Tuesday morning, early.
Tuesday Afternoon:
Wednesday Morning (Day Zero):
and now we've been home in Bend for 24 hours.
Glad to be home. Already a little homesick for Vietnam.
Falling Refrigerators
Dear Mom,
I know you're not a fan of heights, but yesterday I was invited up to the top floor of a friend's apartment complex where they have an infinity pool. The heat is growing more intense here, every day a little hotter, and that doesn't convey well in the video.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/des7NYiuP8BJLxj68
You begin looking north (pause the video to see details) and you can see where Danang is reclaiming part of the bay to use for building. Actually that reclamation project has been going on for a century and I'm really impressed by how they are shaping the coastline here. The port is across the water at the northwest tip of Son Tra. Then the camera pans over to another water reclamation project and the north-north bridge.
And Dad, you taught me to drive "defensively," always looking for what might happen and being ready to stop or avoid someone else's mistake. And as I was driving recently I realized I was calculating "how far back should I stay from the motorbike ahead of me, in case that refrigerator she's carrying comes unstrapped and falls off?"
Is that a funny sentence to think? Do they not teach that in driver's ed?
Granted, the fridge isn't a full size one, but it's not a mini, either. I stayed well back but then I closed the gap and had the guy I was with snap a photo to send to you.
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Love,
Tim/Janet
PS.
Whenever we have visitors, we like to try to go see the Dragon Bridge spout its fire. This was last Friday:
And a 5-second video: https://photos.app.goo.gl/U6iUr4EidJeqdCMJ9
Lost in Translation
Dear Mom,
And sometimes you can use the camera feature of Google Translate to good effect:
The translation software is always improving, and that's a good thing, too, because it still has had a long way to go! We've seen some *pretty* funny translation attempts as Facebook tries to automatically translate for us our friends' "check in" posts, which are often written in slang kidspeak to begin with. At the moment I don't have any examples of the funny translations, and who am I to complain, anyhow?
Google Translate is a lifesaver, for sure.
becomes
But there are nuances to how I use technology to help with understanding. Sometimes I could generate a translation, but it's actually a picture that I want. An example of this would be when I want popcorn kernels--a very unusual request and only sold in certain shops catering to a tiny sliver of the population. If I type in "popcorn kernel" into Google Translate, it will probably generate a correct word, but that word may not even make sense to most shopkeepers. And then I wouldn't know, when I show them my phone and they shake their head, whether my inquiry actually made sense and they don't have the item, or if the question was itself a dud.
So in that case I'd use my phone as a communication aid in a different way. A Google search generates not only a photo of the item I am searching for, but also the Vietnamese words that are effective to communicate about it.
Recently I was at the tomb of the first emperor of the most modern Vietnamese royal dynasty. That's in Huế, two hours north, where the kingdom capital was located. The tour guide said that people would stand outside the gate of the tomb to "worship" the dead emperor, and it struck me that I really don't know all the finesse of that word as it's used and translated.
So in the cases of real complexity, like this one, I'll ask one of my synthetic friends. The first three paragraphs are my query, and below that is the first paragraph of several pages' worth of answer.
So in the cases of real complexity, like this one, I'll ask one of my synthetic friends. The first three paragraphs are my query, and below that is the first paragraph of several pages' worth of answer.
I don't know how long this link will be valid, but here's the rest of that conversation if you're interested:
If I'm using my phone for translation, I try to use the very simplest English phrases to eliminate accidents. Pronouns and time-phrases are two areas where you need to keep it as simple as possible, and of course keep away from idioms.
Ironically, sometimes the best way to simplify your language for translation is to use a more sophisticated word. In the last paragraph I said "keep away from idioms" which sounds to us like a simpler way of saying the two words "avoid idioms." But actually in this case your translation app will thank you for using the specific word that has only one meaning. There are so many examples of this, where we usually use language that's a little slippery and friendly, and instead it's helpful for the translation software if we can use crisp, precise language.
Phrasal verbs such as “figure out” “work out” “pick up” “get over” “take off” look simple but are ambiguous for translation software.
