Bowing down to a monk, asking for a blessing

Bike vendor

Long bus layover after an overnight bus ride = tired and sleepy

Craigly taking a large, ravenous bite of noodles in a cardboard cup

Craig sitting in the seat of the monks–these rear seats (we later found out) are reserved for the monks so that they sit higher than everyone else

Maria taking bus ride time to write

Craig and his monk buddy who was probably somewhat peeved that someone was sitting level with him, but was too polite to say anything

Katrina peeking

Tuk-tuk ride

Tuk-tuk

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It should be noted that Sikhism is the 5th largest religion in the world. I was struck by how very similar to Christianity that Sikhism is.

Here is a comparison/contrast that I did of Sikhism and Christianity in response to their presentation:

Comparisons:

• Remember God when you eat
• Internals more important than externals
• Externals serve to keep believer accountable
• Conditional non-violence (vs. unconditional non-violence)
• Use of actors as an illustration to talk about the masks we put on (see Greek word hupokrisis which being translated means hypocrisy; means “to speak from under a mask”; it’s an acting term)
• Creator God
• Shouldn’t be attached to material possessions because they are temporal
• God is outside of time—eternal and unchanging
• Equality among people
• Our minds are unstable
• Everybody has a responsibility in life to seek the truth
• Close identification of the Word (11th guru) and God
• Bad is when we make other things more important than God (this is in a way the root of all sin, from a Christian perspective)
• God is not no-where, He is now-here.
• We can talk to God, but we can only hear Him if we are one with Him (and Christians would clarify, submitted to Him)
• Evils and incongruities of Hinduism: caste system and dead idols

Contrasts:

• God is not affected by sin
• God is an impersonal set of attributes
• We become part of God when we correctly know Him
• All religions lead to God
• Heaven and hell are in our mind—our condition of guilt
• No supernatural miracles
• There is no good and bad in this world (“It’s very complicated.” she hastened to clarify. Indeed it must be. They talked quite a bit about the importance of living a good life, including non-violence, charity, etc.)

Below are my rough notes of what they said. If you want a more organized, cogent presentation, check out Wikipedia.

5 Ks:
1.Kesh = hair (If one Sikh person is doing something wrong, the whole community is affected.)
2.Kainga = comb
3.Kirpan = sword (You have a sword, but do not fight. Use your brain. Last thing you should use is the sword to defend yourself. Only defense, not offense.)
4.Kara = iron wristlet (Used to be shield, now it is the gift of the guru. Remembrance of those who sacrificed their lives for us.)
5.Karaschiva = white undershorts (White = purity; Ready to work, can go directly to work without getting dressed.)

Hymns = Shabad

9 Keys: The quality of God Himself
1.Ik Onkar (One God) (One sun, many seasons. One God, many religions)
2.Sat Nam (True Name) (Actors have different identities, a mask.)
3.Karta Purakh (Creation) (Creation and Creator is the same. God is creator, but He is such a creator that He lives inside His creation.)
4.Nirbha (No Fear) (Fear comes when you must part with possessions. At the end of life, you will lose it all anyway. No attachment to physical possessions.)
5.Nirvaen (People are One) (All the nations are one. All the religions are one. The name/mask is the only difference. No need to fight.)
6.Akal (Time) (God is beyond time. We think about the past and worry about the future. We should live in the present.)
7.Ajuni (God = no life or death) (Our minds are unstable. You are thinking all the time. Meditation makes the mind steady. Buddhism has the best meditation. God is unchanging and eternal.)
8.Saibhang (Self-illuminating) (Everybody has a responsibility in life. Live a truthful life, don’t run away. Be self-illuminated or responsible.)
9.Gur Parsaid (Guru Blessings) (Regular Sikhs have not experienced what the gurus experienced. Out of that experience they wrote the 11th guru that guides you to eternal peace.)
We are like small streams coming into the ocean. They are inseparable once they come to the ocean.

Hinduism and Islam are not wrong. It is only followers who take the preaching wrong.

Religion is very simple. We have to work in a very simple way. No supernatural miracles.

Meditate minimum of one hour in the morning. When you eat your food, remember God. If you think you can do anything by yourself, it is not possible. God gave you the hands to do it.

God is not no-where, He is now-here.

Sin does not affect God. There is nothing good or bad in this world. “It’s very complicated.”

Bad is when we make other things more important than God.

We can talk to God, but we can only hear when we become one with God, breaking the cycle of reincarnation.

“Heaven and hell come from inside our mind.” Guiltiness is hell. Change from guilt to innocence is heaven.

