Sunday, May 1,
2005
has been set aside as the
International Day of Prayer for Vietnam.
This year the focus is on Vietnam's Most Unreached.
The article below is taken
from the website.
For more information go to
www.pray4vn.com and
click on the
Day of Prayer link.
In the poorest provinces
north of the centre of Vietnam hope is in short supply.
Employment is hard to come by and a secure wage is beyond
hope for most. This causes the drift to the city.
In
Saigon you will find a tightly-knit group of people from the
province of TH living close together in poor dwellings. They
work in various occupations on the street such as shoe
shining and selling lottery tickets, newspapers, paintings
or paperbacks. Although these occupations have no
guarantees, these workers desire the independence and look
to the jackpots of chance encounters with generous clients
and indulgent tourists.
It is 40 hours from their homeland by bus, but nevertheless
the community in HCMC remains connected. It is said that the
very old and the very young remain in the province while the
working population moves out to find work. Because of this,
a portion of the money which is earned in HCMC is channeled
back home to the families.
This small subset of Ho Chi Minh City stick together. When
my shoe shiner friend was beaten up by a group wanting to
monopolize the street, his home town friends were roused
within an hour to fight back for him (if he had wanted). And
when over Tet (Vietnamese New Year) he heard of the death of
his cousins on the road in D, news traveled to TH and then
back to Ho Chi Minh city and throughout the relational
networks within hours.
- How could the Gospel of Jesus enter this community?
Could the Good News spread through these networks in
Saigon all the way back to TH? Pray
- Pray that God will send out harvesters to seek them out
and work out the best way of explaining the gospel to
this displaced community.
