Long time no updates

Just finished with classes yesterday (Saturday). Today is the first day of a long Tet holiday break until the second semester starts again in early March. It's been a busy semester, and one where I got sick quite a few times. Two days ago, I went to a 7am class (an extra class I gave just to help the students prepare for their final exam), and, right after I walked into the classroom and told the students to sit down, my stomach started hurting and I had to excuse myself. I ran back home (good thing the classroom was close to home) because public bathrooms here aren't so usable. This was something that I've been fearing since I started teaching in VN, and it finally came. But God provides. The following day I was still pretty weak from the stomach pain and just general body aches from some kind of a flu, and had another 4 hours of extra class. But He carried me through again. I went home afterward and went straight to bed and slept till the next day. This morning, I wasn't sure I felt good enough to walk to church and thought about taking the taxi instead. But at 6:30am I received a text message on my cell phone from a student asking if she could walk to church with me. She said she was sad and tired (I think from too much studying for the finals) and she wanted to go to church for some entertainment. I thought to myself, "This is her second time going to church, and the first was to the Christmas service a couple of weeks back. Maybe she was expecting the same kind of entertainment every week?" Well, she may not get entertained but at least she will get 40 minutes worth of English practice to help her on her final exam. And yesterday, another student asked me the same thing in class. So, I texted back and told the student to meet me at the 5-way intersection (ngã năm) at 7:30am. So sure enough, I had just enough strength to make it there in time with the two students. It turned out to be a pleasant walk (like the many times before) and my stomach didn't act up at all! Praise God! At the end of service, I asked them if they understood anything, they said they didn't understand a thing, even though it was in their native language. We all went out to lunch together afterward, including a teacher from LA who used to teach here 10 years ago and is coming back to visit and staying for more than a month. It was a good fellowship time.

I recently realized that I've been doing a lot of walking the past few months. Added to that are all those hours of standing and walking around in the classrooms. I will need new walking shoes when I get back to the States this summer.

I just remembered that when I was still in the States, I used to dream of a day when I could walk to church with people on Sunday mornings. I just realized that it has come true. The only thing missing is the nice, wide, clean, and safe sidewalks. Here, walking takes a lot of mental power because you have to constantly walk around obstacles and look around you all the time to avoid falling down into a sewer, stepping on undesirable objects, getting bitten by a dog, getting burned by a motorbike exhaust pipe, or, worse yet, being run over by a motorbike. Minor technicalities, though, after your system gets used to it. It's nice to be able to walk with students who have never gone to a church their whole life. One student found her true everlasting peace and happiness as a result last month! Yeah! She is now taking class to get ready to be dunked.

Another dream of mine was to be able to walk to work. Well, that has been true since last year. We can almost walk to the market to do grocery shopping, but not quite. It's still a little far and we still have to rely on the motorbike taxis.

I'll have to proctor two final exams, one next Saturday and the other the Monday after that. Both will be at 7am. Too early if you asked me. Good thing I am proctoring them and not taking them. Right after the exam on Monday, I'll take a grueling 8-hour bus to Saigon, and from there fly to Chiang Mai for a one week conference and training (and dental checkup). After that, we'll come back to VN and spend a quiet Tet here at the school.