Birthday Abroad

​On Tuesday, April 19th I turned a quarter of a century old! I was a little anxious and nervous to celebrate my birthday abroad, but God really blessed me with great friends here!

I also drove with 3 people (including myself) on a motorbike! 

My birthday celebrations started on Friday. After school my roommate and I went with our coworker to our usual Pizza Company dinner. Then we went to meet up with our friends to get our hair washed. My friend Melody made a brownie for my birthday and we took it with us to the salon. At the salon we talked and got amazing head messages and devoured the brownie :). Here, you can go to a salon and get an hour long hair washing. Yes and it only costs $1.50! It's absolutely amazing!!! I think I have fallen in love and now no longer want to wash my own hair. I could just have someone else wash it for me. LOL. Just kidding, but it was really nice!

On Saturday, I finally went to the Ethnology museum. This is the museum that everyone talks about and you can walk in real houses from different tribes around the country. After the museum we went to Joma for lunch (probably one of my favorite cafes). Then my roommate and I went to a new mall to meet up with a friend from work and her husband. Basically we went to this mall to have Dairy Queen because it is one of the two places that we know to have DQ. After the mall we went to a worship night. This was an answered birthday wish :). God gave me the best present ever! Time in his presence. It was a great time of worship and then there was some awesome fellowship. What a great birthday present!

Sitting at breakfast at Saint Honores.  

On Sunday, my roommate and I had to take our motorbike to the shop because we had 2 flat tires the day before. But this gave us the opportunity to have breakfast at this amazing French bistro called Saint Honores.  After breakfast we went to church and then to lunch with the young adults. For lunch we went to Z Pizza and because we spent so much money (like $50 for 14 people) they gave us 3 free gifts (2 selfie sticks and a draw string backpack). Only in Asia :). After lunch a couple of the young adults went to play an escape game. Basically it's just like the breakout games in Lexington. However this was harder because the clues were in two languages. We didn't break out but it was a lot of fun! I love the people God has put in my life. They truly made this a great day. Then that night, Jen treated me to a movie (The Jungle Book) and ice cream at our local theater. It was another great day in my birthday celebrations!

Z Pizza with the amazing HIF Young Adults! 

Motorbiking it :)  

Our group and the beautiful BaVi mountains! 

On Monday, I joined my roommate and coworker along with 3 local friends, we went to an ancient village about an hour and a half away. We took motorbikes, which was actually a long time but it was so much fun! You get to see so much more when you are out in the open! Once we got to the ancient village we walked around and saw some really old building. It's really cool to see things that are older than America. :). After the ancient village we headed home and then met up with another friend for dinner at a place called Chops. Omg another good burger place. I had a chicken burger with avocado and Brie. O M G. Amazing! I can't wait to go back!!! LOL

Eating some Vietnamese food at the ancient village!  

Dinner group at Chops with my birthday dessert (another brownie!)  

On Tuesday, I went to school and was overwhelmed with all the love I felt from my coworkers. One of my coworkers even got me a card and had everyone sign it! It was so sweet! Then after school my roommate and I joined our friends at the Marriott for dinner! Another O M G moment! The French Grill at the Marriott has some delicious food. I finally got some French onion soup that was just amazing!!! And Jen and I split their signature burger. Then for dessert the chef made me a brownie! What?!?! I was totally spoiled and showered with love!

One of the many desserts I was given at the Marriott :).  

I loved having such a busy weekend filled with so much love and blessings. God has surrounded me with so many friends here. I can't imagine any other way to spend my birthday abroad.

Young adults! So thankful for this group of people. So glad God put them in my life and that I got to spend my 25th birthday week with them! 

Getting Connected

Living in a foreign country can be difficult especially when you are there for mission work. There are many times that it feels like you are constantly being knocked down before you even have a chance to stand back up. This just means you are in the right place! But a great place for support is the church! At HIF there is a young adults group and a women's group. And since I am a young adult woman I get to be apart of both!

The young adult group is great! I love everything about them! The people are always friendly and you almost connect right away. When everything familiar is 8,000 miles away it is easier to connect with people who are feeling the exact same way. Or have experienced the same things before.

On August 23, the message at church was amazing and it hit me hard. It was about Believers not being exempt from troubles. And it just seemed like the week prior was full of trouble. Just bad things turning into worse things and worse things getting worse. But the best part is that we serve an AMAZING GOD that is always with us. And even though I cried Sunday morning, God has provided this awesome group of young adults that we spent the day with. 

After church we went out for August Birthdays celebration (which was Jen). We got pizza for lunch. There was 25 of us at The Pizza Company! Lets just say we took up most of the restaurant! LOL. After lunch we went bowling (at the same place! There is a mall here called Royal City that has an ice rink, movie theater, water park, and bowling plus all the shops we wish we had and tons of food places). It was so much fun to hang out with friends and bowl! God provided this awesome experience, reminding me that he is always with me. Then after bowling we went for ice cream, because no birthday celebration is complete without ice cream!

Bowling with some great people! Each lane could hold 6 people and we had 3 lanes. I scored 112 points! One of my personal bests!!! :)

We also hosted the young adults at our apartment for our gatherings on Thursday nights. It was such a blessing to have 15 young adults in our living room worshiping and studying the Word. I am so glad God has blessed us with such a big living room. I can't wait to host more gatherings here. I think it is part of the reason we have such a large apartment. 

I also get to be apart of the Women's Group at HIF. I am slowly learning more about these lovely ladies. There are women in this group who have been here for less than 1 month and women who have been here for more than 18 years! So many experiences and everyone wants to help and be connected. Building relationships to help reach the people!

God is doing amazing things here! I am so glad he has called me! Even though times are hard, GREAT things are happening! Thanks for praying and taking this journey with me!!!