Shameless Plugs :)

Alright, it’s officially March over here across the pond, so I thought I’d bring in the month with a brand new blog!

Want to know why I haven’t been blogging so much lately?? Because I have all these great people in my life who have started blogging!! My favorite, of course (yes, I’m biased), is Joel’s website which he took a LONG time to get just right, and now it’s been over a month since he’s written it…*nudge, nudge*. Anyways, it’s still got some great stuff on it, so check it out at http://joelberthet.com/. The next person is my Dad who also just came out with a new book (shameless plug), called For Such A Time As This, and I finished it in about 3 hours! You can buy it on Amazon here http://www.amazon.com/Such-Time-As-This/dp/1935018442/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296142610&sr=8-2, and check out his blog at http://ksgilchrist.com/. My brother Joseph started up his website about a month and a half ago (with a good amount of help from Joel…), and has been writing some really great challenging posts! Check his site out at http://josephgilchrist.com/. Lastly, after quite a few months off from blogging, my brother Daniel has come back onto the scene! He’s also put some really great stuff out there, and you can find his blog at http://dannyboy124.wordpress.com/.

So, as you can see I don’t need to blog anymore!! Haha, no I’m sure I can come up with something to put on here soon! But, for now, check out those blogs and happy reading!!

Happy New Year…again. :)

What does an orange tree, a dying pig, a sticky rice cake, and a cherry blossom tree all have in common?? It’s Lunar New Year of course! Ok, I’m not sure the dying pig really had anything at all to do with what they call TET here in Vietnam; I just know it is hands down the scariest and most disturbing thing I’ve ever heard in my life. I can’t properly describe it without sound effects, so I won’t even try. I just hope none of you EVER have to hear it! However, the orange trees, sticky rice cakes, and cherry blossom trees have MUCH to do with their celebrations. I’m not sure about all the background and I’m sure it’s full of superstitions and strange-ness, but it’s pretty fun to drive down the road and see people picking out their trees! It’s kind of like Christmas tree farms or stands at home, only TONS more and instead of a pine tree, it’s full of oranges or cherry blossoms.

Looks interesting, right??

We tried out the traditional bánh chưng (steamed cake) the other day at one of our English clubs, and it is very interesting. Not bad, but definitely not something I would choose to eat again either. It’s basically a layer of super sticky rice that’s been boiled for a really long time, then a layer of a type of bean curd, then a layer of pork, ending with another layer of super sticky rice. I say super sticky rice for a reason…it is REALLY sticky! There’s not really anything to compare it to in the States…it doesn’t have a distinctive taste of anything I’ve ever tasted before except the bean layer kind of (sort of) takes like some sort of bean dip. Like I said, not really much to compare it to. Every family has this for TET. It’s a specialty and you don’t see it any other time of the year.

For TET, EVERYONE goes home to their family. It’s a couple days before TET right now, and everywhere is busy busy busy, but everyone says that in the next couple of days, the city will die down considerably. There won’t be any traffic, most stores will be closed, etc. It’s pretty much like our Christmas in the States. We’ve also heard there will be fireworks around the city (which I just learned are to drive away the evil spirits…and I always thought they were just pretty lights in the sky!)…yes!

I’m going to be volunteering for the week at a bakery/cafe here in the city. Most of their workers are going home and they’d rather not close for the whole week, so a few of the people who work there that attend HIF asked for some volunteers! I’m looking forward to it! It will be nice to be back in a semi-fast paced environment (maybe not as crazy as good old Ruby Tuesday could get, but it will be something!).

That’s all for now! Chúc Mừng Năm Mới everyone!

Resolutions…not so much.

Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!!

I know, I know, I’ve been neglecting this blog in a massive way. It’s mostly because the last month and a half has been super hard – between homesickness and culture shock, I’ve been getting hit hard. I haven’t been too keen on the idea of filling up this space with a bunch of bloggage (blogging and garbage put together if you didn’t follow my new word). I’m not past all of the garbage yet, but I’m not here to tell you all about it.

Christmas was spent in northern Vietnam where the mountains are ginormous and the views are incredible! Of course we missed
our families, but it was a beautiful Christmas out of the city! Since we’ve been back, we’ve been taking it easy and relaxing as many people are on holiday and our office was closed for the week. Tomorrow it is back to our regular hours, and youth group will be starting back up again as well.