Khalsa means pure in heart. Following 5 Ks is an external identification of your purity. 5 Ks are mere externals, inside purity is what’s important. God wants us to trust Him fully. If you are going to wear a turban, beard but you do not follow guru’s teaching (i.e. you kill innocent people) you are not sikh.

First guru saw Hinduism: Such wrong. Caste system. Lifeless idols.

Song:
So come back as Jesus
Come back and save the world
Bless all the future of every boy and girl
Come back as Rama,
Forgive us for what we’ve done
Come back as Allah,
Come back as anyone

Religion is the reason,
The world is breaking up into pieces
Colour of the people,
Keeps us locked in hate please release us
So Come down and help us,
Save all the little ones
They need a teacher,
And you are the only one
We can rely on,
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Saigon from the air

Nomes and Emily

Beautiful sunset while landing in Chiang Mai

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Some of the more “adventuresome” ones walking underneath the waterfall on a flooded catwalk.

Three musketeers!

A hanging bridge across the river

Some people who lived on the river

We ate a wonderful breakfast of french bread, fish, eggs, and pork!

Arlin peacefully sleeping much to Phil’s chagrin

After we got back to Saigon, we went to the hospital to visit the man that had the stroke during the church service. He was unconscious while we were there but we had a good time of encouraging his family and praying for him. The hospital was nearly indescribable. The hallways were outdoors. Everything was built with bare block walls. 20-30 patients were in each room. The outdoor hallways were lined with the sleeping bags and miscellaneous possessions of the family members who were staying with people in the hospital. We had to don special sandals and a bright yellow lab coat to go in to visit the man.

A view through the window into a typical hospital room.

The entrance to the hospital room he was in

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Devotees riding a decked out truck with an elephant god on the back

Dancing in the streets as we drove through this small town

More celebrations

Soaked and eating Haleem in a small Muslim restaurant in Hyderabad

So Sam and his boys loaded us up on motorbikes and we went downtown to watch the final climactic part of the festival, Ananta Chaturdashi. On the way, a drenching tropical downpour started which got us totally soaked. As we rode on the bikes, we passed 20-25 trucks laden with an elephant god and 10-30 dancing, drumming, screaming worshipers. The streets were packed with people walking, riding, driving, biking, etc toward the river.

It was also the month-long Muslim Ramadan fast and Hyderabad is 30% Muslim. So, Sam wanted to treat us to a special Muslim food that is made only during Ramadan–Haleem. So, we stopped in a Muslim neighborhood and pushed our way into a small hole-in-the-wall Muslim restaurant which was serving Haleem to hungry fast-ers who had gone the whole day without food. The Muslim men–it was exclusively men, no ladies–stared curiously back at us: four Indian men, two bearded Americans, and two unbearded Americans. Fortunately, we drank out of bottles of water we had brought. They soon brought out the Haleem along with some wonderful fried flat bread. This is what Wikipedia (1, 2) says about Haleem:

The rich haleem is a thick paste of lamb, cracked wheat, lentils and spices. It is slow cooked for at least 10 hours in the bhatti (an oven made with mud) until it gets to a sticky-smooth consistency, similar to mashed mince. It is served hot with lime wedges, coriander and fried onions as garnish. In India, haleem prepared in Hyderabad, during the Ramadan season, is very famous and is distributed all over the country.

Our meal of Haleem and associated dishes

It is wonderful stuff! It has a slightly lower viscosity than refried beans and is about the same color, but it tastes far different.

We trundled back out in the rain after sitting around hoping it would clear up. We watched as hundreds of thousands of devotees of the Hindu elephant god thronged the streets. Covered in pink dye and dancing frantically to beating drums, the devotees rode and followed caravans of trucks carrying humongous elephant gods to the river. Legend has it that the elephant god enjoys sleeping under the water. Cranes lined the waterfront to lift the gods off the trucks and place them in the water. Hindus sent tens of thousands of little elephant gods arcing through the air to land kersplash in the water. Street vendors hawked their snacks while Bollywood stars and politicians arrived to soak up the adulation of the crowds. The Muslim population walked by the outskirts of the festival in hurried silence, pausing every now and again to offer a quiet “Salaam Walekhum” to my bearded and apparently Muslim figure. Terrorism concerns—44 people were killed last month in terrorist bombings and 9.5 kg of RDX explosive is still missing—and rain made the festival minuscule compared to its usual size. Normally 23,000 gods are dumped in the river, but this year it was only 1,467. 30,000 police (some in riot gear) filled the streets, blocked off roads, and in some places outnumbered the worshippers!

