Christmas in Vietnam

Q: What do a bunch of cute kids, a freaky Santa face, a swivelly computer chair, a Swedish tea ring and the game "Bananagrams" have in common?

A: They're all featured in Steven and Joelle's 2009 Christmas From Vietnam video! Check it out.

Steven & Joelle Christmas 2009 - Vietnam from Steven Shetterly on Vimeo.

(You should probably watch it full screen and in HD to get the full effect.)

You have entered...the Economic Development Twilight Zone

This holiday season has been a full, busy, but great time for us as we've had a chance to share about Christmas and our reasons for celebrating it with hundreds of excited students. It's really quite impressive to look at the holiday from an outsider's perspective--just how much effort and money we as Americans pour into Christmas. No other holiday even comes close. No wonder people around the world are fascinated with it.

In addition to trying to explain Christmas to everyone, we've been doing all our 'normal' stuff--teaching classes, hanging out with students, going to the market, meeting with teammates, etc. etc. etc.

We've been busy, so it was with no small amount of enthusiasm that we woke up last Saturday, saw that it was going to be a relatively cool (less than 85 degree) day, and decided to get on our bikes and flee town. The trip we took was one that we had been planning for a long time--one that would only really be possible in cooler weather, due to the time and distances involved. It was, as it turned out, a trip into Utter Weirdness.

We started by riding across town to the Thi Nai bridge--currently the longest bridge in Vietnam at about two miles. The bridge was built across a big lagoon which lies behind the peninsula that Quy Nhon occupies. It was constructed for the express purpose of connecting Quy Nhon and its port to another, larger peninsula on the other side of the lagoon which is slated to become the Nhon Hoi Economic Zone (take a look at the map below, if that helps).

Since real estate on Quy Nhon's narrow peninsula is in short supply, it made sense in someone's mind (or pocketbook) to encourage industrial development on this other peninsula in an area resembling the Sahara desert, with towering sand dunes and little else. The result was a kind of weirdness which seems unique to East Asian countries with centrally-planned economies.

The best way I can describe it is as a cross between the setting of a 1960s "last man on earth" sci-fi movie and Alice in Wonderland. Roads that go nowhere, creepy deserted warehouses, concrete animal statues--this place has it all. Upon reaching the far side of the bridge we found out that our camera batteries were low, so we weren't able to take very many pictures. But take a look at what we did capture, and I'll try to let the pictures do most of the talking.

Here we see the Thi Nai bridge in the background and a fit young man with a sweet steel-frame bicycle. (No it's NOT a girl's bike. All the bikes in Vietnam have the angled cross-bar like that. They really do.)

Our first discovery when we reached the far side of the bridge was an exciting one. At the base of the bridge, some sort of resort was under construction. And as anyone who's been to Southeast Asia knows, no high class resort is complete without a menagerie of concrete animals to "enhance" the natural landscape. In this case, the animals were dolphins (apparently being launched into the air by an underwater explosion of some sort) and seals...

...harpooned seals...

...with holes in their heads...

...and giant swans.

Leaving our animal friends behind, we moved further into the Nhon Hoi Economic Zone, past a huge (deserted) gas station, and a (deserted) strip mall with billiards tables, a cafe, and a karaoke bar. We entered an area with big roundabouts and massive six- and eight-lane, newly paved roads...

...many of which dead-ended in sand dunes...

...all of which were almost completely deserted and half covered with sand.

In fact, the only economic development we saw in the Economic Development Zone (apart from the deserted gas station, half-constructed resort, and empty strip mall) were some big warehouses that must have taken a beating in the two big storms this year; the majority of their roofs were lying in pieces scattered about on the sand beside them.

After some further biking on deserted six-lane highways through the dunes, we came to the little fishing village of Nhon Ly. To reach the village you have to bike past a massive graveyard that's probably as big as the village itself. Graves stretch across the dunes for perhaps a half mile before you actually come to the village. Kind of creepy.


Nhon Ly village was a friendly little place with narrow, winding streets and some nice-looking (though not-so-clean) beaches. But it's a long ways from nowhere.

All told it was a good, worthwhile trip--if not for its scenic beauty then for its sheer oddness and its glimpses of another side to life in a quickly-changing country.

Chance of a White Christmas: Nil

This morning I got an email from my dad with a picture of my parents' house in the newly-fallen snow of last night's flurries. A quick check of the weather back in Washington shows lows in the teens and highs in the 20s and 30s for the next few days. A white Christmas looks like a real possibility.