Example: “I’ll pick it up later.” ---- could mean: collect something, learn something quickly, improve (skills), lift something
Words like: “retrieve,” “collect,” or “acquire” are easier to translate because they're more precise.
Yep. This stuff is interesting to me, but I can see that it might not seem like there's much of a point. I guess it's just what I've been thinking about in regards to using my phone more effectively as a translation tool. Much love!
~Tim/Janet
PS.
A group of friends from Bend is here, and it's delightful for us to show them our city. Tonight we're taking some of them to vegetarian dinner before Vision English Club. Tomorrow we're planning to rent a motorbike so we can all be on two wheels (when the occasions arise for us to safely convoy like that).
Staying in my Shadow
Dear Mom,
These days we are looking forward to (and planning ahead for) a visit from the States. This one is a group of 6, coming from Bend, and they'll be here for two weeks at the end of March.
We're looking forward to hosting them! We're planning to introduce them to our local friends, eat local food together, and show them a glimpse of what Life-in-Vietnam looks like. It's going to be fabulous! I'm sure we'll be blogging about it.
(Other Moms: Want to come? You're out of time to plan a visiting-the-Chases trip this time, because two months from today we'll be home and attending our boys' graduation from George Fox University. However, we hope this isn't our last time in Vietnam, and we'd love to arrange a visit from YOU. Let's plan together!)
Today we're meeting a friend from the old days. She is nervous about having her first baby, later this month, and Aunt Janet is full of helpful advice, website links, and books. This is a country where no books like What to Expect When You're Expecting have been circulating, and it's kinda crazy how much Janet says about being a Mom is coming as news to her. Also we're fingers-crossed for her inner peace and health. And their marriage is a topic of our finger-crossing, too. Lots of good things are possible!
As we were driving to meet her, I realized something about traffic flow. The guests who are coming this month will probably want to rent a motorbike, so I'm thinking about that. I passed a small bus on its right as we drove through through a chaotic intersection, and though I was entirely safe and at-ease, I realized it would feel like a terribly risky thing to a motorbike newbie. At least it would feel risky to a Vietnam-motorbiking newbie!
The safest place for you, when we're crossing an intersection together, is immediately beside me and slightly back. Your front wheel is right next to my rear wheel (if we're flying in Top Gun, you're flying in Wingman position). You may expect me to slow down or even stop as we approach the intersection, but instead we're moving forward because we have the flow and rhythm and it's the right moment. So stay in my "Traffic Shadow" and keep your tire adjacent to mine. By "traffic shadow" I mean that if the traffic is coming from our left, I hope you're on my right, in wingman, and down-stream from me with my motorbike blocking anything coming your way.
When I think of the traffic shadow, and how my bike is casting a shadow of safety for your adjacent bike, I often think of references in the Good Book where the Lord is described as casting a shadow of safety. Here's one: https://www.biblehub.com/psalms/36-7.htm
I'm grateful. I'm grateful to be in His shadow. I'm grateful to live in this place. I'm grateful to be able to host the group that's coming. I'm grateful to be coming home to Bend. I'm grateful to be forming plans to return here to live again, in a rhythm. I'm grateful for the many relationships we have formed in Vietnam and in the USA. I'm grateful for the increasing sense of connections that are forming between these two countries we love.
What are you grateful for? What are you looking forward to? Each time we exchange an email or chat in Signal/WhatsApp, those count as valuable threads linking your house and mine.
Love,
Tim/Janet
PS.
Cooking and Eating together is a favorite pastime for us here.
Learning some basic Vietnamese home-cooking with Thủy:
And making pizza (first time --so exciting-- for all the local friends) with Vision English Club.
May God-our-Father release blessing for you in this new year-of-the-horse. May he go before you and watch behind you, bringing you close to his heart. May your eyes be brightened and enlightened, that you can appreciate Joy like never before, even in places you didn't expect to find it.
Chúc mừng năm mới! We love you!
