"Girl-Time"

Aimee and I decided to indulge in some “food adventures” during this trip. For dinner this evening we caramelized pear salad, calamari and squid crepes. Yesterday was wild boar chewing gum in curry sauce with fish intestine soup. We were scooping up this fish soup and pouring it over our rice and just loving the pineapple and vegetables when Bao dug down deep to scoop the fish out and said, “Oh no, they left the fish intestines in here”. She even turned up her nose! We laughed so hard! Oh well, it tasted pretty good.

Yesterday, we let the guys choose the menu. They were quite happy with their choices. Our driver and a pastor of the church were pretty funny at the end of the table--licking their chops all through lunch while Aimee and I were not sure if we brought strong enough dental floss to get the boar out of our teeth.

I cannot believe the work that Bao is doing over here. There are a lot of kids being empowered through her work.

We visited a shelter today with twenty kids and they all shared their stories. One little girl (around fourteen-years-old) started crying as she told of her father abandoning them. She said that her mother worked very hard as a maid but still was not able to feed them. She was so happy to be fed and going to school.

One little boy that would not get off my lap was four-years-old. The meaning of his name was “throwaway garbage”. We all voted to change that. I have it written down. His mother is a prostitute who was put in jail. He was being raised by a neighbor who he called “Grandmother”. He is gorgeous (and of course he was tribal).

There were four Cham boys at the shelter and that was cool. It is so sad to hear Bao tell how these tribal children experience so much racism because of their skin color.

Bao and Van are with us and they are in heaven. Van runs one of the shelters. She has around forty kids show up at her everyday. She, along with three caregivers, feed and take care of them. Her husband is a pastor. We are treating these two amazing women to some good “girl-fun”. They work so hard and it such a blessing to bless them.

Our room is right on the South China Sea--a little bungalow. It is perfect. You can look at and see the fishing boats tonight with their lights.

It is absolutely breathtaking.