And here in Quy Nhon? Well, we've got lows in the teens and highs in the 30s too. Just look:

Oh, wait. That would be 30 degrees Celsius. Yeah, sunny and upper 80s for the highs most days in these parts. Last year at this time we were smack in the middle of the rainy season, but there's nary a drop to be seen for the next week here at least.

That hasn't prevented us from getting in the holiday spirit, though. Thanksgiving/Christmas is a great time of year not just because of good food, packages from home, nice music and the presence of minty things in the house. It's also a great time to share with students.

This year, for instance, we celebrated as close to a "real" Thanksgiving as we could with several of our close student friends. Joelle made a ton of food, we read the Thanksgiving story, played some games and had a generally great time.

Then, two days later, we did it all over again, this time with our teammates Jill and Jason and some other foreign friends. Watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles while eating homemade pumpkin cheesecake and apple pie brought a fitting and familiar end to the Thanksgiving festivities.

After Thanksgiving, of course, it's time to get ready for Christmas. Though we settled for a miniature fake tree last year, we went all the way and opted for a real, live one this year. And when I say "tree," I mean, of course, "small ornamental shrub." That's right--for about $1.75 we went out and purchased one of those 70s-era evergreen shrubs that take over people's flowerbeds and are all prickly and usually give you rash if you brush against them. Nothing says Christmas like a 70s-era prickly rash-inducing ornamental shrub, right? Most people in the States who had those particular shrubs came to their senses in the early 90s and tore them out, but in Vietnam there still seems to be a market for them. In any case, it works fine and it's about as close as we're gonna get to the real thing. One nice, familiar holiday surprise was the poinsettia we were able to purchase at the same time.

Thus, with some rearranging of our room, the addition of some lights to the windows and a few other decorations here and there, we've got a room outfitted for Christmas. And if we turn both of our AC units on, you just might be able to close your eyes and imagine Jack Frost himself nipping at your nose.

Of course, one thing we'll never be able to replicate here are all the friends and family we've left back in the chilly, dark US of A. So, while we love Quy Nhon and are looking forward to sharing Christmas with our Vietnamese friends, we will be missing all of you and thinking about you lots.

Local adventures

For a more complete set of pictures relating to this story, check out our photo album.

So far this year our schedule hasn't allowed for any far-ranging trips into the hinterlands of Vietnam. (We'll save those for when we have visitors here with us), but we have been able to get to know the area around Quy Nhon a little better and that's been a very good thing.

A random encounter with a Dutch tourist looking to explore the surrounding area provided the motivation for Joelle to organize a trip with a couple of the girls she tutors. They headed about an hour out of town to a 'natural area' called Ham Ho--a river with some cool, sculpted rocks--and then hit up some Cham towers on the way back to town. The Cham people lived in this part of Vietnam long before there was a Vietnam--they were a Hindu culture from India that once ruled a good portion of Southeast Asia. The area encompassing Da Nang, Nha Trang and Quy Nhon was their main center of operations in Vietnam. There are still some hilltop towers left in the area to remind us of what once was. (Not quite Angkor Wat, but still pretty cool.)

The next day we hopped a bus with our friend, Phung, and headed out to her hometown in the same general vicinity as Ham Ho. Phung lives in the hometown of a guy named Quang Trung (or Nguyen Hue), best known for driving the Chinese out of northern Vietnam and uniting the country under one ruler back in the late 1700s. There's a museum in his honor, which Phung was proud to show us.

We also had a chance to visit with her great family. Phung's grandparents, who spent 14 years living in Louisiana, are now back in Vietnam living with her mother and younger brother (Phung's father passed away in a motorbike accident several years ago, prompting their move back to Vietnam). One of the first things her grandpa did when he saw us was to shuffle into the other room and return with his green card and Louisiana driver's license, which he was evidently very proud of.
Older Vietnamese people--with their pajama suits and comb-overs and beautiful smiles--have a way of just charming the heck out of you and these two were no exception. We loved them pretty much instantly. Now we've got a date to return and celebrate Tet (Vietnamese New Year) with them, which should be a hoot.

Oh yeah, and while visiting Phung's hometown, Steven had to ride around on a ridiculously small bike, much to the amusement of Joelle, Phung, and everyone else on the street who saw him.

