Vietnam Mission Trip, 3/15/11, P. Jim Munter

Subject: Good Morning

Today we traveled through rain and light snow to a mountain village where I saw many little kids that reminded me of Katie. Many of them needed the dirt cleaned out of the ear wax etc. Most of them had runny noses and problems that go with living in drafty houses and being outside much of their lives. The up side is the strong ties they have with each other and the adult world. There are no discipline problems. It snowed enough that the tops of the high hills (mountains here) were white. Some of the older women of the village said it was only the second or third time in their life that they had seen so much snow. As a result we only saw 160 children because they had canceled school and it was too wet and cold for parents to bring children down from the farms high up on the mountain sides.

It is a beautiful place. The terraces cascade down the mountain sides like huge green waterfalls. In some ways they were water falls today because they were filled to overflowing with the rain and snow water. It is hard to describe the contrasting beauty and hardship that somehow knits this country together. The people are beautiful in their struggle to pass this culture to the next generation. This can be seen in the priority they give to make education possible for their children. The school buildings are by far the best and largest buildings in the village. Some of the children walk as much as three hours one way to attend school and they are there every day! Some who are closer cook, take care of the family animals and other chores before and after school. The girls and adult women wear the colorful ethnic clothing of their area, which means they spend many hours creating the beautiful designs etc.

Our team is a wonderful mixture of people from Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Wisconsin, Colorado and one or two other states I can't think of right now. We all have a great time together. In fact as I type this page they are laughing and carrying on in the lobby behind me. We leave in about a half hour to head down the mountain to the train station right on the China boarder. We will ride all night on our return trip to Hanoi. We will just have time to check into a hotel and then jump on a bus to do a clinic at a leper colony. Again, this will be quite an experience for our young health providers.

We all laugh with Pastor Jeff who seems to be the target for all the ethnic women trying to sell their handicrafts. Jeff loves to talk with them and of course this means they are encouraged that he might buy. As most of you know, their handicrafts are beautiful and colorful. It is hard to say no, but in spite of the little group of ladies around him saying "you buy from me" or "you help me" etc. etc. Jeff has done very well to hold off. I know this sounds like a real pain, but really it is not. These people are gentle and in spite of their persistence it is not offensive.

The undercurrent of politics is always there and only binh knows that part. She did tell us on the way back from the village today that the principal of the school lost his job for allowing us to come and use the school as the place for the clinic (there was no other place). She said he knew it would happen but felt the welfare of the children was a higher priority. Think about that! His position as principle is not easy to attain and here he is willing to sacrifice it for the welfare of those 160 kids to came in the rain to let us Americans serve them. Binh said that she was nervous all day that the comrades would show up and order us to pack up and leave(it has happened before). The villagers begged binh to come back this summer or for sure next year. There is more to this story, but I will let binh tell it if she wants. With all the joy there is also the underbelly of sadness.

I am getting the message that it is almost time to leave for the trip down the mountain to the train station. I hope all is well with you.

Jim

Vietnam Mission Trip, 3/15/11, Raina Zeeh

March 15, 2011 8:10:34 AM MDT

Subject: Boarding School Clinic

Hello everyone! We are freezing, if you can believe it-in Vietnam. We are in Sapa which is in the mountains. The day started out with fog then the rain came in. It rained all day and was so cold. The wind blew right through you! We had our clinic at a boarding school for indigenous children grades 6-9. They are from several different tribes in the area. We saw 320 patients. Normally this clinic can last late into the night but we were finished by 6:30. I think that is a record. We were greeted at the clinic by the children clapping while lining the driveway. It is a once in a lifetime experience to be shown such honor by the children. At the start of the clinic we had the children waiting on benches outside to be seen by medical or dental. But as it got colder and colder, the children were shivering waiting outside so we invited them in the rooms with us to wait. The body heat helped all of us! We saw everyone without hypothermia setting in. After every patient had been seen, the children gathered in the cafeteria. We presented each of them with a gift bag. In the bag was a blanket, gloves and notebooks. They were very excited to receive such a nice gift The neat thing is they truly are grateful! They are very appreciative and sweet. They sang us a song that was beautiful. Another highlight is handing out reading glasses and this year we gave embroidery floss to the women who make beautiful handiwork. We invite them from the market to come to the boarding school so we can give them glasses. Several of them made their way there. They too are very appreciative. We have another 320 kids to see tomorrow at a village school. We hope we have time to see them all because we will go on the all night train to Hanoi tomorrow night. Thank you for your prayers. Things have gone pretty smoothly so far! Raina