~Tim and Janet
Today is the day after Tet Holiday, or the second day of Tết. (By the way, I’ve begun to learn to type with Vietnamese diacritical markers, so if I toggle to my Vietnamese keyboard—Win+Spacebar—I can type “T e t e s” and it puts the hat on the e and adds an upward stroke. And I feel very cool about it.)
In this email I just want to unpack the screenshot above a bit.
This is a message sent to the woman who worked for the professional service they hired to clean the house we’re living in prior to our move-in. She’s named Nhung, and she agreed to come once or twice a month to help the house get a periodic deep clean—we’re so grateful!
The message is sent in an app called Zalo. It’s created by the Vietnamese government, for the use of the Vietnamese people, and if you’re a privacy advocate you can read into that statement anything you want to. It’s an easy guess that if the “winds” ever shift here, like they have in China, all the other messaging platforms could lose access and the people would need to use Zalo to communicate. In China the 微信 app is also the one they use for banking and paying each other, so it makes for lots of … transparency. We enjoy using Zalo with local friends and consider all of our comms, regardless of encryption, fully transparent.
I sent the blessing message to her on the evening of the first day of the Lunar New Year. February 17 is the basically the latest date for Tet that we’ll ever see.
Next 9 Years (2026–2035)
2026: February 17 — Year of the Horse (Ngọ)
2027: February 6 — Year of the Goat (Mùi)
2028: January 26 — Year of the Monkey (Thân)
2029: February 13 — Year of the Rooster (Dậu)
2030: February 3 — Year of the Dog (Tuất)
2031: January 23 — Year of the Pig (Hợi)
2032: February 11 — Year of the Rat (Tý)
2033: January 31 — Year of the Buffalo (Sửu)
2034: February 19 — Year of the Tiger (Dần)
Nhung gave a heart to my message and replied with a blessing of her own. She’s home with teenage sons and extended family this week, and we’ll see her again next week.
When we saw her for the last time before Tết holiday, we handed her an envelope with “lucky money” inside. I have more to learn about lucky money, but what I know so far is that any time someone enters my home for the next two days, I should have a red envelope with clean/crisp money inside. The luck that I’m extending isn’t based on the amount of value, and the luck is luck for them as well as for me. But if you’re a kid in 2026 you definitely track which of your uncles gives a better payout when your family visits their house.
I have a friend here in Đà Nẵng, an American war vet, who gives out Lucky Money envelopes all year long. I try to get coffee with him (and/or a bowl of phở) every week, so I see him giving red envelopes A LOT. Someone selling hair bands or cigarette lighters or lotto tickets will walk through the cafe we’re in, and he gestures them over and hands them an envelope with cash inside, and wishes them a simple blessing from God. He gets his red envelopes printed with a tièng Việt Bible verse on them, and he buys them 5000 at a time. It could be wrong, and I know about lots of the inherent dangers of coupling spiritual things with financial charity, but I’ve been with this guy enough and seen the interactions enough to validate that what he’s doing is deeply right on so many levels.
Tết Bánh chưng
Dear Mom,
For the past week we've been seeing wood-fired simmering pots in unused lots and on sidewalks, and today we finally got an inside peek at what's been cooking. It's a holiday food called bánh chưng, and people love the nostalgia of making it together. It's an all-day, all-night affair. The rice is soaked in water all night, then the ingredients are packed into banana leaves and tied tightly. They boil in water over an open fire which has to be tended for 10-12 hours! This results in a sticky-rice-pork packet that doesn't need to be refrigerated for up to 10 days. You can see how this would have developed in times pre-dating stovetops and refrigerators, when markets closed for two weeks and everyone rested from work and ate bánh chưng and hung out with family and friends. Young people have mixed feelings about actually eating it now, but they still speak with excitement about the tradition of making it.
We didn't stay for the long cooking process of the ones we helped to pack, but other friends brought us some they had purchased from a famous place, and we shared it tonight with a Vietnamese friend who wasn't with her family. It was actually pretty tasty!
Enjoy the photo journal below from our day making it with friends.
These are the "small" banana leaves.
She's teaching the process of folding the leaves.
Fold and cut to make a leafy box.
Rice and mung beans and pork.