Here is a small paragraph that I wrote about Sapa for our Vietnamese class! Sa Pa rấ đẹp! Chị thích gà nường. Gà nường rất ngòn còn anh Joel thích vịt nường. ỏ Sa Pa có nhiều người dân tộc. Thị trấn rất nhỏ và lạnh. Sa Pa rất nhiều sương và nhiều núi. Thời tiết ở Sa Pa rất đẹp. Chúng tôi dến bản Cat Cat. Bản Cat Cat rất nhỏ và nhiều con vât. Chúng tôi ở khách sạn Boutique Sa Pa. Giá cả ở khách sạn nay không dát quá, cón rất dẹp. Chị thích Sa Pa! Got all that??

Joel has been working really hard on his new website. You should definitely check it out at http://joelberthet.com. My favorite post so far is this one http://joelberthet.com/2010/12/goodbye-worry-im-a-son/. Check it out!

I have to say that I’ve never really been a new year’s resolutions kind of girl. I just never got into it. I think I make more resolutions throughout the year than I ever do at the beginning of the year. The picture to the right does not imply that I don’t think new year’s resolutions are right by any means! They’re just not my thing. Do any of you have unique resolutions you’ve made for this year??

Thailand – In a (not so) nutshell

Well, we got back from Thailand last Wednesday, and it was awesome!! We travelled a LOT around the country through various forms of transportation! From taxi to plane to bus to car to motorbike to elephant to ox cart to bamboo rafts, tuk-tuks and trains, we did it all! Altogether we did about 36 hours of travel time! I’ve split this blog up into 3 sections since I had so much to write, so if you can’t read it all in one sitting, hopefully you can get to it all at some point!

Phetabun
Our first stop was at a children’s village in Phetchabun (pronounced Petch-a-boon). It was a really great place! There are about 95 kids living there full-time, and the ministry focuses on children who have been orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, children who themselves have HIV/AIDS, children who are at risk of being sold into the sex-trade, and children unwanted or abandoned because of marriage break ups.

Joel with a couple of boys at Phetchabun

There is also a school attached that has over 1200 students from the surrounding villages in attendance! The government got behind the vision of the ministry and they are able to teach all of the kids for free!
The kids were in school all day while were there and there wasn’t much that needed to be done around the place, so it ended up being a pretty laid-back couple of days for us. We got to hang out and play with the kids after dinner both nights until they had to go in for bedtime. Since we couldn’t communicate much with them, we answered these few questions a LOT: “What’s your name?”,”How are you?”, and “Where are you from”? The girls were so sweet and loved to give and get hugs! I’m pretty sure at one point I had up to 4 girls “doing” my hair all at the same time! Some of the boys decided that “Bekah” was too hard to pronounce, so they decided to call me “Becknam” instead…don’t ask me how that was easier, but whatever!

The second night we were there was one of the girl’s birthdays, so after dinner and playtime we got to go to her house to see her open a couple presents from her sponsors. It was so sweet to see the other girls in the house crowding around to see her gifts.

The first day we were there we sat in on an English class taught by an Australian lady, and then after class we hung out on the school grounds for a bit. Each age group had an hour of what would be our equivalent of Boy/Girl Scouts. The staff at the village told us this is really important for the kids because they don’t have any other kind of organized things…no swim teams, sports leagues, etc.

Kids on the bus after school

We then climbed into one of the buses, which is basically a glorified pickup truck with a roof over the back and benches bolted to the ground to sit on! It was really interesting how some of the houses we passed had nice wood all fitted together and beautiful windows, while right next to it was what we would consider a rundown shack or shed. The staff told us that some people marry foreigners and come back with money to build a nice house. They allow their relatives to have land on their property, but that’s the extent of what they will do to help.

The next morning we headed out to a lady’s house in the area. She lived alone in a house made of old wooden beams loosely fitted together. Just a few weeks ago, she wasn’t walking well at all, but the lady we were with had prayed for her, and she was walking all over the place when we visited! We were able to pray over her stomach because she had been having a lot of trouble with it lately.