Vietnam Mission Trip, 3/15/11, P. Jim Munter

Date: March 15, 2011 8:56:46 AM MDT

Subject: Good morning

It is cold! SaPa is almost getting snow. I saw a few flakes in the air, but it has been raining most of the afternoon. Thankfully the clinic was inside class rooms so we were dry but had only body heat to warm the rooms! My job was to get the kids from one place to the other. Not too hard, but by the time the three hundred and twentieth kid was seen all of us were ready to head back to the hotel for some hot tea and good food. However, before heading back to the hotel all three hundred and some kids sang some songs for us. They really sang with gusto, and they never missed a note. Can you imagine what three hundred kids voices sounds like in a relatively small meeting room? We in turn gave each of them a blanket which had been made by women from a church in Denver.

Speaking of food: it has been very good. For example, tonight we were served Boiled vegetables; Kohlrabi bulbs with beef salad (very good); Sweet and sour fish (marvelous); Fried pork in iron plate (sizzling); Stir fried Sapa vegetables with garlic; Mushroom with mince broth; Steamed rice; Fruit; and Green tea. It's what I call "suffering for the children"...

Of course we eat everything with chopsticks (except the broth and tea) and have only a small bowl and a tiny saucer from which to eat. It takes a bit of "chopstick skill" to get the food from the serving trays into the little bowl or saucer, then dip it in the right sauce (without loosing it in one of the three or four sauce choices) and at last deposit it preferably in your mouth and not on your shirt!

Speaking of shirts: I had my laundry done today, two shirts and three pair of undies for only 56,000 Dong. It's fun to be a multimillionaire!

Tomorrow we go to a mountain village where we have not previously had a clinic. This means we will have about three hundred people from age one year to ninety. Few of them will have ever seen a doctor or a dentist let alone treated by one. I think our nursing students may be in for a real education. If I survive I will let you know how it went.

I think I will sleep well tonight.

Jim

Vietnam Mission Trip, 3/14/11 (AM), P. Jim Munter

Dear All,

Jeff and I are having a good time and I think he is enjoying all the fun with the team. Binh seems relaxed and Raina is doing a great job with organization etc. As far as I know no one complained about the hotel in Viet Tri, which was a real test of the groups flexibility. The electric for the entire city went out for the whole day on Saturday (the day some of us went to the orphanage where Katie lived). The hotel food was OK, but not great. Mr P, the new director of the orphanage, took us all out to a nice place to eat on Saturday night. He has replaced Twit (the witch) and is a really great man. Interestingly enough, he is a Christian who was appointed by the comrades.

Yesterday morning, Sunday, we did a medical clinic at the Orphanage in Viet Tri. It was an easy one with only 110 kids and adults, but it was a great clinic for the team to start with. It went smooth and the team is working well together including the organization and repacking of the meds etc. Binh and Raina have worked out an organizational structure that has make it twice as fast and easy as before. We had all the medical bins organized in less than three hours.

After the clinic we loaded the bins (about 25) and our suit cases on a truck and "No Yo" and a driver left for Sapa. It is a long drive over some steep mountain roads, but it saved us the hassle of getting them on the train without any security to watch over them in transit. We left Viet Tri at 5:00 pm and arrived at the train station at about 7:00. We ate dinner in a fast food restaurant in the train station and then boarded the sleeper car after walking around other trains etc. Always an adventure! Our train was called the "Orient Express". It was a much improved ride from the last time I made the journey to Sapa. Even the rest room was clean and mostly odor free! What will they think of next! They must have greased the wheels etc. because it didn't even squeak around the turns like the one we had last time. All this to say that I slept most of the night. Binh and the girls had a great party laughing and carrying on wearing some comical animal masks that someone brought along to give to the kids. They even shared some of their wine with us.

We arrived in Sapa at 7 am and had two small buses waiting for us. We stopped to take pictures of each other on the border of China. Then the beautiful ride up into the mountains to Sapa. Everything is so green. The rice and garden terraces cascade down the mountain sides with the farm people working with their hoe and wearing their colorful ethnic clothing. We passed in and out of clouds as we climbed higher and higher. It is truly a beautiful place to visit. As always there are many tourists here.