Tropical Storm Mirinae

On Monday, November 2nd, Tropical Storm Mirinae lumbered ashore in central Vietnam, bringing a surprising amount of wind, rain and waves along with it.

Having recently survived Typhoon Ketsana (a Category 2 storm which hit about 200 miles north of us) we weren't really expecting too much from a puny tropical storm like Mirinae. The main difference, however, was that instead of hitting 200 miles away, Mirinae slammed into Phu Yen province, just a few miles south of Quy Nhon.
We weren't the only ones surprised, as this article makes clear. While the wind in Quy Nhon was definitely stronger than Ketsana due to the storm's proximity, it was the rain that we couldn't believe. 600 mm of rain fell in our province in a 24 hour period. That's 23 inches in 24 hours, the heaviest rain here in about 60 years and far above and beyond anything we ever saw in "rainy" Washington State. Since the bulk of the city is built on a fairly sheltered sand spit far from any large rivers, Quy Nhon itself was unaffected by floods but many of the low-lying areas in this part of the country were inundated. So far, 98 deaths have been blamed on the storm, with 20 people still unaccounted for.

Despite everything it threw at us, we stayed safe and dry in our on-campus apartment here (except for the occasional foray outside with ponchos and video camera). Through the entire storm the power never went off and we never ran out of water. The same can't be said for much of the rest of the city, which is currently going on 5 days with no running water. Everyone seems to be taking it in stride, though. Life is basically back to normal in the city, with students attending classes and people back at work.
A friend of ours who had returned to her hometown (about 40 miles from Quy Nhon) to weather out the storm with her family brought back this random and kind of sad story: An old man who lived down the road from her kept 100 pigs on his little farm. As the rains started to fall, he didn't pay much attention--this is Vietnam and it rains a lot here, after all. But by 9 PM the water had risen quickly and washed all of his pigs downriver. A single sow was saved by a man who somehow either hauled it into his boat or towed it to shore. He took it back to the old man and sold it to him for 200,000 VND, or about $12.

And now, if you're not tired of storm videos yet, here's what things looked like from our perspective...

Tropical Storm Mirinae - Quy Nhon, Vietnam from Steven Shetterly on Vimeo.

Peanut butter and jelly, Vietnam style

Sometimes life in general just takes a lot longer in Vietnam. While it's true that we don't have the distractions of TV or cars or Wiis or iPhones to make life complicated, sometimes even really simple things--like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich--can get complicated here. Watch the video below and see what I mean.

How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich...in Vietnam from Steven Shetterly on Vimeo.

(If you're reading this on Facebook and the video isn't embedded, try this link: http://www.vimeo.com/7093323 )

Typhoon video

A short video of Typhoon Ketsana as seen from Quy Nhon--before, during and after. Not quite CNN quality, but you get the picture. (If you're reading this on Facebook you probably don't see the video. Click here to go to it.)

All quiet on the eastern front

Well, that was interesting.

We are alive and quite well after a slight grazing by Typhoon Ketsana. The storm rolled ashore around midmorning, 200 miles to our north, and I'll tell you what--I wouldn't have wanted to be any closer. (If you look closely, you can see "Qui Nhon" down on the bottom half of that big orange-looking storm).


Starting around sundown yesterday, the wind started howling and growling as the storm approached land, and didn't really let up until midafternoon today. Joelle contemplated heading out to the market this morning during a short lull, but abandoned that idea once things really started kicking. It was a good choice, as a ride around town late this afternoon showed--trees all over town had been snapped and tossed before the wind.

During one particularly fierce gust this morning we heard a crash next to our apartment, followed by a sustained chorus of high pitched Vietnamese girl-shrieks. We walked out on our balcony to see what had happened--an 18-inch diameter tree standing in the middle of the students' bike parking lot had snapped and fallen right in the midst of the crowded lot with students all around. It smashed a few bicycles but, to everyone's great relief, no students. Shortly after that, classes were cancelled for the day and the students headed quickly home to ride out the rest of the storm.


Something I had anticipated which didn't materialize (thankfully) was a big storm surge. Our apartment is about 200 yards from the beach and I half expected to see saltwater spray outside our front door this morning. No such luck.

Da Nang and places north of here didn't fare as well. Around 2 dozen people are confirmed dead already and that number will probably rise as news comes out from the more remote areas. Keep them in your thoughts.

I'll end with a collage of the storm's aftermath (click on it for a larger version). Take care, everyone, and stay dry!