The rice is carefully packed so it's on the outside of the other fillings: bottom, sides, and top. Then the package is folded up.
On another corner, same day:
Conflict Resolution
Dear Mom,
I'm hosting tonight and next Friday night at Vision English Club. I get to choose the discussion topics, and I've got "Conflict Resolution" in the hopper for both Fridays.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/VisionEnglishclub/
Tonight at 7:15 I'll help language learners, usually about 16-20 people, know to introduce themselves and get a feel for who's at their tables. If the tables aren't balanced, I'll do a little shuffling to make sure there isn't any table that just has 4 beginner-speakers and nobody with good speaking ability.
Not every advanced English speaker has been invited to join a group called "Vision Volunteers" but about 10 of them are recognized for their faithfulness to the English Club and their ability to use English to help their peers get practice speaking English. In the photo above we got six local Volunteers and two from Holland together for a game night. It was fun, but more than that it helped the group create a friendship bond. We're looking for ways to enlarge the group and deepen the trust/friendship they feel toward each other.
Then at 7:30 tonight I'll introduce the topic and help each table create a vocabulary list for themselves. "If I knew that the conversation topic tonight were going to be on Conflicts and Conflict Resolution, what vocabulary words would I want to have access to?" I'll give them a chance to brainstorm first, then I'll hand out a crib sheet of vocab that AI helped me generate on the topic.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6985450d-a2f0-800b-9691-ae0bd038efc9
I'll probably also give AI a chance to create an English/Vietnamese lexicon for the topic, but I haven't done that yet.
Oh, that's too funny. I just now went to the Facebook page for Vision Cafe and expanded the post about tonight. Please read it, and as you do keep in mind that I only told them I was going to open up and explore the topic of Conflict Resolution. No spilling tea or "throwing hands." Wow.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GtQzA9TQH/
But it's a good topic. They'll talk in table groups of 4-5 with various discussion prompts, then toward the end we'll have several people stand and share out to the whole group.
I find myself looking forward to tonight!
Love,
Tim/Janet
How did the tourist cross the road?
Dear Mom,
When visitors come to Vietnam there's really only one scary time, and it's REALLY scary: it's the first time we cross the road.
The newbies often trail cautiously behind, creating an effect like a line of ducklings, with me at the lead like Mama Duck. It's the worst possible line to present to the oncoming traffic. Ducklings NO!
And then when we get them midway across the traffic, they look to their right (correct) and see a gap of traffic (okay) and then make a break for it, bolting across to the other side (NO! This is so scary for Mama Duck!).
We're going to keep moving, slowly and consistently. We're going to present a narrow target to the oncoming traffic. I'll be upstream, uptraffic, and all the newbies can be downstream, safe in my "traffic shadow." It might be that we combine with another group because there is power in numbers (a driver is more cautious about a group than about a solo crosser).
White lines don't have meaning. You can cross anywhere, and traffic behaves the same whether there are lines or not.
My nephew visited recently and then posted about traffic and crossing traffic and did a terrific job of it @ https://saintwerewolf.com/vietnam/#walking, including this gif that caught my attention. Funny because it's so true.
Love,
Tim/Janet
Markets
Dear Mom,
I lost my riding-at-night glasses and would like another pair from Harbor Freight. If you're living in Bend and can help me get those and something from Walmart THIS WEEKEND, I'd be grateful. The next people coming to Vietnam from Bend are leaving on Monday, so I don't have time to order what I need online and have it arrive to them on time. Email me if you're up for a small shopping trip on my behalf.
The Christmas season officially ends for us today, with three more family members (one son and two nephews) flying homeward.
In this picture I'm drinking a soursop shake and my dad and my son are sampling durian smoothies at the biggest municipal market. Durian is ... durian a whole topic unto itself, but I realize I've never talked about markets.
The most common market is a tạp hóa ("top hwaah" with a sharply rising tone as you finish hóa)
These tạp hóa storefronts are generally in someone's house, taking up what we would consider the front living room. The hanging packets across the top are single-use soaps and shampoos. You can also buy TP, snacks, water, drinks, some cooking essentials like oil or fish sauce. If it starts to rain and you're unprepared, you can buy a single-use poncho made of the thinnest plastic you can imagine.