Our hotel is nice. All our rooms have a balcony overlooking the mountains with the rice terraces and little farm homes. It reminds me of Switzerland. We enjoyed a great breakfast with dozens of things to choose from. The hotel staff would cook eggs, pancakes, omelets, Pho, etc. After breakfast we went for a walk around town. Of course we had plenty women in their colorful ethnic dress wanting to sell us their handicrafts. It is fun to watch our team members trying to be polite only to encourage more and more ladies saying, "you buy from me, I give you good price". The main market was complete with all the smells and interesting cuts of meat, fish, and other things I didn't recognize. Of course there are dozens and dozens of shops, restaurants, and beautiful small hotels with colorful French architecture. Many of them are quite new and others are wonderful older buildings with more ethnic style. Over all this area is much cleaner than Hanoi.

I am typing this from the hotel lobby where they furnish two nice computers for guests to use free of charge. In fact the hotel manager has offered to treat our whole team (28) to dinner tonight.

Tomorrow we have a clinic for the ethnic boarding school, and the next day to a mountain village new to us.

Some folks want to use the computer, so must close for now.

Jim

Vietnam Mission Trip, 3/14/11, Raina Zeeh

Subject: Sapa

We took the all night train to Lao Cai and arrived at 6:30 AM. Most people said they were able to sleep okay on the train. It rocks a lot of people right to sleep. We laughed a lot before bed and had a great time. After arriving at the train station we went to the China border to look at China across the river. We saw an "engagement" happen on the bridge. The "bride" and several men from Vietnam met a group of other men from China at the center of the bridge. They all talked and shook hands (except the lady who stood away from the crowd) then walked back to the Vietnamese side. Binh said that it was probably an arranged marriage that was coming together. It was interesting to see. We made our way up the winding road to Sapa which is high in the mountains in the North. It is actually sunny, making it very beautiful!! They have terraced farming along the mountains with red dirt in a patchwork with green. The clouds just nestle into the valleys and hang along the mountains. Our breakfast overlooked a valley that was beautiful. We have a free day in Sapa to shop and see the sights. Many people went on tours/hikes to visit the indigenous villages and a waterfall. Everyone who did that said it was wonderful. Some of us shopped at the market and bought a few new things for the COPI fundraiser and a few things for ourselves. At the end of our shopping day the clouds have rolled in and the fog is very thick. You cannot see very far at all. Hopefully the clouds will lift for tomorrow. Tonight we will have a special dinner provided by the hotel manager. He loves the work that COPI does in Sapa. Last year when we had a change in plans for clinics he found us a new place to do a clinic. He is quite nice and very accommodating. The dinner should be wonderful. Tomorrow we will have a clinic from early morning until late in the night. We will go to a boarding school for indigenous children and see 304 students. We will stay until we're done to not leave anyone out. We will provide each student with a gift of a blanket, gloves and writing tablets. This afternoon we folded and packaged the gifts we will give out. It will be a long but rewarding day tomorrow. More later! Raina

Vietnam Mission Trip, 3/11/11, P.Jim Munter

Vietnam Update, Friday, March 22, 2011

Pastor Jim Munter

Wow! I can't believe the change! We picked up our luggage and twenty some bins, loaded them on the carts and pushed them out into the lobby without one word or hassle from anyone! binh told us later that she went through the usual humiliation this morning with the comrade in charge of that part of airport operations.
The bus driver never used his horn once on the trip to Viet Tri!
The road is now a divided four lane (narrow) highway all the way.
I hear very few car or bus horns out front of the hotel (what a change).
And the hotel has a big Children of Peace International banner over the entrance to the hotel!
It's almost no fun without dodging the livestock and ducks on the road and the thrill of drivers daring each other to head on collisions. However it was fun to help Jeff see all the rice fields etc. It is an overcast day, but the temperature is mild.

I took 33 hours from SLC airport to our arrival in Viet Tri, needless to say we are all tired. I did sleep for about 4 or so hours last night. In a few moments we will walk to the orphanage and tomorrow is a rest day. I am going to see if I can find a ride to Katie's orphanage tomorrow. Not sure it will work out.

I have to get ready to walk with the team to the orphanage. Will write more tomorrow and let you know what happens.

Jim

Vietnam Mission Updates

Pastor Jeff is posting regular updates on the 2011 Vietnam Mission trip in the Pastor's Blog. Visit http://www.goodshepherdutah.com/pastorsblog/pastorsblog.php to read all about this year's trip.