Later that day, we attended a “burning”. One of the staff’s grandfather had died earlier in the week, and she invited us to the

Funeral procession

funeral. Funerals for Thai people are more of a social gathering, rather than a time of mourning. They believe that death is just what happens and their spirits have moved on. One of the beliefs we heard about is that people say if someone is very good their spirit goes to the top of the trees, but if they are very bad, they live at the bottom or underneath the trees and jump out at people to scare them. Interesting huh? The whole thing was just kind of eery because you get there and sit on little benches outside in front of the temple where the casket is. The monks go on and on and on chanting who knows what. The people don’t even understand the monks because they speak in a different dialect of Thai. After the chanting is done, a few other rituals take place, then everyone sticks a little sparkler thing on top of the closed casket and then everyone leaves. I’m assuming just the immediate family stays for the actual burning.

Phrae

Me and Future at Phrae Children's Village

Our next stop was in a village called Phrae (pronounced Pray, or Prayer, or Pear, haha). We visited another children’s village there, which had 8 kids ranging from 1-5 year olds. It was a big change from the place we were before, but it was so fun to play with these adorable little kids and actually remember their names! They were so sweet, and we really enjoyed them!

The morning after we got there, we went out with a lady from near there and bought some food from a local market for 2 poor families in the area. The first family we visited was a family of a 14-year-old girl who is living with AIDS. Her parents both have died, and she lives with her grandparents. Her grandma is too sick to work, so her grandfather is gone working a lot of the time – at night he cleans the streets, and during the afternoon he goes through trash bins and tries to find anything of value. We just sat and talked with them for a bit, and they were so thankful for someone to visit them because it doesn’t happen often.

The rest of day we spend relaxing and playing with the kids, and the next afternoon we left for Chiang Mai.

Chiang Mai

I can’t tell you how strongly I recommend going to Chiang Mai if you’re ever in Thailand! We absolutely had an amazing time, and I would go back in an instant!

Us in a tuk-tuk

We got there Sunday evening, piled our luggage into a little tuk-tuk and made our way to our hotel. On our way I just kept looking around in awe of how many tourists there were! I began to wonder if any Thai people lived in the city! After we dropped our stuff off at the hotel, we headed out to Chiang Mai walking street, a HUGE night market probably about a mile long (if not longer) lined with booth after booth of people selling a wide myriad of things. From paintings to soap carvings to jewelry to food and tons more, it was all there! We had a really great time just looking around.

Saturday…oh Saturday…well, long story short, we got ripped off by a tuk-tuk driver who gave us a good deal on taking us around the city but ended up dropping us off at a super overpriced massage place because he would get money for getting people to get massages there. We didn’t, and so we started walking in an effort to find our hotel. Bad move. We ended up lost….miserably lost. We had a map in English, which was great for people who spoke English, but not so great when all of the signs are in Thai and the language does not even resemble English! It was a frustrating 2 hours plus of walking. We finally found a family who knew where we were and where we needed to go. They had us hop on back of their motorbikes and they brought us to our hotel, and would not take any money! Angels, they were angels!

Joel and Mr. Tiger

Saturday was not at all a complete disaster though! The opposite actually. Before the horrible tuk-tuk driver dropped us off in nowhere land, he took us up to Tiger Kingdom!! We got to go in a cage with 3 big (tamed) tigers and pet them…sit next to them, and watch them play! It was so cool..worth the horrible afternoon. Once we finally made it back to our hotel that evening, we regrouped quickly, and headed back out. We ended up getting a wonderfully cheap massage ($5 for an hour-long neck, back, shoulder, head, leg foot…yes please.), having a really great filling dinner, and then browsed around their regular night market. All in all, the day ended quite well!