Storm update

It's about 11:30 pm (past our bedtime) but we're awake listening to the wind howl outside. After a lull this afternoon, the wind picked up again this evening. There have been some good gusts so far but nothing more severe than a typical stormy November day in Washington.

However, the same can't be said of our friends and teammates, the Farnums, who flew from Hanoi to Da Nang the other day to celebrate their wedding anniversary at a nice beachside resort. Da Nang happens to be directly in the path of the approaching storm--currently a Category 2 with winds around 100+ mph. They've been moved out of their cabin on the beach and put in a hotel about a football field's length away from the beach where they can watch the whole thing go down.

Also, the parents of Mo ("Muh"), a student that Joelle and I got to know last year, live right in the same area. Their house floods regularly as it is, and it looks like this one's going to be worse than normal. She sent Joelle a message this evening telling her that she's very worried for her family. (You can read about our visit to her family's house last year here.) Please keep Vietnam in general and especially the Farnums and Mo's family in your thoughts over the next few days here!

More updates as time, internet and electricity availability allow...

Typhoon Ketsana

Well, the tropical storm which just dumped 13 inches of rain on Manila has beefed itself up to a Category 1 typhoon and is now bearing down on Vietnam's central coast. Currently it's still a ways out at sea but the winds have kicked up and the rain has definitely started.

It's predicted to make landfall near Da Nang, about 200 miles north of us, with 70 to 90 mph winds and lots of rain. The effects here in Quy Nhon shouldn't be nearly as bad. For us, any troubles we experience will probably come from rainfall. It's kind of interesting (and a little scary) to watch the swells roll into the bay here, though. Quy Nhon itself is in a fairly well-protected little cove, but looking out across the bay you can see where the waves roll full-force into the rocks. Powerful stuff--and this is from a fairly weak system a couple hunred miles away.

I'll end with the requisite picture of a palm tree blowing in the wind, and a promise to keep you all updated if anything exciting should happen.

Not quite summer camp

Time for a little snapshot of Vietnamese culture. A visit the other night from one of our friends—a fourth year student that Joelle got to know well last year—provided the insight and pictures for the entry you’re about to read.

One very big difference between Vietnamese college students and North American college students is how the two groups spend their summer vacations. Reaching back into the fog of my distant past, I can recall that an average North American college student might get a summer job, mooch off of mom and dad for a few months, work at a summer camp or perhaps go on a road trip with their friends. While Vietnamese students might take part in similar activities (with perhaps a bit more emphasis on the family side of things), every couple of summers they get to do something quite different from their American counterparts: military training.

Upon graduating from high school, Vietnamese have two choices: They can either continue on to some sort of post-secondary education or they can enlist in the military for two years. Not surprisingly, most of the students whose test scores are high enough choose to continue studying. But those students who do go on to higher education don’t get to fully escape the military. In a sort of accelerated “see what you missed” tour, each class of students has to attend a few weeks of training at least a couple summers out of their university careers.

While the words “military training” might conjure up images of crawling through mud under bands of concertina wire while drill sergeants shout obscenities at terrified trainees, we have been assured numerous times that military training is actually good fun. “We spent most of our time talking and playing cards,” one of the students assured us. “It was a good chance to get to know the other students in my department,” said another. In other words, it’s kind of like summer camp. Except instead of learning how to paddle a canoe or build a good campfire, students might instead learn how to disassemble and clean an AK-47 or successfully spot enemy aircraft at great distances. Merit badges are not awarded, unfortunately.

In the Vietnamese educational system, classes are formed the first year of university and remain the same throughout the four or five years that a student is in college. In keeping with this tradition, classes attend military training together as well. They sleep in the same barracks (at least two to a bed, no doubt), eat the same lousy food, and avoid the same outhouses. Though it might not do a whole lot to prepare them to repel invaders, it builds community and deepens friendships within the students’ classes and departments. And that’s not a bad thing.

From here on we’ll let the pictures—provided by our friend the 4^th year student—tell the story.

Military training lasts from a couple weeks to about a month. Students do morning exercises together, have a couple of instructional sessions and have a bit of homework they need to do each day, but for the most part they've got lots of free time.

If you're observant, you might note that there are a lot of girls here. Boys and girls do train and study together, but this is the Foreign Language department which is about 95% female.

This is Joelle's friend, showing off the sweet barracks where the students stay.

