So Yes....Ha Long Bay/Cat Ba is Amazing!!! We went with a private guide from Slopony (whom I highly recommend). The climbing was pretty tough. Krista had a hard time starting any of the problems...but she had a great time falling in the water and taking lots of pictures!
We will post more soon about the trip. Right now my computer is going to die while I'm at a coffee shop that blows Starbucks out of the water!!!
By far the best part of our mini-vacation in Ha Long Bay:
Pray for our new friend and his family!
Although only 8% of the Vietnamese population would consider themselves Christian, we "just so happened" to meet a Vietnamese Christian and had the privilege of praying and worshiping with him and his family. He asked us if we were "pro-dess-an" and proclaimed that he and his family knew Jesus and gave Larry a high five! He invited us to his home for a homemade Vietnamese meal where we prayed and read the scriptures together. God's Word overcame language barriers as we shared our favorite scriptures and read them back and forth in our own language versions and then praised God for the awesome truths that we read together. What an amazing experience! The best part is that his wife sat down with Eli and told him about Jesus in Vietnamese and then she sang songs of worship with him as he danced around the room. Out of the amazing kindness and spirit of giving in their hearts, they gave us a Vietnamese Children's Bible with lots of pictures and a beautiful painting of Ha Long Bay that he painted himself.
Even better, now we have family to visit in Vietnam! We hope to revisit every couple years (the C&MA has a meeting with everyone who works in Asia every couple years in Bangkok, Thailand. We found an airline that only costs $25-75 to fly from Bangkok to Hanoi, Vietnam!) This way we can visit our new spiritual family and Eli can stay connected to his homeland. Our God is an awesome God!
Please pray for our new friend and his family. By his own admission, being a Christian is very hard in Vietnam. Their are no churches in their small village; in response they have begun having meetings in their home almost every day of the week. Twenty or more believers meet in a small concrete room open to the hot sticky humidity with only two oscillating fans to cool the sweat off their brows. Each night is something different: women one night, children another, men still another. On Sunday they meet in the morning, afternoon, and evening to worship the Lord. Their faithfulness and passion for the Lord inspired us beyond belief! What a blessing to see God's Spirit overcome the attempts of the enemy. Police have showed up at their door on occasion to break up their meetings, but still they meet together. (We decided not to put names or photos just in case...) To read more about persecution in Vietnam you can visit the following website: http://www.persecution.org/suffering/countryinfodetail.php?countrycode=5
I'm not sure how accurate the statistics are, but the stories of persecution are very eye-opening. Thank you for praying for our friend!
