I wish I could articulate and capture with words what I felt in that instant, but I can't. It's whatever feeling you get when you are confronted with everything you are and everything you're not, and yet everything oppsing is in every way complimenting and you see a glimpse of this thing we call God's perfect and good will. I wanted to say No because I will suffer humiliation. I will be rejected. I can't even speak Vietnamese well; in fact, they speak a different dialect. I will miss out on spending time with the youth. The other part was screaming YES because inside, the peices before the whole picture is finished looked like they were coming together...Why was I in the Czech of all places? I'm a Vietnamese American and I'm here. Hadn't I been asking for boldness? The Spirit inside said, DO IT!...well, the spirit won. This was the new plan: Kha goes into the Vietnamese markets to spread the good news of English Camps. We prayed. And Prayed some more. I spent that night looking up Vietnamese words on Google Translate to relearn some vocabulary. I played probably hundreds of scenarios and ways conversations could go and how I would respond and the words I would use. That night I dreamt even more situations! That morning was a quiet and somber one. I decided to look to the Word for encouragement and continued my reading in Luke 3. Of course, I would read about Jesus being rejected at Nazareth, his home town! I imagined opening an ancient English Camp Scroll and reading it allowed to the market in Vietnamese, and them chasing me down the streets with the cheap machetes they were selling... Great...
Now the reality of the complexity of my anxiety was manifested. I was Vietnamese, who lives in America, but is here in the Czech Republic to teach kids English, and I'm talking to other Vietnamese people who live in Czech to learn English...in Vietnamese...These aren't even teens. These are the old school parents of the teens who just got off the boat!
Me and my team got on the subway that morning and I saw an Asian couple across from us and I decided to warm up some boldness and my Vietnamese. I casually got up...walked around...and ended in front of them. Okay, just say hi and use the conversation starter you memorized. I turned and just regurgitated what I was anxiously holding in. Pause. They looked at each other. Shook their heads. And in a language I assme is Korean siad, I assume, we don't understand you...
Crap...
Wrong Brand...
Well...a good start right? I quickly turned in my mind to Joshua 1:9, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrifed. Do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
I talked to a few dozen shop owners that day. All were kind and gracious to hear my broken Vietnamese and converse with me about English camp. I was warmed and glad to see they were just as Veitnamese as I recalled my own family's personality. Quiet and reserved in the public, but loud and sassy and animated with each other. The Czechs that came with me were so shocked to see that Vietnamese people were quite theatric when they spoke to each other. I was at it for about 3 hours that day. It wasn't easy. I felt drained, and weary throughtout it. I felt as a Stranger crossing paths with these other strangers, suddenly sharing our lives. I felt closer to the Lord in that time unlike any other, just knowing that people were praying next to me, across the ocean, across the barriers of time...it was great.
It may very well be that there will be no fruit will come from that day. But what I experienced and the stories I heard will forever change me.
Like a stranger, who had no idea what human struggle, walking in like some tourist. I have been so disconnected from my own people that I truly felt like this tourist sojourner. Yet they supernaturally felt it safe to share with me. My heart breakds for the struggle these friends face. Many foreigners are tricked into coming to the Czech with the promises of prosperity. They sign some document they can't read, and spend all their money to there, and the document was fake. The are not granted legal permission to stay, and they have no money to get back. A law just passed that prohibits economy seekers so they feign oppression. (Again I feel back at home struggling internally with the same issues). Strangers. I spoke to a 20 year old about how they find themselves working 6am-8pm every day selling sunglasses. I spoke to a women for half an hour about her struggles to make it with some rice in the morning selling cheap lighters and batteries. her kids are all in Vietnam and she has no way of contacting them. She doesn't speak Czech. Vietnamese is already a very depressing language. When they speak sorrowfully, there is a tone of authenticity that I cannot explain that really hits you in the gut with sympathy. It really hurst to listen. I talked to a man who in a gentle voice told me how he's been there for 10 years with his family with three kids, making 100krowns a month. That's about $5. With an economy that departs soley of touris, it's a sad scene. Many teens are working 60/week, never going to school. Yet, they tell me, it's still better than surviving in Vietnam.
They are so bright too. Local Czechs tell me that they are made fun of and marginalized by society because many of them are illegal. I'm also told that there are a handful of them that exceed in school and speak the Czech language than most Czechs. I met a 25 year old who could speak partially 10 different languages to sell purses. He learned it on the internet and spoke great English. But he has no chance to go to school. I met a women who insisted I speak English with her who sold me a bling bling hat. I came to find out that she used to work at an airline, but following her husband, they moved to the Czech. I was drained. But not discouraged. I was so blessed to have the prayers of my team and so many others. I felt like a stranger walking this world on several levels. Eastern Europe. Czech. This small Vietnamese community. I think I felt a little connected to the life of Jesus and the apostles. To wander this earth as a kind of stranger, a sojourner; facing chaos with boldness because home only awaits them.
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