The trainees have to buy their own uniforms. Some of them complained that the military-style pants were too big for them and thus were allowed to wear jeans.

Judging by all of the pictures Joelle's friend showed us, posing for photos in front of the chalkboard was one of the more popular ways for students to pass time at military training.

Students meet each day for "class" under a fig tree. Taking pictures with the figs was also quite popular.

This was the base laundromat. Students wash their own clothes by hand (just as most of them do at home) and hang them up to dry outside. Groups of students stand guard in 1 hour shifts at night to keep anyone from coming and stealing their clothes hanging up outside.

Getting ready to head back to Quy Nhon after an enjoyable couple weeks of training.

We hope you, too, enjoyed this brief glimpse of life for Vietnamese students!

Ways to know you're back in Vietnam

Should you one day wake up to find yourself in the middle of a hot, humid country and you begin to wonder exactly where you are (Belize? Brazil? Bangladesh?) it may be useful to check the following telltale markers to determine whether you are, in fact, in Vietnam.

Marker 1: Whilst walking on the sidewalk, do you find yourself frequently having to avoid motorbikes that don't fit on the street? If so, you may be in Vietnam.


Marker 2: Are shower sandals provided in your hotel bathroom? Are said sandals much, much too small for your feet? If so, you may be in Vietnam.


Marker 3: Whilst standing in your hotel shower, does the showerhead point directly at your belly button? (See "A") At the same time, are you in immediate danger of giving yourself a concussion on the water heater? (See "B") If you answer "yes" to both of these, chances are quite good that you're in Vietnam.


Marker 4: Do you see people taking advantage of a road flooded by an overflowing lake to wash off their motorbikes? Further evidence that you may indeed be in Vietnam.


Marker 5: Are you astounded and humbled by the beauty of this place--the sky, the rice fields, the ponds, the people? Have you answered "yes" to each of these questions? Then yes, you can safely assume you've found yourself in Vietnam.


We're baaaaaack...

Some thoughts about train trestles

This entry was written a couple weeks ago while I had a lingering cold and thus had time to sit and ponder things a bit more than usual. I'm just finishing it up now...

Not feeling well but still needing to get out this morning, I took a walk in the 90 degree heat (a la Vietnam) up the road to Cedar Springs, a beautiful retreat center set at the edge of the Cascade foothills. It does the soul good just to stroll through there--stop by the pond, check out the flowers, and cool off in the shade of the giant cedars which give the place its name.

Today's walk also took me to an old railroad bed and out onto a trestle which spans a deep, forested gorge. Normally I'm in such a hurry to get somewhere that I walk across it without really thinking about it. Today, I stopped. And looked down. And felt a bit dizzy.

It really is a strange thing, being suspended a hundred-plus feet up in the air on a timber structure that was built over a century ago by people long dead and buried. To be clear: I'm not one of those weird railroad-obsessed guys who spend all their free time putting together model trains and watching documentaries about the specs of different sorts of steam engines. But when you stop and consider for a moment, you really do have to be impressed by the sheer engineering and logistical feat that is a train trestle. The fact that people using little more than some pulleys, maybe a steam donkey (whatever that is) and a lot of elbow grease could build something so massive and structurally sound is astounding.

One of the most impressive things about a trestle is the number of relatively small support beams that hold the whole thing together. I'm no engineer, but I would venture to say that, by itself, a single beam can't do a whole lot. I suppose you could toss it across a ditch and ride your bicycle over it if you were so inclined, but I wouldn't try driving a train (or a tricycle, for that matter) on it. Yet as the individual beams are bolted to the structure they become part of a system that, a hundred years down the road, still serves as a pretty dang good bridge.

I didn't linger too long on the trestle (lest someone see me and think I was a weird 'railroad guy') but as I walked home I was struck by how this was an object lesson for the work Joelle and I have been doing in Vietnam.

As I've supported cross-cultural workers in the past, I've sometimes wondered if my individual prayers to the Father or the small amount I'm able to give them each month really make much of a difference. Perhaps some of you have wondered the same thing as you support our work in Vietnam. From my vantage point now, I can answer that question with a resounding YES.

Just as a train would never have been able to cross that gorge at Cedar Springs without the support of those hundreds of individual beams, so Joelle and I would never be able to work and serve in Vietnam in our current capacity without the prayers and financial support of so many of you. Your petitions to the Father on our behalf and your sacrificial giving are not only appreciated--they're absolutely essential to the work that's being done.