Tuesday was one of the best days of our lives ever! We have been super blessed and done and seen a ton in our short lives so far, but this was so different from everything else! We headed about an hour out side of the city to an elephant camp. Our day began with watching elephants do things like shoot baskets, kick soccer balls, hit golf balls, and paint. Did you know elephants can paint? Oh, well they can! And better than I can attempt to! After the show ended we got to sit on the elephants bareback (great picture-taking moment), and then we headed off to our next destination. We were then pulled by an ox-cart for about 20 minutes to a little tribal village where all the people try to sell their little things..Oh, and then we were picked up by an elephant. Yeah, no need for limo service here! Our elephant (I think his name was Edward) took us for an hour ride through the jungle and across a river. It was gorgeous with the mountains in the distance and the green, lush jungle all around us! The next part of the day was just as peaceful and beautiful as we took a bamboo raft down the river for about an hour (it was a little longer than it needed to be, but it was still a great time). The next part of the day took us to a snake show where we held pythons and king cobras. I’m not a huge fan of snakes, in fact, I don’t like them at all, but I held them just long enough to snap a picture! The guys who did the show with them were crazy and actually kissed the snakes after they had gotten them out of their cages and all riled up! That was ridiculous and scary to watch!

Fake "I really hate snakes" smile

After 2 days of tigers, elephants, oxen, and snakes, the tour ended at a butterfly/orchid farm. I guess they know that everyone’s hearts need to get settled down before heading back to normal life! THANK YOU big to our families for sending Joel birthday money..we wouldn’t have been able to do all of this without it of course…coolest birthday present ever!

We headed back to Chiang Mai for the evening, grabbed dinner, and went to catch the overnight train back to Bangkok where we flew back to Hanoi the next morning.

On a personal note, using a toilet on a bumpy, speeding train is interesting. Using a “squatty potty” on bumpy, speeding train is whole new experience! Just thought you all would like to share that with me.

Us and Edward the elephant

Busyness or Business?

I know, I know, I haven’t blogged in like 17 days! The last couple weeks have just been pretty mundane, so not much to blog about. I know you’re thinking, “How can life in Vietnam, a country clear across the world, ever be mundane?!” Well, it can. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been busy, but my busyness isn’t blog-worthy. I just tried writing “busyness” as “business” and couldn’t figure out why it looked so weird.

Helping out with English clubs twice a week is making me analyze my English, and I’m realizing how weird our language can be sometimes! We go in and teach lessons on various things such as family, rooms of the house, etc., and trying to come up with ways to explain some of the things that are so commonplace to me has been a real challenge! Joel is super good at it! He talks really slow, and enunciates every word. I am horrible at talking slow…I knew that before I left home, and enunciating my words on top of that?! Forget about it. No, I’m doing my best, but it’s definitely been difficult.

Here is one of our English club groups playing "What room do I belong in!?"

On Tuesday we leave for Thailand. We will be gone for 9 days, and I’m really looking forward to it! We will be working with Mercy International in a couple of orphanages they have in the country. The first place we are going we actually just found out is a place my Dad has visited, and his company funded the building! We are realizing so much more over here how small of a world it really is! After a few days there, we will travel up to another location, stay there for 2 days, and then end up in Chiang Mai for a few days of fun and relaxing.  We’ve heard from quite a few people that this city is very Western, and just a great place to see! We are looking forward to the trip, so be on the lookout for my next blog with details of how it went!

I don't even know what the price of a ticket would be for doing this in the States...any guesses??

By the way, that is completely normal, and I’ve seen kids much smaller hanging on to their parent or standing up in the front part of the bike hanging on to the handlebars…I don’t think that will ever be normal to me!

Have a look at Joel’s blog  for our latest fun (not so funny) food story!

Deep and Light

We interrupt our normally scheduled lighthearted blogpost to bring you a deeper, more important message:

Yesterday was a really, really rough day. Culture shock is very, very real. Thank God (literally) that He is faithful and knows exactly who I am and what I am going through.
Please be praying for my family. I have felt so strongly today that there is such an attack on all of us even though some of us are in different places. From physical issues, to surgeries, to concussions, to car problems, to stress and pressure, to deep heaviness and doubts, my family has really been going through it. You probably won’t hear us talk about it much and I’m not even putting it out there for pity or worry from anyone, but please war in prayer for all of us. I’ve heard wise people say that when there is an attack in the way of trying to keep one from doing what they are called to do, it means you are probably headed in the right direction. Something like that anyways…
I know some of “my readers” wont understand all of that, and that’s ok.