The largest Ganesh idol of the festival. I had to stitch several photos together to get the whole thing.

A street vendor selling a spicy little snack mix in newspaper cones that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Here’s a video of the festival, including some pre-Ananta Chaturdashi festivities:

YouTube, 4:49
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YouTube (0:35)
WMV (4.38 MB, 0:35)Similar Posts:

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Drinking tea at breakfast. We enjoyed the Vietnamese tea, but some thought it smelled like silage and others thought it smelled like tobacco. It had a pleasant taste, though.

We had the requisite noodles for breakfast. Then we headed to a unique place with beautiful gardens, native village replicas, and European architecture. We went to a village show in which some ethnic minorities from a village put on a song and dance show for us. After they were done, they asked us to come up and sing some songs.

American group

Me

Beautiful flower-covered roof with stone wall in background

Villagers dancing

They asked us to join them in their dance and Arlin obliged

Singing at their invitation

Once again we were a tourist attraction and everyone wanted to have their pictures taken with us

The villagers

They had a little zoo of genetic mutations; this chicken had four legs

This cage contained a cow with three horns

This cage contained some unknown creatures with serious, yet undiagnosed problems

I loved their almost Grecian architecture in Dalat! I was totally stunned to see it–it seemed so out of place

Me

Arlin riding the fountain dragon

Tip of the day: If you are in Asia, wear a beard. Yet another person out of the blue said I am handsome. They really like beards.

Eating a picnic lunch in the valley of love

That afternoon, Phil, Arlin, and Josh went to a school and played basketball with some locals. The locals only consented to play after the teams were set up to be 3 against 10. The three foreigners against seven Vietnamese. The Vietnamese still lost, however.

That night, we went to the night market. While the others shopped, Lao and the other two Vietnamese brethren took me on a food tour! They took be from food stand to food stand feeding me all sorts of unusual Vietnamese foods. First, they fed me some little sea creatures that had a curled shell. To eat, I dipped the small (fingernail sized) tubular, circular shell into the juice that it had been boiled in. Then I sucked the contents out of the shell. Along with the juice came a little bit of “meat” that was the consistency of nose mucus that slipped smoothly down my throat. I ate a bunch of those. Next on the menu was a hard-boiled chicken egg with a chick inside. I gamely ate about half of it before hairs/feathers on the chicken made my gag reflex kick in and I was unable to eat any more. Also particularly hard to stomach were the little legs. Next on the menu were some wonderful mussel like creatures that had peanuts and greens sprinkled on top. They were wonderful! We then left that stand and went over to a fruit seller. We squatted Asian style on the sidewalk and ate some stinky durian fruit. Durian fruit’s taste is not bad, but its smell makes so that few people outside of the countries where it grows natively eat it. Next Lao searched around until she found a lady that sold some sort of special rice soup that was an especial delicacy. While I was eating it, my beard struck again and the soup lady made a positive comment on my appearance.

Seafood & chick stand

Here I was smiling; I was eating the mussel-like things

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Cable car view

Workers in the field below

Working in the fields

Naomi reacting to a large rubber spider someone put on her shoulder

IGo group

The guys climbing the waterfall

On top of the waterfall

Waterfall

A woodcarver

A Vietnamese wedding

Some of the AMAZING coffee we had in Vietnam!! Everywhere we went that had it, I ordered it. A little brewer was brought out along with the cup and it was brewed right there. It was very strong and the best tasting coffee I have ever had.

A rare case of facial hair and the style of dress caused us to jokingly dub this man the Chinese Gangster

Some of the flowers in the gorgeous gardens surrounding the palace

We had to wear booties over our shoes before we could go inside the palace as to protect the floor

Arlin, shameless as ever, jumped in the picture with this beautiful young Vietnamese princess. It was the kind of thing where you could pay to dress in royal robes and then have your picture taken. Arlin’s cowboy hat made him a tourist attraction in his own right. Around 20 people asked to take pictures with him.

A panorama of the gardens from the palace window

A picture of the prince

A view of Dalat at night

The guys bought the ladies roses

When Arlin tried to go to sleep with his hoody and cowboy hat over his face, we loaded his cowboy hat with things

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Playing guitar in the hotel lobby

Our van up to Dalat

Naomi, our faithful money manager–notating expenses and holding the money

Beautiful riverside restaurant we stopped at for lunch

Along the river

A father and two boys rowing across the river

A brother sleeping in the van

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The little ferry that we rode on across the river

Lots of bikes crowded on the ferry

We led worship for a couple of songs with us singing in English and them singing in Vietnamese. After the sermon and the service’s completion, the IGo team, Lao, and a bunch of our Vietnamese friends went half a block down the apartment building to a sidewalk restaurant where we all squatted on little plastic stools around a knee-high table and ate beef and noodles with chopsticks. We had a great time!