No negotiating prices. Sometimes items are marked, usually not. Sometimes I'm charged a "foreigner tax" and get to pay a higher price, but I don't get mad. There's no point in trying to tell them that I just saw someone else get the same thing for 10K cheaper, or that it's got a standard price and they're gouging. Just note which stalls seem trustworthy and use them in preference to the others.
Next up are the Mini-Marts:
These are chain brands, convenience stores with things you'd expect in an Asian Circle K, plus maybe vegetables/fruit. I'll find one of these for every 5 of the tạp hóa corner stores.
And while there are some huge stores like Mega (a Thai company similar in some ways to a Costco) or Lotte (a Korean chain similar to Super-Target), the only other category of market is a Municipal Market. They range in size, but you're going to find a similar array of things that happen in and around a local "Chợ" Market. IMAGES
At the Municipal Chợ, you'll be able to buy MOST of what a person needs for daily life:
- veggies
- meat/fish
- ice
- fruit
- flowers
- bamboo plants
- clothing
- seamstress
- ancestor-honoring stuff
- food stalls with metal benches (that's where we are in the picture above, holding our durian-fruit shakes)
- dried fruits/nuts
- candles
- scissors
- plastic containers
- umbrellas
- all the stuff available at a tạp hóa
And then around each Chợ (pronounced "chuh-uh" with a rising tone) you're going to find the same sort of shops within a half-block:
- motorbike helmets
- gold shops (this is where you should exchange USD)
- optical shops
- food stalls that shift from breakfast to morning snack, then disappear for 2-3 hours, then reappear to sell early-dinner snack
- and obviously some coffee shops and motorbike repair shops, but that's a given since they're so ubiquitous
It takes some time to get the hang of knowing where to go when I need a certain item, and then once I've gone somewhere and had a positive experience, I always go back to the same person when I need something similar. I'm good at making eye contact with the sellers and smiling, so that when I return I usually get a happy greeting.
Ah, when I wrote that last sentence I could hear someone reading and thinking "yeah, they're happy because they know they can cheat him again," but that's actually not true. The ones who cheat me are universally unhappy to see me again. I'm never harsh with them, and I try to avoid going back to them so this seldom happens, but they never gesture to me to buy something when I go past. It's so different with the ones who give me the local prices from the start--they're happy to have me as a returning, eye-contact-smiling customer.
Which brings up one more point about the markets, and haggling. There's really only one sort of place we haggle here, and it's the places that sell things to tourists. Haggling/negotiating for prices is not done at a tạp hóa or most chợs (except for the one Chợ Han in town that is dedicated to tourist traffic).
I'd sign off by saying "okay, that's all, I'm off to the Chợ/Market now" but it's 1pm and nothing is open. All the Chợ stalls are asleep and the tạp hóa lady would wonder why I'm waking her up to buy a wheel of peanuts. The only places to go shopping at 1pm around here are the minimarts, which usually don’t carry what I’m needing, or one of the big stores across town, and I'm too sleepy to want to make the journey.
Love,
Tim/Janet
Christmas Greetings
Merry Christmas!
I like celebrating Christ's birthday in December, but for my birthday I prefer celebrating in the summer with camping and feasting. Unless I'm in Vietnam, and then I don't mind sharing Jesus' birthday month, kicking it off with decorating and Christmas carols and whatnot, maybe some beach time ... ahhh.
I'm grateful. Grateful that God sent his son to be born. Thanks, God!
Short VIDEO of me walking on the beach, saying I'm grateful. Photo ALBUM of random pics since our visa run to China. Few things would give me more pleasure than writing in reply to you, to explain one or more of those pictures...or just make a comment in the photo album and I think it notifies me...
Love,
Tim/Janet
China Smiles
This is a letter about smiling. Some of it is about China (we went for a visa run and had a wonderful time!) but lots of it is about living overseas and sharing smiles with people.
