Various initiatives are underway to improve employment and educational prospects among the poor. The Ho Chi Minh City council has an ambitious plan to eradicate poverty by 2010. Farming and animal husbandry is being restructured to favor small holdings on the city's outskirts. Small loans are offered to support and expand handicraft initiatives in villages. Young people are also given loans to attend new vocational courses and improve their employment prospects. A partnership with the manufacturing and export industries retrains people as skilled factory workers. The national minimum wage, VND 450,000 per month (£14.00), may be increased on 1 October this year if proposals currently under discussion are ratified. (These are minimum wages. For comparison, a new graduate in the city will start at about £100 a month and that can increase by about £50 each year. A 30-year-old could typically have a salary of £500-£800 a month. Incomes for the educated are increasing rapidly, leaving the poor further behind.)

Dong Ha Township recognized that 120 of 700 school-aged children skipped class to help support their families. These families really need the VND 10,000 (32p) that a child might make selling vegetables in the market every day. A free night school was started in the house of a kind villager and is staffed by teachers from the local primary school. Up to 50 children faithfully attend no matter how tired they feel after working all day. The curriculum is based on practical examples of vegetables and fish, and improved skills in arithmetic are useful for the students' daily activities.

Education, the pearl of great price
Mr TM lives with his wife in a rice growing area in Central Vietnam, near the old capital city, Hue. They have three children, a son studying engineering at University and two daughters in high school. Mrs M's meager income selling rice porridge and noodles from dawn till dusk is enough to feed the family and buy medicines for her 91-year-old mother. When not at school, the girls fund their own tuition by selling drinks at construction sites, and they also help their mother prepare the rice and noodles.

To pay the monthly university fee of VND 1 million for their son, Mr TM and his wife take out a loan for half the sum, and it is up to Mr TM to find the rest - a remarkable effort considering that he has no legs, no left arm, and only three fingers on his right hand (a result of 18 successive amputations due to blocked arteries). He is a wandering troubadour, pushing himself on a roller donated by relatives and friends. His neighbors also lent him VND 1 million to buy a loudspeaker and a microphone. A week-long trip traveling through the markets of Central Vietnam might earn him VND 200,000-300,000. 

'Everything is done for the sake of the children. I don't want my children's lives to be as hard as my own. They must live better,' he says.

University Group
Four Christian girls attending the same university have formed a Bible study group. The group has been meeting quite regularly, with a fifth girl joining in. The leader, who previously didn't know the others, had already been leading a similar small group elsewhere, and was longing to find other Christians on campus.

• Pray on! Please God, may many more groups spring up on campuses all over Vietnam! Pray for this group, asking that the girls would learn to trust each other, and share deeply and openly. Pray for one who does not attend regularly and whose faith does not seem strong. Especially remember the leader as she plans everything, as well as their external facilitator. Continue to pray for wisdom and discretion for all, and for the Lord's protection.

How do you ask your Buddhist teacher to translate 'God is a triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit'? If you learn the wrong terminology now, you could seriously confuse any seekers you talk to in the future. On the other hand, you could attend a weekly Bible study at a Vietnamese church, diligently prepare for the next week's lesson, and pray that the initial blur of words will soon start to make sense.
 

• May God bless the efforts of those new to Vietnam, seeking to learn Vietnamese so that they can clearly speak of Him.

It's been a long, hot summer. Over 10 bushfires have ravaged the forests outside Ho Chi Minh City in the past months. Pray for relief from the drought.

How much can you fit into one hour? Eat lunch, chat, study the Bible, all in the watchful atmosphere of the company canteen.

• Give thanks for the faithfulness and growth of the employee who meets weekly with her mentor over lunch. Pray for another friend who attended an introductory study, but has since made excuses about joining them again. May God rekindle her initial interest in seeing 'how the Bible fits together'.

Masters and PhD graduates - Vietnam needs YOU! Universities are on a massive recruitment drive for highly-qualified lecturers in nearly all disciplines, as the number of staff with post-graduate qualification affects, among other thing, a university's rank. Teaching can be conducted in English, and early retirees under 65 are also welcome. Younger staff who use innovative teaching methods and web-based resources are especially popular with the students, and are sought after for advice on life matters, studies, and even fashion! Imagine what you could share with students as you read and comment on their blogs, and they read yours.

• May the Lord raise up Christians with a heart for evangelism and discipleship among students, and with the necessary qualifications and passion for teaching.