Sickness Invasion

[Tim]

Mike and Linda Chase have been here more than a month and have just over a month to go before leaving Vietnam.  It's been great having them here, because they bring new energy into relationships outside of our family (as well as being good at the being-grandparents-gig).  My dad has taught at the Vision Cafe for English Club, on topics that are high-interest to the college-aged kids that come.  My mom loves the children of the neighborhood, and now when they come to the door they ask "Can Daniel or Linda come out and play?"

But there is sickness in the house.  On Tuesday both grandparents were feeling so lousy we went to the hospital to get a blood test done.  The excellent news was that neither of them tested positive for Dengue Fever, which is running around in our city right now.  But they both were struggling with bacterial infection and my dad was in such bad shape they wanted to admit him on the spot.

I know there are worse places to be when you're sick, but a Vietnamese hospital is a pretty lousy place to try to regain strength.  Even the private one I had taken them to was not going to be a nice place to recoup.  So they said "he should stay in the hospital 3 days" and I firmly and politely declined.  What a risk that feels like!  What if, what if, what if...  What if I take my two ailing parents away from the hospital and their condition spirals down?  At the risk of huge regrets, we left the hospital and headed for a pharmacy and home.

My dad improved, but my mom's condition has deteriorated.  Today is better for her than Wednesday was--it was pretty bad, but this morning (Christmas Eve), she is still not well.  Also this morning, Janet woke up to a sore throat.  So sickness is among us, and we need healing.  Jesus said that those who ask will receive (and those who seek will find), and we have seen the benefit from past prayers.  Thanks for praying for each of us!

Before they got sick, my mom was able to have a birthday party with the neighborhood kids.  It was a joint party, in between her bday and God's.  (I recently stumbled across a Christmas t-shirt that has the old, traditional picture of Jesus knocking, but he's holding a candle and is wearing a "birthday boy" hat.  It tickled me!)

Here are some pics from that birthday party:

Sloppy Joes for dinner.

Games to follow.  This is a Q-tip shooting contest.

My dad, already feeling the sickness, but still up and about on that party day.

Although it looks like she is warming her hands to the fire atop her cake, there was no need for warmth (it's still plenty warm here!).  Explaining game rules and birthday customs took patience, as the only translators on hand were 12 years old...

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Danang!

[This one is from Tim's mom, Linda.  Parents are here to share life with us for several months, until late February.]


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Linda Chase


Greetings from the hot country!

We​ arrived here in Da Nang and were a little jet-lagged, but recovered in a hurry and​ were plunged into a busy swirl of meeting students in the University, at the Vision Café and here at home.  What a good answer to questions we were asking and thinking about before leaving!  Part of that busy swirl revolved around a Christmas pageant that Tim-Anna-Michael were part of last week: Merry Christmas, Danang.

Several groups of foreigners and also some local companies funded the free program ​last​ Saturday and Sunday, renting the city's best auditorium.  The theater holds only 1,200 people, and this year they were able to raise enough money to rent it for two days, to allow more people to come and share the spirit of Christmas.  The free tickets are handed out to friends in the month before and, as you can imagine, attending it is a highlight for our relationships with people.

We were met at the door decorated with wreaths and tinsel and given a greeting card with a candy cane on it by two Santa Clauses (that was a HOT job!!) and one elf.  Inside was a big Christmas tree and on the inner steps a caroling group of about 50 Vietnamese dressed in red shirts, many with green and and red and white neck scarves.



The program began with thanks to the government for giving permission (there had been a private showing to the government officials earlier Saturday morning and they had also OK’d the script) and then the opening number was the Silent Monks “singing” the Hallelujah Chorus with flashcards​ that Tim, Michael and Anna were in​.




Then a blacklight presentation of Away In the Manger – the white gloves and hands formed angels, stars, manger with baby, and spelled out words – hard to describe but pretty spectacular.

The curtain opened then to a very large stage with a backdrop which was a street scene from an ancient nearby city, Hoi An, with vendors working in front of their shops, a few bushes and park benches near the middle of the stage, a setting for a manger scene near the left front and a simple room of a house near the right front.








