Tomorrow we get on a jet and head home. Seems like we have been here for months instead of 10 days. Most of today as we were all over the city of Hanoi I was very reflective about my own life. When you are in a place like Vietnam where there is so much poverty and where the probability of hearing the gospel is so small it causes me to think about my own life and all the blessings I have and know that I don’t deserve them any more than most of the thousands of people I have seen here. God’s grace is a mystery to me, but I have experienced it for sure, and I am determined not to take it for granted, but to live my life in a constant state of gratefulness and to serve Him with all my might because I love Him with all my heart.

While prayer walking along the streets in Vietnam it is fun to eat some of the food that is offered in little shops on the street. The safest food to eat is fruit that needs peeled and food that you watch cooked well. Best food is that which is on a stick so no one’s fingers touch the food as it is roasted over the fire. These little roasted birds were only one US dollar. You will have to guess if I ate one or not😄

It is fun just to hang out with a group of Vietnamese people for awhile attempting to talk to them and them to us. They enjoy practicing their English on us and teaching us some Vietnamese words, though their language is so “tonal” and I am so hard of hearing that I mostly just create a lot of laughs. This group of school kids were especially friendly and talkative.

lots of stuff in the open markets in Vietnam and food is a major focus. Here in this box are pig brains and a big snake. High ticket items.

Water buffalo are the “tractors” for the farmers of Vietnam. They use these critters to plow their ground and to pull trailers to haul their crops and other supplies. They are well suited for this farming in that they don’t get foot rot, they are totally resistant to flies with their super thick skin, they can handle very warm weather, and they are very docile. I managed to get some close up photos of some today and even got the one to smile for me😄

In Vietnam they farm every square foot of land that is not roads or buildings. The flat ground is mostly rice and the sloped ground they terrace and grow fruits and vegetables, and on the hills they grow tea bushes, coffee trees, banana trees, rubber trees, and a bunch of others. All the farming is done by hand with the help of water buffaloes. They pack water in buckets hung from shoulder yokes often hundreds of yards up steep hills. The country is so beautiful and the fruit is so tasty😄

Did some more prayer waking on the streets today and went through a large open market again. They are my favorite places to meet and talk to people. Everything is sold in these markets including this meat booth that specialized in pig. As the old saying goes they sold every part of the pig except his squeal.

as we walk the streets in Vietnam people like to practice their English on us. They are always very warm and gracious. This fellow insisted on sharing his pipe with me. They stuff that little tube on the end with tobacco and smoke away. I think he was a little disappointed with my effort to get “big smoke” as he called it.

Lots of motorcycles in Vietnam. These two little boys were waiting for their Dad as he paid for his gas. You will often see Dad, Mom, and 3 or 4 kids all on the motorcycle at the same time. Motorcycles with dozens of chickens or ducks tied all over the bike. I even saw a great big pig on the back of one.

One of my favorite things to do in Vietnam is to walk through one of the outdoor markets. Absolutely everything is being sold. You can watch as they butcher chickens, clean fish, sew cloths. They are crammed full of hundreds of little shops and thousands of people. They are a great place to pray through because of the visual reminders of need and poverty and the sheer volume of people. It is fun to buy things in the market and two of my favorite things is coconut milk right out of the coconut which has been whacked expertly with a machete and pineapple that is still attached to the leaves but cut down to a manageable size to carry and eat. They are very sweet, juicy, and messy but worth it.