YaYA member helping VN orphanage

Dear family and friends,

I hope you are doing well! It has been almost 1 week here in Vietnam. I have been staying with the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul in a small town called My Tho. They spend their time teaching children that are deaf and mute between the ages of 5-14. Some of them have one parent, some do not have any. Some of them are scared to go home as well, due to past experiences. When they are here, they seem to have a blast though. They are very good kids and pretty impressive too (ex: in the photos attached, there are two photos of teenagers dancing mu'a - they cannot hear but use the vibration they feel to dance). Now if only I could learn their sign language...




Some interesting tidbits that some of you may already know, that I have learned more about while here - most people make less than 100 US dollars/month - and the ones that make close to 100 are those that have gone to college &etc. Many simply cannot find work, because there is no work available. Yet those that are rich, spend money like drinking water, a few hundred dollars a night is nothing to them... and the gap is just getting wider, from what I understand. There are many stories people have shared about their lives or others they know of, but that would take too long to type here... but I love to hear their stories.

From a religious perspective, the nuns here have told me about how even just 10 years ago their religious "freedom" was not as it is now - at least now, they can go to Mass freely. Before, they would have to hide in their own homes, or in the gardens in their homes, when the police came looking for them. Today, even though they are nuns, they have to tell the government that they are teachers so as to not get into more trouble. They also can't teach beyond a certain age - after that only the government schools can teach (unlike in the U.S. where there are private high schools and colleges, etc.).

Despite the hardships that people have to bear physically and secularly, I find they are very rich in spirituality. I attend Mass at 5am with the sisters and the church has a pretty good crowd - and there are a few Catholic churches in this town. There are also so many nuns and priests! The sisters wake up at 4am to start their morning prayer before Mass, but I haven't been able to make it up that early yet. :P

I've attached some photos to share - they include photos of the building and room I am staying in, the sisters and kids, and so on. Yesterday one of the sisters also took me to a more rural area, which are the photos you see of the fields and home and such. It's about 80-90 degrees here and luckily has barely rained since I got here, although I have 11 bug bites now (but still in good health otherwise).









Well, I could go on and on but just wanted to share a bit. Take care!

Cheers and love,
Quyen (Nhi)