We now return to our regularly scheduled lighthearted blogpost:

Joel has finally reached the wise age of 25! Happy Birthday to him! On Monday, the day before his birthday, we decided to take a day trip up into the mountains! Our destination: Tam Dao National Park. The trip there took longer than we expected it to. Much longer. On our way up the mountain, we immediately noticed the change in the air: FRESH AIR!! We kept taking huge breaths, and probably looked like freaks as we passed other motorbikes on the way. Oh well. It felt so wonderful to get out of the city for a while and see so much nature all in one place! By the time we got to the top, it was already close to dark, and we did not want to make the trip back without really knowing where to go. We decided to stay the night, and found a hotel room for $15 with a beautiful view! Thankfully, there was a complimentary toothbrush!
For dinner, we walked to a little restaurant down the street. The menu was naturally all in Vietnamese, and so we asked for “gà”, one of the only food words we know. It means chicken…and chicken is what we got. Complete with every single part of the chicken…eyes, head, intestines, hair, and a little of the more normal meat we are used to. I took a few bites of the most normal looking part and then pretty much lost my appetite. Haha, I guess maybe we need to learn a few more words!
All in all, the trip was a success! Beautiful air, quaint little town at the top of the mountain, and beautiful scenic views! We went up and down 353 steps to find a waterfall, and then up and down THOUSANDS of steps to get to a tower at the top of the mountain. I didn’t make it all the way…Joel did, and there was NO VIEW! That was a let down, especially since going back down was so wet and slippery I felt like I was ice skating down the steps!

We made the trip back in half the time. The long, warm shower right after I walked in the door was divine, and Joel’s birthday dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant was fantastic! Happy Birthday my love!

Here are pictures from the weekend: http://on.fb.me/cw60jI (Sorry, having troubling linking it…just copy and paste link into browser)

We have been here for 2 months this week. Crazy!

1,000 Years and Norah Jones

Xin chào tất cả mọi người! (Hello everyone!),

Today, I got my hair cut. Seriously, amazing. It was more of an experience than anything! I sat down and put my head back in the tub, and was transported to a land of wonderfulness! With Norah Jones softly crooning in the background, the little ladies fingers began to massage my head and temples and behind my ears..what? It was so relaxing and lasted for an incredible 20 minutes! I don’t know how I’ll ever go back to a wash & trim at the nearest JCPenney salon ever again! I wanted to hug the little lady when I got up, but I thought that might freak her out a little. Oh yeah, the hair cut looks pretty good too.

Other than that, we have just been keeping busy busy busy! Last Saturday, we visited an HIV orphanage, and it was so amazing to hang out with these kids and see how they are mostly all so happy with so little. I visited the babies house, which was my absolute favorite. Just holding and loving on those babies…there is nothing like it.

OK, so I know you can’t tell from the picture, but about 5 minutes before taking it, I had this baby laughing hysterically!! I wish I could have gotten video of it, because it was precious, but he really was happier than he looks to be taking a picture with me!

Right now we are in the middle of a 10 day celebration of the 1,000 year anniversary of Hanoi! Traffic is crazier than ever (if you can believe it) in certain parts of the city, and there are little festivals going on all week! We got to drive around the other day and saw some people practicing for the kite festival that is coming up, and about a thousand kids practicing for a martial arts production that we tried to go to later that night.

We went and sat in the stadium with a lot of other Vietnamese people! We were the ONLY foreigners in the whole place, and we had no idea what the announcers were saying whenever they would come on. We got our cue that it was cancelled when everyone else started leaving! Haha, it was an adventure, that’s for sure!

This Sunday 10/10/10 is the actual anniversary and there will be a parade with about 12,000 people in it during the day, and then that night there will be fireworks at 4 different locations around the city. These people know how to celebrate!!
Of course, it did cost the government 4 billion dollars…sad. Our tutor was telling us about all the money they spent on it, and said it made her sad because so much of the money could have gone to hospitals and schools instead!

Tam Biet!

Pollution prevention – check.

So, I am now a new member of the pollution prevention club!

Here is my daily look pre-pollution prevention…

And here I am with my new pollution prevention mask! Scary huh??

Big thanks to my new friend Anna (pictured below) for helping me get a good organic one with a filter in it!

Thanks to those who commented on my last blog with things you’d like to see on here..I will try to incorporate that into my future blogs!

The last couple weeks have been pretty busy! We are implementing more things into our daily lives, and getting into more of a routine!

