Today, we have the first free day since arriving in Saigon! We have been quite busy with meetings, taxiing from one side of the city to the other. This city, now called Ho Chi Minh City is quite a bit different from the north. The accent is noticeably different and the people are quite a bit more laid back. Everywhere you look are motorbikes, small soup shops and vegetable stands to elite coffee shops and fancy hotels. Contrast is the name of the game, old and new live together.
We have been working with a fully licensed and registered church here in Saigon. They have the ability to have a Bible Institute, which we were asked to share to students to various other meetings. In 2009, they held a Christmas meeting where over 35,000 people showed up. They have great favor here and are free to worship as they wish. We have had several meetings with this pastor and he is a very wonderful man. I have the utmost respect for him and what God is doing with the people through his ministry.
We have also been surveying the business community here. Vietnam is a developing country and opportunity abounds here. There are many foreign businessmen here working in the local economy. It does my heart good to see and I am especially thankful to our several U.S. presidents who have developed better relations with this great country.
As I get the chance I will post our pictures to this blog. I haven't been able to thus far because our camera was lifted out of our carry on bags at JFK airport by the baggage handlers when they made us stow them under the smaller plane last year. I bought a new camera only last week when we were in Hanoi. Thank God for camera shops here in Asia!
In just a few minutes we'll be visiting the big market area downtown then visiting a coffee shop with American coffee. After that, we'll go to our friend from Russia's ice cream shop. She is a graduate of our school in Moscow and has moved back home here to Vietnam. It's pretty awesome when you have so many friends in a country that you're only visiting the first time.
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