Eating lunch

An example of the rows and rows of apartment buildings

We then hopped on a bus and headed down to downtown Saigon. We saw the most famous church in Saigon (a large Catholic cathedral), Vietnamese military headquarters, a large shopping mall, and the “War Remnants Museum”. The War Remnants Museum was by far the most interesting. The outside of the museum was surrounded by captured U.S. military aircraft, tanks, artillery, and sundry armaments. The inside of was a masterful piece of propaganda about the “war crimes” of the “foreign war of aggression against the Vietnamese people”. They portrayed the war as the U.S. versus Vietnam rather than a civil war in which both North and South were receiving foreign assistance—the North from the Soviet Union, China, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and North Korea and the South from the U.S., South Korea, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines. It does legitimately (though exaggeratedly) mention damage done by Agent Orange, some of the torture done by South Vietnamese troops, and the rogue My Lai massacre, but it totally ignores the consistent civilian-targeted terrorist actions of the Viet Cong, the Hue massacre, and the systematic torture of P.O.W.’s by the North Vietnamese.

Catholic cathedral

Naomi and two sisters

Playing pool in the mall–pool is huge in Vietnam! There are tables everywhere!

Vietnamese flag

The Vietnamese version of the Pentagon

Group shot

Tank on the grounds of the “pentagon”

A captured U.S. plane

U.S. tank

American fighter jet and Huey helicopter

Arlin cringing in anticipation that the drink procured from a streetside vendor would taste like it looked

Street vendor carefully arranging a pile of roses

It rained incredibly hard and the streets flooded with a foot of water in some places

That night we went back to the hotel and then that evening we split into two groups and played games. We had a great time worshiping and interacting with our Vietnamese friends. Afterward we went to a small restaurant and ate noodles for supper.

Eating supper with the youth

Meanwhile at the church service, the others had a bit of a more exciting time. A man attending the church service had a stroke right in the middle of the service and had to be taken to the hospital. He and his family are quite poor—the church recently bought them a motorbike so he could earn money by working as a bike taxi—and can’t afford to pay for his care. Unfortunately in Vietnam, hospital care is contingent upon paying for the care upfront, ahead of time. If you don’t have the money, you don’t get taken care of. So the church is helping take care of his hospital care—they had to raid the orphans’ fund to pay his bill.Similar Posts:

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We tried to communicate through the neighbor that we wanted chicken fried rice, but instead we got a whole chicken + rice. Oh well.

Three on a bike, a common method of transport

We then headed to the orphanage and hung out with the kids and watched one of the brothers—Jonathan—put on a magic show. We were going to play a game of soccer, but then Lao asked us to cook an American supper for 17 people, so we needed to hurry off to the market to get the appropriate food. We decided to make hamburgers, fries, and cookies. However, when we found they didn’t have an oven, we converted it to being cookie dough ice cream.

Phil and a kid from the orphanage

Arlin and the resident magician exchanging magic tricks

Naomi and orphanage kids

A lady working in the rice paddy near Lao’s house

Some older people smoking and playing cards

It took a long time to cook in their outdoor kitchen with unfamiliar tools, but after several hours, we—the six of us working together—accomplished it. It was interesting to be on the other side of the cultural food barrier—we sat there on the floor watching as they ate slowly with unfamiliar eating methods and foods while we gulped down familiar food in a comfortable fashion.

Mixing hamburger and making patties

Washing potatoes

Chopping potatoes into fries

Mixing cookie dough

The crazy cooking crew we had flipping burgers and frying fries

Eating supper, at long last!

We helped wash dishes, Vietnam style, even though they did their best to insist that they would do it

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This morning we started the day with a soccer game—the championship of the tournament—right after a breakfast of noodles and ostrich meat. After that the Americans—except Phil and Josh—went on a horse carriage ride around the camp. The camp has an amazing menagerie of horses, crocodiles (hundreds for meat), ostriches (hundreds for meat), bears, monkeys, peacocks, fish, and all sorts of other creatures.

Peacock

Ducks and herons

A friend and I

Arlin about to make yet another spectacular save

The soccer championship in full swing

A very energetic young man who was all over the field and whose highest goal was not to stay on his feet

More soccer!