There were 2 intertwined story lines, well-seasoned with wandering carolers, ballet dancers dancing to Christmas songs, etc.  The story line on the right was a rewrite of O. Henri’s “The Gift of the Magi” – a  poor but loving pair of newlyweds trying to figure out how to buy a meaningful gift for the other for Christmas.  He ends up taking his bicycle to the shopkeeper on the streets of Hoi An to get enough money to buy a beautiful gold chain for the pendant his wife's mother had given her.  She sold her pendant to get enough money to buy a needed replacement chain and a horn for his bike.  In the end, they celebrated the most important thing, which wasn’t material possessions but the sacrificial gift that had been given to them to share with each other:  love.  The spoken lines were displayed on screens on each side of the stage in English and Vietnamese.


This story was told in several small scenes, each acting as a stepping stone for remembrances of the first Christmas, in one form or another.

Some of the remembrances of course took place over on the left of the stage.  A couple with the sweetest 2-month old baby came out as Mary and Joseph.  Later, the wisemen found them.  A childrens' choir came and serenaded them with some darling solo work.  At the end of the show the audience was invited to turn on their cell phones and the flashlight app if their phone had one, and wave them in the air during ​the singing of ​Emmanuel.

The big finale which was a rousing success was at the very end when it was OK to flood the stage and get selfies with the actors and selfies against the stage props.

Then the most important time began: the post-show parties.  Everyone invited their friends home for treats or they went out together.  We went to a café that sold a special type of local noodles and had a round of iced sugarcane drinks which we used to toast the people who put on the show and also the Jesus that the show was about.  Much good conversation followed.

Peruse the complete photoshow of Merry Christmas, Danang pictures here:  Photo Album

Shocking Times

My friends from China came the day before yesterday to visit us for a week.  Sam and Ruth Shock.  They are AWESOME.

When we moved to China in 1997, the Shocks were already old-timers there in Guiyang.  They had been there in the early 90's, when people were still uniformly wearing blue Mao suits and under even more intense government scrutiny than when we arrived.  They have crazy stories.

While we were in China, they continued teach at the university for the sake of the all-important work-visa, but really they had already transitioned into the orphan-care that was to become their true calling.

You've heard stories, I'm sure, of desperate conditions at Chinese orphanages.  The toddlers-strapped-to-potty-chairs-for-hours-on-end type of stories.  In the 1990's, the Shocks began to visit the local orphanage to offer what help they could.  The help that they could offer was to take the infant orphans into their home.  The mortality rate of infants (even ones without physical disabilities, but most of these children suffered from one disability or another) was extremely high--entering the orphanage as an infant was a near-100% chance of being a death-sentence.  So the Shocks arranged to take the infants home.

They cared for and held them.  And some of them lived and flourished.  And some of them passed into eternity ... being held by two Pennsylvanians whose hearts were big enough to embrace death and still go back to the orphanage to ask for more babies.  We were and are-still in awe of the amount of heart this family had (they were raising two red-headed kids of their own).  They lived across the stairwell from us in the other 2nd-floor apartment, so we were naturally integrated into their lives for three years, and with them we first learned to live in community.  I'm sure that many of my life-values have been shaped by three years with the Shocks.

Over time, they recruited caring Chinese families who could serve as foster parents.  When the infants had regained health (or had received a needed surgery, etc), they could be fostered by Chinese families rather than being returned to the orphanage institution.  That team of foster parents grew into a network, and the apartment they had has been upgraded to a purchased house where they care for 8 babies at a time.  They are amazing people.

So it's our privilege this week to care for the Shocks.  They have come away from the long-underwear and dreary-days region of China and we have the ability to host them in sunny-days style here.  We took them to the old walking-city of Hoi An yesterday, and today is more designated beach-time.  It's our hope/prayer that they experience rest here and can re-enter China fully revived on Monday.

The pictures below are from our dinner tonight.  Some of us got frogs & noodles, I wrapped fish in rice paper with veggies, and others got duck drumsticks with noodles.  But the best food on the table was the stewed fish and noodles.  Yummmm.