Second English Class

Trip Start Jul 09, 2008
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Trip End Jul 26, 2008


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Monday, July 14, 2008

This afternoon we had a birthday party for two young girls who have been sponsored by Americans. They live in the slums of Saigon and their house is two floors, each smaller than my hotel room, only about 10' by 10'. The stream running past the little alley they live off of is so polluted that the dirt near the water is stained black...the water is oily looking, but some reeds and plants have somehow managed to adapt to the sludge.

After a dinner of Xi Muoung (red, dried plum with salt and sugar drink) and a shrimp soup with bean sprouts, okra, hot peppers, tomato, and pineapple (surprisingly good), we had our second English class (Bible study).

Mary, a 4th year Med student from Britain, put together a study on the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5. She drew pictures to help with the translation, and I looked up a VN Bible online so they could read it out loud in their native tongue too after reading around the group in English. After the story she wrote out two main points about God's love for all people great and small and God's desire to use us, no matter our social station. References: Joel 2:28-29 and Acts 2: 38-39. New words we had to explain were: warrior, mighty, repent, baptized, gift, prophet, and names and places in the story.

Some of the students seemed to really understand, one was interested enough to get the address of the church we went to this AM. Several took materials we had brought in VN. I added extra classes onto the schedule as there is desire for more by a few of the young students.

Tomorrow I get my first look at a large hospital in Vietnam!! This one is OB/GYN and several of our nurses will be teaching there. Incidentally, as with many countries, nursing is a very low status occupation in Vietnam. I have been aware of this for some time and expected it here, but had been curious to see how people here would express that viewpoint. Most have been pretty neutral, probably to be polite (almost certainly our status as Americans affects things too).
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