A chance to do some good, kind of

Last Monday as we nervously waited to attend our Visa interview, we wandered around the city streets for a while, wasting time. Upon our return to the hotel, John noticed a group of retired couples visiting inthe lobby, happily speaking 'utah english'. This is, I believe is a true language, and is worthy of its own post, but not now. Anyway, John recognized the familiar speak and interjected to the group that he thought they might be mormons. They were flabbergasted, and replied in the affirmative. Then John admitted that he was a mormon too-and they had a little chuckle. Our religion is wonderful, and like all others, it comes with its own little culture. You kinda have to hang around mormons to "get them" in some ways, because our faith is our life. It is who we are, and it pervades all parts of what we do(hopefully in a way that honors our belief in a loving God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ). What a funny coincidence to meet other mormons in a hotel lobby inHanoi! So, having made introductions all around we learned that these were a group of service missionaries, volunteers from our church who are in the country to perform service. They do not proselyte, in fact they even promise that they will not mention the name of Christ or their religion in any of their charitable acts. They simply go about doing good. This year, our church re-built a school in Hue that had been destroyed by a hurricane. These missionaries oversaw the building of that school, and just attended its dedication. They have worked hard to provide over 1000 wheel chairs to victims of agent orange this year. They work to provide help to orphanages, and they volunteer as teachers to students wanting to learn English. They are couples whose kids are grown, but who want to give their time in improving the world. They support themselves while on their missions, and they miss important and wonderful things like the birth of a new grand baby or the graduation of a child from college. Their entire families sacrifice so they can give 18 months of their time to better this world. And I want to be just like them when I grow up.

Tonight, I got a tiny taste of what that will be like. Sister Berry, one of the missionaries, invited me to help her teach an English class to a small group of teenagers. She wanted me to bring Lucy, and to converse with the kids about adoption, what it is and how it has affected our lives for good. I felt so happy that I could do some thing to contribute to the people of this country in any way, and just to feel useful, I was thrilled to be invited. We drove from the hotel to a small building where we waited for the students to arrive. These kids range in age from 13 to17, and they are Vietnam's best and brightest in my opinion. Their parents sacrifice and work so they can attend school during the day, and then they have sought opportunities to learn English at night. I believe our church's charity funds this class, or subsidises it at least, so the expense is at a minimum. But the kids have to work hard, and they are coming along very nicely. One of the girls is an accomplished pianist. One of the boys is a son of chemistry teachers, and hopes to follow in his parent's footsteps one day. You get my drift, these are kids who want to get some where, and they are not afraid to work in order to get there.

They are also beautiful, and very fun.

We had a great time, I spoke a lot about Lucy. I showed them pictures of all my kids (one of their questions was what did I do for a living...they simply could not get the concept that my job was to be home-no mother in Vietnam is afforded the luxury ofstaying home with her children. How blessed I am). They were kind and spoke of how beautiful my family is and how nice my husband must be. It was a very enjoyable hour. Part of the class was spent explaining the process of adoption. Some of the kids didn't even know what adoption was. Sister Berry had thought this might be the case. She has made a promise not to share her religious beliefs, but my opinion is that she hoped the kids would see in our experience with Lucy as an alternative to the very often encouraged alternative to adoption, abortion. So we spoke of how glad we were to have Lucy become part of our family.And how much I admire Lucy's mom for making the choice to complete the pregnancy and try to give Lucy abetter life by placing her with the orphanage where we could adopt her. I wondered what the kids thought of it all-I learned a great deal from them.

In the end, I took their pictures with Lucy-wish I could post it but it doesn't work from Hanoi. They thanked me for coming and promised to email me and write me letters. They seemed to be glad I had been there.

But I was the one who was glad. Glad to see the best of Vietnam sitting in a small classroom. Glad to see joy in the hopes of teenage kids, glad to hear themtry something hard as they speak a foreign language totheir peer group. Glad to remember that staying home with my kids isn't a conceivable career choice for 90% of the world's mothers, and glad to have felt that sticking around Hanoi for a few days might not be in vain. I'm definitely the one who got the education tonight.