Dear Mom,
Dear Mom,
I smile when I'm walking around, or even when I'm on my motorbike and out in the town. I know that I'm weirdly tall and fair-haired and I have a giant nose--I'm something of a spectacle regardless of my facial expression. But over time I've trained my face that when I'm out and about, my facial "zero" expression should be uplifted eyebrows and a smile to my mouth.
Sometimes I'm just doing that and I get a smile in return, and I remember that I'm smiling by default but then I Really smile back to the person who's smiling at me, and then they know that they've been smiled at and then they Really smile back, and then sometimes we both even laugh. It's nice.
We did a visa run to China last week, and I had the darndest time getting people to smile at me. There wasn't any hostility (zero) toward my whiteness, even though we're not China's favorite nation right now. I was in a state of heightened awareness about all the shenanigans the USA has been doing internationally, and what that could mean for me as an expat citizen abroad, so each time I went out walking or interacting with people in China I very intentionally set my face in a cheerful countenance.
They didn't smile back! Actually they mostly never even made eye contact. The people I passed seemed ... I've tried to find the right word and it keeps eluding me. Solemn? Sullen? Definitely not all the way to Sad, but let me try Joyless? I'm not someone who thinks I can judge a person's heart or motives by what they do, but I think it might not be too far wrong to say that you'd have seen Joylessness, too, if you'd been with me in the big city.
It was a city of 8.5 million where I found it difficult, but not impossible, to meet people's eyes and share joy. It's a small city in the southwest--If you've lived in China you'd probably know it, but otherwise you've never heard of it. One time I went into a little hardware shop and the proprietor and his wife wanted to help me get supplies so I could repair a sink for our hosts (my pleasure), and they smiled at me. Well, she smiled at me while her husband used loud Chinese to compensate for my lack of understanding. (You've noticed, no doubt, that people all over the world talk louder at a foreigner who doesn't speak the local language?) But he smiled a couple of times before our interaction was done, and it was such a Relief to get a smile.
When we left that city and went to a neighboring small town, though, people behaved much more "normally" --in a way that I'd expect throughout Vietnam and like it was in previous times when I've been in China. People held their gaze upwards from the pavement directly in front of them, made eye contact, and smiled at me.
It's the old cleaning ladies who are always MOST likely to reflect my smile. I think maybe most people don't make eye contact with them. Eye contact that stays, lingers long enough for the smile to transmit and reflect and reflect again. I definitely can't communicate with them verbally (nor do I have the time to, as this happens all the time), but I am always on the lookout for someone to reflect my smile. I want to thank them for their service, tell them that I see them, acknowledge their humanity and loveliness.
Here are (almost all) our pics from China. Enjoy!
Love,
Tim/Janet
PS from Janet:
I have to tack on this little story: When we were on the street in the unsmiling city, and Tim was talking to our host about what he was noticing and asking her about it, I kid you not, a woman was walking toward him wearing a white sweatshirt with these words on it: Who's the funny looking kid with the big nose? (It's the title of a Peanuts cartoon book and is a reference to Snoopy, but man, was it funny as a backdrop to Tim's curiosity about why no one was smiling at him!)
The Shotts in China
Dear Mom,
We're going to spend this next week with the Shotts in China. They are STILL THERE after all these years, loving kids and changing lives, and we count it a privilege to name them among our friends.
When we arrived in China in 1997, fresh out of college and called to three years of English teaching in a backwater city deep in the south-central hinterlands, it was these American neighbors who welcomed us with a box of necessaries. I remember peanut butter, Ritz crackers, and two rolls of toilet paper, but there were other things. The university had sent someone to pick us up in Beijing and they were providing on-campus housing, but I don't know how we'd have gotten on without Stan and Ruby. They saved our lives!
They were English teachers at the time and living on the college campus, but the focus of their work was with the unwanted orphans. This was 20 years into China's One Child Policy, so if a family gave birth to a girl or a disabled boy... that was it, the end of their chances for a good family, and the temptation to get rid of the baby and try again was high. The local orphanage received many anonymous babies but had no capacity to care for them. True-horror stories emerged of babies dying from cold/neglect and toddlers found strapped to potty chairs, and the Shotts realized they could maybe do something about it.
