Well another day is just about over. Sunday in Saigon and we haven't seen much outside of the hotel walls. DeanAnne has been sick all day and Jett is not feeling good either. He hardly slept at all last night. We suspect he has an ear infection now. We went out to eat lunch today at an Italian restaurant and it was really good. After we got back to the hotel at 1:00 we all laid down for a nap and no one woke up until 4:00.
This morning I went by myself back to church at the Saigon Evangelical Church. It's not to far from our hotel. I got there about 8:30 and all the seats with translation headphones were filled. I had to listen to the entire service in Vietnamese. The scripture was in Daniel and the sermon was about what kind of man Daniel was. I couldn't understand the sermon at all, but as I followed along in the scripture I imagined what that pastor was saying. I couldn't help but believe that the pastor was talking about Daniel's faith through all his circumstances. How nothing was under his control while he was in that lion's den, but God delivered him anyway. I thought about how King Darius put him in that lion's den because he prayed to God instead of the king. Once the king saw that Daniel was still alive the next day he brought him out of the lion's den, he made a decree that all Persia should bow before the God of Daniel because his Kingdom is everlasting and he delivereth and rescueth. It's amazing how you can sit under the Word of God even in another language and the Holy Spirit can still minister unto you. After the service they had a baptismal service. 33 new believers were baptized and it was great. The whole service lasted about 2 and a half hours. It was long but good.
On another note, I told DeanAnne one day last week, "What do you think are the chances of running into someone from Cochran here in Saigon?" She just laughed and said I wouldn't count on it. The last time I said that to her, we were on a cruise ship in the Cayman Islands. One night the elevator door opened and there stood Ritchie Johnson, one of my best friends from my school days. I couldn't believe it. So the other night I was in the elevator and this nice guy asked us where we were from. I told him Georgia and he said,"Wow, I used to live in Georgia!" So I asked where and he said, "Oh a little town around Macon nobody ever heard of, Cochran." My teeth almost hit the floor. I said, I live in Cochran! The man got so excited. He lived in Cochran in 1975-1977. He was a refugee after the war at 16 years old. His name was Trung Nyguen and he had attended the First Baptist Church back then. He knew people in Cochran and was so excited to meet me. We talked a long time. This was his first trip back to Vietnam in 32 years and he was going to tour the whole country. What a small world!
Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to get our I-600 and head on to Hanoi. Everyone please remember us in your prayers. We have a flight on Wednesday night out of Hanoi. We can only make it if everything works out with the visa. Please pray specifically for that. One of us will leave Wednesday regardless to be back with the boys.Thanks for following along and we hope to see everyone soon.
J.R. and James: We love you and miss you. Hold on and we will be home before you know it.