Riding by motorbike everywhere has really started to become something we like! It gives us more of a chance to explore and see what’s around us. I’ve also taken to people watching, and my newest game is to count the seconds in between each honk I hear. The average so far is about five seconds!

In the past week our power has gone out a couple of times, which we have heard is pretty normal. Sometimes it will go out just for a few minutes, and then other times it will be for a couple of hours. So far it has thankfully been on days that aren’t too hot, so it’s only gotten a little stuffy in our apartment, but nothing too bad.

Oh! Remember how I said that the geckos just stay outside and don’t bother us too much? Well, the other day I was washing dishes and I picked up a plate and out from underneath squirmed out a gecko!! I screamed, and probably made the little thing go deaf. Joel had no idea what was going on, so after I told him he tried to find it, but to no avail. Since then, we have seen a few running around the house up on the wall near the ceiling. We have tried to shoo them back outside, but they come back during the night. Our bedroom door stays shut! I try to tell myself they are good and eat the bugs, but I just don’t like them inside so much.

That’s all for now!

P.S. The picture at the top of my blog is from a St. Lawrence River sunset….but we have pretty sunsets here too!!

Your Turn!

So, I have a few things I could share today, but I think I’ll save it for another blog.
I want to turn this blog back on you!
Are there any specific questions that you have??
Anything you would like to know about daily life here??
Is there anything specific you would like to see written in this blog for the next few months??
What kind of pictures would you like to see here??

I really am interested in what you’d like to read! So, let me know!

I will leave you with one story. The other day while riding home from the office on our motorbike (which has GREATLY increased my prayer life…), I looked over to the bike passing on our left and a pig’s head looked back up at me! The guy on the bike had an entire pig’s head in between his legs, and then hanging across the back of his motorbike was the rest of the carcass of the pig. They say if you walk around Hanoi at 5AM you will hear pigs squealing! Sorry pig lovers, you won’t get far here!

Motorbikes and so on…

Well, we are into our third week here in good ol’ ‘Nam (as Mr. Hayner would say it)! The past weekend was pretty relaxing for me, but very busy for Joel!

We got a motorbike! That is a huge answer to prayer, and will help us to get around with a lot more ease! Joel is the only one driving it so far, mostly because it’s a semi-automatic, and that’s a little more involved than I’m ready for. If you haven’t yet, go to YouTube and type in “Hanoi traffic”. You’ll see why I’m a little nervous about driving. I’m a daredevil by nature, but I’d like to practice on a back road just outside of Depauville first! ☺ (Umm, my spell-checker just said that Depauville was spelled wrong, so I looked to see what the options were, and the only one was “Doraville”. How did Doraville make it in there?! ) Anyways, Joel rode around all afternoon on Saturday – first he went and purchased the bike, then went and bought a helmet, a storage compartment, and gas! He got lost a little bit which is not at all hard to do! He is the best husband in the whole wide world. I’m happy to ride with him driving me everywhere for now.

Joel and I are really excited to work with the youth here for the next few months! We’ve had a few meetings this past week with the youth, the youth leaders, and then on Sunday all the parents of the youth. Overall, it’s just been exciting to all get on the same page and feel like we are already accomplishing something just in unifying everyone to meet a specific goal.

The other night we had our first Vietnamese lesson. Wow! It’s going to be a challenge to learn all of the different tones, but our teacher is very helpful and patient. At least for our first lesson she was! ☺ I’m sure we sound like crazy people trying to pronounce all of the words with their tones and everything, but oh well! If it helps us get around with more ease, I am all about it!

Funny story for the week: Some of you may have already heard this, but the other day Joel got into a taxi and proceeded to put his seatbelt on. The taxi driver would not let him! He just kept shaking his head and saying, “No, no, no”! Joel couldn’t figure it out, so later he asked the youth at our meeting why the guy would be doing this. They said it speaks badly about his driving if you have to put a seatbelt on. He was so confident in his driving ability that he wouldn’t let Joel buckle up! HA!

Hope you all are doing wonderfully! Feel free to drop me an email at rberthet521@gmail.com with anything that’s new in your life!

Here it is!

Here is Joel on the bike in the alley right outside our gate!