By the time we entered the picture, they had already been in China 10 years. Weekly they would trek across the city to the orphanage and ask if any new babies had been dropped off. Sick or well, the babies wouldn't survive long at the orphanage, and the orphanage would lose face (shame culture) if they were to ask the foreign couple for help, so it had to be the Shotts to go and ask. "This one is too sick" they'd protest, but Ruby would take in the child and either nurse her back to health or hold her close while she passed into eternity.
I don't know how many people's lives they touched, but they touched ours. Over the three years we were there, as young adults with no kids of our own, we observed them selflessly choosing the route of serving those who could never pay them back. They set a high bar for what it can look like to take Jesus' words literally, and we've never forgotten.
Once the babies were well enough, the Shotts needed to be able to give them to other families for continuing care, so they connected with local families and created an ad hoc Foster Care system. There are so many layers to that sentence. It's easy to write "they created foster care" but ... we'd get way into the weeds if I tried to describe how many ways that was an uphill hike for them.
Creating the network of foster caregivers was huge; life-changing for the carers and life-saving for the kids. Nursing the dying babies through the nights... huge. Lately they have been turning their focus to HIV-sick babies and kids, because again the orphanage doesn't have capacity to care for them, and still Stan and Ruby are there.
We have to leave Vietnam on a visa run every three months, and this time we get to go bless and be blessed by this wonderful family. If you don't already have someone like the Shotts in your portfolio of overseas partners, please hit me up and I'll share how to get on their newsletter list. They never ask for money, but as with all such projects they could do more if they had more.
All our best,
Tim/Janet
PS. China blocks most communications so it is likely that we'll be radio-silent until 12/12.
PPS. Here's a little glimpse of what we've been up to the past three nights: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1845097312792360
Birthday Party
Dear Mom,
You'd have loved it (and simultaneously not loved it)--I wish you were here for my birthday party.
Some of the guests spontaneously offered to sing a benediction blessing:
Since I share a birthday month with Jesus, I opted to have us sing Christmas Carols instead of Happy Birthday (and a new tradition was born?).
I try to live life regret-free, but I regret that I didn't capture Thanh singing Mary Did You Know. It was phenomenal.
We fed all the people. That "we" is not a "Tim and Janet" but the work of many--my other friend Thanh helped me buy HEAPS of food and it was delivered (by motorbike) at 6pm and some other friends came early to decorate and set up food.
The nice thing about sharing a birthday month with the Big Guy is that your decorating theme is a given. I never have to wonder if we should decorate "Under the Sea" or anything ... it's simply the day we put up Christmas decor, and that's one less decision and it's beautiful.
Guests came at 7pm and although some of them went home early, many of them stayed late into the night. This morning we're providing work (cleaning the house) to one friend in need of work and to one lady who is a professional house cleaner. The house cleaner, Nhung, was the one who was originally hired to clean this house when we were moving into it--the landlords had her here working when we visited and we discretely snagged her number. She's glad of the work, and the cost to us is $6/hr, so we consider it a win/win!
I don't have any pictures that can communicate the press of bodies when we were all downstairs getting food before spreading out to the patio, the upstairs, etc. In the picture above, there are even empty chairs! But when we passed out candles to sing Silent Night at 8:30, we had exactly 50 candles and exactly 50 people to hold them.
The guest list was as eclectic as I could think to make it. That's the part that created anxiety for people and would have for you, too. So many unknown people!!
- former students from the University of Foreign Languages
- fiancés of these, who were 20 when we were here 10 years ago and are now inviting us to their weddings
- international friends from Danang International Fellowship
- two English clubs that we give our hearts to (We choose give them our time and energy, and we find that our hearts cleave to them like a kid's tongue to a frozen flagpole--there's nothing we can do to take back the mutual affection we feel for these English learners.)
- the owners of the hotel we stay at when we first come, our landlords, and other friends we've made along the way.
People came with gifts, but gifts are hard for me. I get anxious when a gift is expected from me and it's very difficult for me to graciously receive gifts when the given item is something I don't want. I very, very much wish that gift-giving would just disappear entirely--I've never learned how to swim in that current.
