Hey everyone! Now that I am a few weeks removed from Vietnam, I am able to share with you all a little bit of what our time there looked like. Our schedule in Vietnam was very loose. Because it was summer a lot of the partners that we would normally be partnered with were back in their home country fundraising and visiting family. Here is a more or less rough outline of what our time in Vietnam would look like. 
Mondays in the morning we would work with a school that worked with disabled children. When we would arrive we would work in their gardens for a while. These gardens needed a lot of TLC. These gardens grow food that help feed the children that go to the school and they sell the left overs to the community to help raise funds for the students.
After we were done working in the garden, we would head to the school’s creative spaces. We would do arts and crafts among some pretty amazing artist. This school fosters a space for these students to become amazing artist and creators. They want to show these kids that their lives matter. That they are able to do amazing things despite what the world may say. Not only do they make these incredible pieces of artwork, but the school sells their work for them. Most of the week, our afternoons were left open to go and do things with the friends we made and build relationship, or to go to the local coffee shops and build relationship with the regulars at the cafe. Most afternoons I would spend my time sharing the good news with a girl I met from Russia at a coffee shop across from our lodging. Monday nights we would join our host’s English Club. This club is made up of locals who are wanting to learn English. To my knowledge maybe one or two of the members were believers, but the rest were only there to lean English. We spent a lot of time with the students in the English club, going on adventures with them, taking them out to eat, getting coffee with them, just building a relationship with them and showing them love. 
Tuesday was our Sabbath.
Wednesday morning we would go back to the school for the disabled kids work in the garden and creative rooms. The rest of Wednesdays were used to spend time with our friends from English club continuing to build our relationships with them.
Thursdays we would go to to an orphanage and teach English to the kids there. This government ran orphanage had a very strict policy about not sharing anything about faith to the students, but that was ok. I learned while in Vietnam that I don’t have to use my words to tell the people around me about the One I serve.
Fridays we would spend more time at the school doing the same thing as the rest of the week. Then we would head to our host’s house for the weekly debrief. Then in the evening we would hangout with the young adults group from the church that we were partnered with.
Saturdays we were asked to plan some kind of activity for the English club folk to come to. Sometimes that would look like getting coffee with them, sometimes it was going on a hike with them, sometimes it was going to the beach, and sometimes it was going into another big city and just having fun with them. The whole point of all of this “free time” with the English club people was to live life with them and love them through living life with them. 
Sundays we served at the church we were partnered with. Some of our team would serve with the hospitality team and help with the setting up and breaking down of the service and welcoming the body to church, the rest of our team would help with the children’s church. The church is an International church and with it being summer a lot of their volunteers were out of country so we would help wherever they needed help.