When we got to the ostriches, we got out and rode them! It was awesome! We sat on the ostriches bareback with their wings draped over our legs. We held tightly to the wing, leaned back, and off they went running! The first time I got on, I was too far forward and slid over the ostrich’s neck while still in the loading dock. I did finally get on in the right position, , but the ostrich’s rear kept sinking lower and lower under my weight until I finally slid off the back after about 30 feet. Arlin and Lao got more complete rides.

Arlin nervously (they kept making threatening motions with their beaks) cheesing with the ostriches

Riding the ostrich!

Video of Arlin and I riding ostriches can be found on YouTube (0:35) or you can download a higher quality WMV (4.38 MB, 0:35).

Ostrich riding

The bear pit

Another bear

We then had the closing service of camp in which we reviewed the English songs, had speeches, gave gifts, etc.

For lunch we had sun dried fish stirred into some pungent black sauce. All of my Vietnamese table mates were quite certain that I wouldn’t like it, but I downed it with relish and asked for more. Fong came over to our table and when he found that I liked the stuff, he said, “Now you are qualified to have a Vietnamese wife because you can eat the Vietnamese food.” Shortly thereafter Pon—who is majoring in English and speaks excellent English—told one of the guys in Vietnamese to tell me that she wanted my phone number. I replied by telling her that I would give her my email address because my phone number(s) are very varied and without permanence: Home telephone number in VA, cell phone in VA, VA Skype number, Thailand cell phone, Thailand landline number, SMBI phone number, KS home number, Vietnam cell phone, etc. She later gave me her phone number and email address as well. She was actually more capable of asking in English than the person she asked to ask me, so I’m not sure if it was simple shyness or some sort of cultural thing.

At the end of lunch, the Americans went over to another table where Fong had ordered grilled crocodile meat for us to sample. We did and it was awesome!

The crocodile meat being cooked

You’d think the crocodile wasn’t quite dead yet!

We then packed our things, reboarded buses, and bid farewell to camp and some of the many friends we had made. Many of the path-followers were from Saigon, so we would see them more throughout our trip, but some of them were from other towns and villages in a several hour radius.

We then returned to Fong’s house and relaxed there for a while. I worked for a bit trying to get the c’s digital camcorder—which had recorded camp—to work on his Firewire port. He had found a hotel within sight of their house in which we stayed the night. It was a brand-new hotel and we were the only occupants. We paid $12 per night for the ladies’ room with a queen bed and $17 for the humongous men’s room with two queens. We had a large jacuzzi style tub in our bathroom—the first time I recall seeing a tub in Asia. To quite literally top it all off, there was a nice swimming pool on the roof.

Emily singing lullabies and rocking Arlin to sleep in the hammock on Fong’s living room

That night for supper we went to a small restaurant a few minute’s walk from the hotel. We had a veritable feast of boiled shrimp, rice, chicken, seafood fried rice, fried pork, and lemonade. They brought out a burner and set a pot on it. Arlin curiously lifted the lid to see what it was and with a loud snap a humongous live shrimp jumped out! That mightily startled the entire table! Another highlight of this luscious meal was the chicken. All of the chicken—sans the feet—was there including the head. Arlin ate the head with much clowning. In fact, the entire evening entailed quite a bit of clowning on the part of Arlin, Josh, Phil, and Lao. We had the restaurant staff—a family—laughing at us quite a few times throughout the night. Our tab was enormous by Vietnamese standards—400,000 dong—but puny—$26 ($3 per person)—by American standards.

Eating supper

Our jumbo shrimp, this time being properly removed from the pot via chopsticks

Eating the shrimp

Some of the wonderful fried pork

Arlin seek to assuage his tongue with a wet washcloth after having eaten something quite hot

Arlin posing with his portion of the chicken

Singing in the hotel room

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Carrying Arlin around for the treasure hunt

Eating lunch

Doing weird stuff to earn our next clue

Josh, after being deposited on a rock after being manhandled in a treasure hunt activity

Next up was lunch. After that we went to our cabin and we practiced “Who Am I?” and took naps. We then went to main tents and the Americans got up front and sang, played, and taught some English songs to the Vietnamese youth. The songs were “Pass a smile around”, “This is the day”, and “Peace like a river”.

