September 2018 Wow 3 new members

Hi blogger world.  We are here in Italy relaxing from our crazy vacation to Da Lat, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and Egypt.  Seriously need to catch up on newsletters on monthly blog so we managed to make some bullet points of which we will write a few sentences about each on the month of September. 

Phu Ninh Lake - We took the kids to Phu Ninh Lake with some of their friends.  My paddle boat got drifted further and further away from the dock and eventually we had to call someone to bring us in using a motorboat because the wind was so strong.  I paddled with Reena and Debrie for over an hour and couldn't get back.  That was a bit scary and that was hard work. 

Commemoration at Chu Ut’s

Commemoration at Chu Ut's with Jenny and her Mom

Vietnamese often have commemoration days to remember their deceased family members.  It's always a big party with many tables of food and friends and families.  It is one of my favorite things because it shows why I love big parties so much.

Moon Festival

  We got to be around for another moon festival.  Growing up as a kid Moon Festival meant candies for us kids.  The dragon /lion dancers come to your house (if your lights are on) and they perform for you to see and you give them a bag of candies tied up on your roof and they climb on each other as they dance to get that candies down.  Nowadays they prefer money more so you give them money instead of candies but as a kid candies was so much more fun to get.  We enjoyed our time in the countryside for that and came back with a lot of fruits from my uncle's garden.  These fruits were from when my dad was still living in Tien My and he planted them. 

 We also had a beautiful Moon Festival party at the school I taught at.  Reena and I formed "I see the the Light" and Dan played and sang on the guitar.  Debrie played a few songs on the piano and the boys made some lanterns. 

Bowling with the Koreans
    The last year has been wonderful because of all the people we've met and became friends with. I think when we return home the thing I will miss the most is all the tourists coming through and having church with us.  Getting to know them and hanging out with them and find out what we share and know and experience has been so cool.  It's like meeting people who are adventurous like us and sharing the things we've learned with them.  We met a cute kid Levin whose parents have been living in Vietnam for the last several years.  His parents sent him and his sister to Italy for school and he has been living there and just recently graduated.  He came to live in Vietnam for the Summer and I've pretty much adopted him to be my brother because he looks just like my brother and acts and sound just like him.  I showed his parents pictures of my own brother and they agree. Levin and Michael are twins from another world.  We took Levin bowling a few times and he loved it just like we did with Michael and he loved bowling, too.  Take a look at him in the first picture.  He's the kid with the hat.

Here's Michael and his wife Emily.  Doesn't it look like the same person?!!  They look so much alike and act so much alike to me.




Reena’s new glasses and birds
  News for Reena this month is that she got a few birds for pets.  They were so inexpensive that once again I gave in just like I did with the dog.  I guess when it's so hot outside that they don't go out and play so what else should they do??!  Play with pets.  Sounds like a better option than TV to me so why not.  She's really good with birds and now dreams that she will one day have an aviary.  She got new glasses as well because again, so inexpensive as compared to back in Seattle.

Baptism of three
   September marked the most successful month for us on our little mini mission.  Somehow it all came together pretty quick.  We met and greeted and helped others to share the gospel and the missionaries got involved and we baptized.  One of the baptisms is of this lady in the red ao dai (Vietnamese traditional long dress which Dan fascinates over and got me 5 outfits).  I absolutely adore her. She is our most active member in all of Da Nang.

 We had special permission to have the missionaries come down from Ha Noi.  We had the baptism on Sunday after we had church.  The missionaries bore beautiful testimonies.  Our new members bored wonderful testimonies that got everyone teary eyes.  The spirit was strongly present. The setting could not be more perfect.  I felt inspired to book this beach because it was cheap, secluded, and it had a gorgeous panoramic view of Da Nang.

 Next to Debrie you may noticed a new family.  These are the Murdochs.  They came from the States with their 3 sweet children.  They stayed in Da Nang for a few weeks and they moved to Ha Noi where he found a job and she teaches English.  We wish Da Nang could've worked out for them but atlas Ha Noi got them because it had more jobs.

 Late that night we attended a beautiful classical guitar concert that featured one of my good friends,  who owns an Art Academy, who is my mentor for my future Nam Art Academy.

Badminton
  What reminds me of my childhood more than anything was watching my children played badminton.  We signed the girls up so they could get some training.  They both enjoyed it and could play badminton pretty well now.  More pictures to come later.

One of the best things about hosting church in Da Nang is that we get to meet so many people from all over the world.  Here we have10 visiting Koreans for church although they were living in the US for a big portion of their lives so they could speak English very well.  That was a lot of fun for us to meet and got to know this group.

I guess it is time for a haircut
Ok I just tied my hair back but the boys got their hair cut. I started cutting Ronin's hair but couldn't bare cutting all his curls off so he still has about half of them.  Darion looked so much thinner with his hair cut short but Dan likes that look so he won.

 

Phong Nha Caves

Phong Nha Caves was a 5 hour drive from Da Nang so in a way it was the longest road trip we've done so far.  We set off (3 American families) and were about to take the train but when we got there we missed the train while doing the paperwork and decided that we'd just rent a 16 passenger van to the caves.  It was so much fun and really this needs to be in another post by itself or a youtube video.  Too many pictures and too amazing to be tucked in here so here's a snippet of it.  Ciao.  See you on the next post.