So I told people in my guest list "for gifts this year, I would like it if you help me stock up my snack bar." The Vietnamese word I use for my snack cupboard is something like "corner kiosk where you can buy paper goods, snacks, shampoo packets, or a cold water." It's in a wine rack that was built under the stairs that we've repurposed:
And the gift of those snacks... I authentically appreciate the gifts! I'm sure some people would accuse me of Control issues on this, and I am not going to try to argue my way out of it. I know people want to come not-empty-handed and so I channeled their desire to bring gifts into something that I could also appreciate. It's a win-win? Maybe?
Pics and Videos from my phone: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6uqyWbcYk9R9HLqR7
Love,
Tim/Janet
PS. My actual birthday party already happened in August. I decided when I turned 50 that December is too cold for birthday parties, and I moved my birthday party to open-invitation birthday camping in August. You're all invited.
So in December, when my day of birth rolls around, I've already done the shindig. Except that in Vietnam it's NOT too cold for birthday parties! We extended the party out onto the patio and had pretty great weather (light rain as opposed to pounding rain, and a couple days of mostly no rain at all in the preceding couple of days) and got to kick of the first of the season's Christmas parties in some ways, too.
Saturdays
Dear Mom,
I want to tell you about the whole elephant, but as I try to think about how to tell about ALL THE THINGS I am intimidated and my brain locks up. So let me tell you about a specific toenail on its left front foot, let me tell you about yesterday (Saturday).
At 7:45 or a little after, I boarded my motorbike and noticed a definite chill in the air. Temperatures in the 70s this week. We've had a week of only periodic rains, with generous helpings of sunshine, but now it's another storm system moving in.
I met up with brothers from Danang International Fellowship (DIF is our church here), for western breakfast at a restaurant in the tourist neighborhood on the south end of the peninsula. It's not a neighborhood we spend a lot of time in, though if we get to hankering for western food that's where we'd head. They even have a western-style Chinese restaurant down there, and the owners embraced the irony by naming it the "Mayflower American Chinese Restaurant."
The guy I'm with in this selfie was among those who gathered yesterday for breakfast. He was born in Vietnam and left with his family as a toddler. Now he's returned and is working on getting his foreign-Vietnamese paperwork so he can naturalize. Neat person.
Lunch with a couple from DIF at our house. Restful, joyful.
Oh! And after lunch I returned some serving pans to this street restaurant. She had delivered trays loaded with fish/meat/veggies and about a thousand rice paper wraps for a DIY rice-paper-rollup party we had hosted Friday night, and on my errands-list was to return her trays. We fed 12 people for 830,000 and had leftovers to send home with the kids!
Then after that errand I went and met with a landlord who has a house for rent in the city center. Not for us--we're very happy with our house here--but for some folks who are visiting in January. They'll use the house for a week, and although I've seen the house and confirm it's not a scam, I wanted to also meet the landlord and look him in the eyes. I've had TOO many instances of bait-and-switch with housing here. Nice guy. He's the real deal.
Home in time to meet An for a bit when she stopped by after work. Love that girl.
Then after dinner on Saturday we had extended an invitation to lots of the folks who knew us 10 years ago, and several of them came and we enjoyed their companionship.
They got a KICK out of playing a comical-competitive game on our Nintendo. I hope you click on a video to see their responses, because they're such a hoot:
https://youtu.be/fhEDlqiCBTM?si=SKHTVjiuPNbKFDPU
https://youtu.be/lzd6Vh-9rRU?si=YjwZ82bm02NIuE3n
Another busy and FUN Saturday in the books. That's how we roll!
Love,
Tim/Janet
PS.
Looking west toward Han Bridge from the high road at Vincom.
PPS:
This is the view from the riverside Marriott top floor. Starting looking west to the hills, then panning south, east to the Son Tra peninsula, and then finally up north toward Monkey Mountain.
https://youtu.be/L-_B0UvOlrM?si=Tb3v3NvKWTUGIo4a
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