Singing for fun

Practicing “Who Am I”

A picture with one of my good friends clowning in the background

Another example of the beautiful campground

After that came a soccer tournament in which each of the four teams played each other. They put me in at goalie, much to my dismay and damage to our scores. I let in a tournament-high three goals. However, once again they found a place to lift me up. I blocked—not on purpose, I just happened to be standing there—one fairly hard shot at the goal with my chest. It bounced quite a ways off and I stood there unfazed. I found out later from Lao that the camp was abuzz at how strong I was by blocking that shot. (*sigh*)

Soccer!

More soccer

Arlin, always the hero when it came to soccer (remember Bangladesh?), blocking a shot

One of the goalies demonstrating during a game what was my normal practice when playing goalie

Simply having a blast

Eating watermelon while watching the game

The beautiful moon shining through the palm trees

The pool

Eating supper in one of the campground’s restaurants; Pon is in the middle

That night when we got back to our cabin, we found thousands of ants crawling up the walls. Josh sprayed copious amounts of Axe underarm deodorant at them in a vain attempt to exterminate them.

Our insectoid friends

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An example of the beautiful flowers that populate the campground

Unloading at the campground

The camp event was for youth and we youth divided into four groups of 15-20 each. We all took off our sandals, sat on one of the name, and rested our feet on the other sandal in traditional Vietnamse style. We sat in a circle and introduced ourselves. Several people in my group had broken English and they translated for me. Next we went over to our four large tents that sat in a row and spent some time decorating them with lights, cut out paper, banners, palm branches, bamboo, and little red flags. The camp leaders then came around and did something that was incomprehensible (it was in Vietnamese) but apparently was hilariously funny.

Our four group tents

Fast friends

The American group

One of the beautiful restaurants in the campground

Teaching English songs

That afternoon, we had a cooking contest. Each of the teams was given raw ingredients and had to cook supper for themselves. It was great to sit out there on the ground chopping onions, squashing garlics, and roasting my fingers along with the meat on a stick. Also interesting was the first marriage probe. There were four of us sitting there—myself, an older single guy, and the two most beautiful young ladies in our group (Lan and Pon, as I shall call them)—and the guy asked me if I had a girlfriend. I, of course, answered in the negative. All of us could speak fairly good English, so this wasn’t a private conversation. Next he asked if I liked Vietnamese women. I replied that I thought they were “very nice” but I hastened to add that I was interested in none in particular. He extolled Lan’s virtues by saying, “She is a very good cook!” The ladies kept working but I could tell they were concentrating on more than cutting meat into small strips. The guy ended the conversation by conceding, “You are still young.” I heartily agreed. No winner (for the cooking supper, that is) was officially judged, but I believe we won hands down. One of our team members—Lan—owns a restaurant and has won prizes for her cooking. We had a very nice looking and good tasting supper!

Cooking supper

Our finished supper

The alligators that are raised for meat there at the camp

Alligators

Teasing the alligators

More alligators

That evening after supper, I was sitting out on the edge of the field with one of my closer friends—Jang, who speaks good English and plays in the band—and we were talking about the camp’s theme, which is “Who am I?” I asked him if he knew the Casting Crowns song “Who Am I?” He excitedly replied that he did and we sat there in the fading light and sang it together for a while. After we finished, he eagerly begged me to sing the song (while he played guitar) for the service that night. I demurred, but agreed to try to do so the next night after I had a chance to practice. He later suggested that Phil and Josh play guitar for it while Arlin and I sang.

That night we went out to a field where a stage was set up and the worship team played praise and worship songs. There were also a number of other events, one of which was a little David and Goliath skit in which I was Goliath—they kept exclaiming all throughout the camp how big and strong I am (based only upon my large size)—and a little boy was David. I had a large metal stake for a spear, a motorbike helmet on my head, a pot lid for a shield, a wooden “sword” stuck in my carpenter pants’ hammer loop, a cape, and a large French mustache and further thickened eyebrows drawn on with makeup.

Their augmented idea of what Goliath looked like

Goliath in regalia

They had a large man with the words “Who am I?” (in Vietnamese) formed from wire encased in fluff drenched in kerosene which they lit later in the evening. We danced around the flaming man and bonfire singing to dad and playing games. Throughout the evening, we were recruited to come up on stage and help lead singing.

P&W

P&W

P&W

The burning “Who Am I?” man

Late at night after that was over, we went back to the four tents and had the option of eating some noodles in a cup. I declined and went straight to bed because I was exhausted. Us four guys had a small cabin.Similar Posts:

• Vietnam Trip – Day 4
• Vietnam Trip – Day 6
• Vietnam Trip – Day 5
• Vietnam Trip – Day 9
• Vietnam Trip – Day 2