We just got back from the Vietnamese Southern Baptist 25th Convention in Dallas, Texas. There were about 1400 registered attendees, and 1500+ came to Sunday service. The weather was crazy hot, 100 Fahrenheit, but most of the time, we were indoor in the hotel where the air conditioner was running full time. I brought a netbook along and thought I might write the journal recap of the 4-day events (beside using it as entertainment mean to keep the kids occupied while waiting at airport of on an air plane.) As it turn out, wi-fi wasn’t available at the air port, and internet wasn’t free (wasn’t cheap either) at the hotel. There is a business center at the hotel, but I was too lazy to take elevator down there to spend time in that isolated room anyway.
The program was all right; there were goods and bads. We got to see our friends and familiar faces from all over the States. Some workshops were interesting. Out of all the things to complain, I have to say it’s the foods, which were really bad. For this huge number of attendees, it is understandable that the food wouldn’t be great, but it wasn’t even decent. We wasn’t planned to tour Dallas, thus we didn’t rent a car. Otherwise, we would have eating out for lunch and dinner. Benjamin didn’t eat much for the 4-day event there. There wasn’t a fridge in the room either, so we had to go to the restaurant downstair to purchase milk every breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sometime they gave us for free, other time they charged $1.50 each. It was weird.
But anyway, not to get caught up in my silly little whining rant, I actually had a great time. The highlight of the trip for me was to participate in the Evangelism Explosion workshop, and hand-on experience by going out to the Vietnamese market and witnessing the next day. After the workshop, I spent sometime in prayers and asked God to prepare me for the witnessing trip. There were many things to hold me back: fear, lazy, sports event that I want to go to, etc… but after the pray, I felt ready and made up my mind about coming to the witnessing trip. I prayed for 5 people whom God will prepare for me to listen to the Good News.
On the day of the event, we were dividing into groups of 3 or 4 people, and being dropped off at several Vietnamese markets or shopping mall. My group was assigned to the strip mall, not the actual mall that has indoor shops. It was very hot outside at 2:00 PM, in100F. I’m not used to this kind of heat, and my vampire skin hasn’t been exposed to such sunlight for extended period of time, so I was a little nervous walking around in this weather. But I believe that God has prepared the 5 people I prayed about, right here, in this strip mall, so I shouldn’t focus on my own confort right now. It was interesting though, and our God is great. Somehow the electric in these shops was out, so the AC wasn’t running. People closed their business and stood outside the door waiting for the electric to turn back on. I’m not sure when the electric was out, but I just noticed it after our group finished witnessing to the first person. There, you see, it must be His amazing work. So, opportunity just presented itself to us. There stood this big man with tatoos all over his 2 arms in front of his shop. His look was definitely intimidating, but for some reason my legs were approaching him, and my mouth started asking his name, and witnessing the Gospel to him. God just gave me a nudge, a courage that I normally don’t have. Few minutes later, this man wanted me to pray for him to accept Christ and the gift of heaven. It was amazing! His name is Tien (I don’t know the last name, forgot to ask)… And of course, God is faithful, more so than we ever know, and He gave abundantly. We have talked to 7 people, and 3 people came to Christ. The others received the message and hopefully the seed has sown in their heart and it will grow one day. Oh yeah, the shop of same man that I witnessed to was selling beverages, so he just gave us couple icy cold water bottles for free. Certainly great to beat the heat! It was awesome! There was one drunk Mexican man came on a bike, and he came chatting with us for a while. Lots of things he said we didn’t understand, but he did mention something fixing the roof for $300… hahaha. We thanked for his time, and gave him a cold bottle of water, and he seemed very appreciated it. Anyway, that was a great experience for me, and hopefully it inspires you in some way.
Grace really wanted to swim in the swimming pool, and she kept asking us to go. It was way too hot during the day and so crowded in the afternoon, so we didn’t want her to go. But eventually, Thao took Grace and Benjamin to the swimming pool to cool off in one of the afternoon. They had a blast. Grace also had fun in the children class. They were taught to sing and dance to the song “You Are Holy” by Planet Shakers. They performed it on Sunday in the last service. It was also the only chance I used my camera that I brought along the trip. Here is the video uploaded to Youtube.
YouTube - Grace sang at the Baptist Convention
Now the Convention is over. You know what worry me? Next year 26th Convention is in Denver. Here, in Colorado. There are a lot of works ahead of us. Scary!