As we prepare to return to Vietnam in just a few days now (August 19th!) we are very conscious of that, and thankful for the support we've received from all of you. Thanks!

Blogger, meet Facebook

Okay, so it's really a simple process and I don't know why I haven't done it before, but I just wanted to officially announce that new posts to our Vietnam blog (http://sjsvietnam.blogspot.com) will now appear--by means of some fantastic cyberwizardry--as new notes on Facebook. Hopefully that way some of my Facebook amigos will be able to better keep up with what we're doing in Vietnam, if they so choose.

That's about it for now. Yep.

Video

In order to show folks what we've been up to for the past 15 months or so, we put together a short (5 minute) video with pictures and some interviews with students. It's focused mostly on the teaching aspect of our work over there, and though you're hopefully aware that our focus is broader than simply teaching English, we hope it gives a good glimpse of what we've been doing and what some of the students are like.

So, click and enjoy. Also, please note that there should be a new blog entry with more information about our summer directly below this entry, published just a short time before this one. Two entries in one day, you ask? Yes. That's what happened.

Family, Friends, Fundraising

We're about halfway through our two and a half month visit back in the States and it seems an appropriate time to take a look back at what we've done so far and a look forward at what's to come. While it might not be as exciting and exotic as hearing about what's been going on in Vietnam, we still think it's important stuff.

First for some of what we've been up to so far:

• Our first several days back were a bit rough, with Steven suffering the one-two punch of jetlag and some stomach thing he'd picked up on the journey home. Here's what that time looked like for him:

• Soon enough, though, everyone was feeling great and good times with family and friends ensued. We especially enjoyed getting out into the gorgeous North Cascades and doing a little camping and hiking with Rachel (Joelle's older sister), Seth and their two boys. Vietnam's mountains are beautiful, it's true, but there's something about the forested valleys and snowcapped peaks of the Cascades that can't be matched.

• Steven's parents recently bought a house and made the move from Oregon up to southwest Washington. We've made a couple of trips down to visit them and help with a few projects, including laying a sweet new floor in their kitchen.

• Toward the end of June, Joelle's younger sister Bethany returned to the States for a visit after eight months living and teaching in Egypt. Globetrotters that we are, we had last seen her in Thailand in January of this year. The reunion was a good one, made even better by the fact that we stopped at Gordito's Burritos in Seattle on our way back from the airport. Where else can you get a burrito that three grown adults can share, eat their fill, and still barely finish?

• The end of June brought the beginning of Joelle's 29th year of life, a birthday she shares with brother-in-law Seth. And since Bethany was in Egypt over her birthday in May, she joined in for a triple birthday extravaganza.

• When the birthday really got rocking, Seth, Steven and Will donned galabaya, a traditional Egyptian outfit that Bethany had brought back for them. Will's, unfortunately, was a tad small on him.

• Being a contractor, Joelle's dad has ready access to 100-foot rolls of vapor barrier black plastic. Add sprinklers, a hill, a big bottle of hand soap from Deals Only, a warm sunny day and you have...The Mother of All Slip-n'-Slides.

• Finally, the 4th of July arrived with unusually gorgeous weather which gave us the chance to head up to Mt. Baker with some of the fam and go hiking in the glory of creation once again before coming down to enjoy fellowship, food and (of course) fireworks.

So that's what we've been up to (at least some of the more exciting stuff), but what lies ahead? While we can't be 100% sure, we do know a few things: One needed focus for us is fundraising; though we had a surplus in our account when we left for Vietnam, due to some generous one-time gifts, we currently have a significant shortfall in our monthly support budget. We're trusting--as we have before--that if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing, the money will come in. Thus far, the one who called us has been faithful in providing everything we need to live and work, and we've no reason to believe He's going to change now.

As far as "our part" in everything, we'll be speaking at a couple of fellowships and, if you get our newsletters, you'll have the chance to either begin or renew a monthly support pledge. If you're in the area and would like to meet to discuss any of this (or just to have some coffee and catch up) we'd be happy to do that. You can reach us by email at steven.shetterly (at) elic (dot) org or call us at 988-4038. We'll be around Whatcom County until the middle of August.

In related exciting news, it's now possible to donate to our work in Vietnam online, using either a credit card or checking account. If that sounds interesting, you can click here for more information.

Have a spectacular summer and thanks for reading and keeping up with what we're doing. It means a lot to us!