To Faith

“Have your people meet us at this address,” my friend anxiously whispered to me as he handed a folded napkin across the table.

The noise in Ho Chin Minh is legendary to begin with, but when it\’s confined to an overcaffeinated coffee shop, asking someone to repeat themselves or speak up should be understandable and expected. Although I\’m certain he heard me ask, he didn\’t repeat himself. He simply stood up, nodded to the four friends joining him, and together they left. 

Frustrated, confused, and nearly overwhelmed by the situation, I took the napkin. I began to prepare my pitch to the multitudes of friends from dozens of different nations who had gathered in Vietnam at my request to participate in SEAPC’s Friends Around the Table event. According to the information I had just received, our venue for this event (which was scheduled to begin in only a few hours) was now redirected to the location written on the back of the napkin I held. 

These were my thoughts in that moment:

Why are we here? God, am I hearing you correctly? I know that you have me here for a purpose. I believe I am in your will, and I know you want to use me to help these people. So what do I say to them? Jesus, help me!

Are you having any of these thoughts as you pray through what the future will hold and look like as God restores us in Himself and His post-pandemic purpose for our lives? Maybe you haven’t gotten to these questions yet and are right now just asking God to get you through today and the challenges around you. I believe it is time for us to ask God to pick us up and send us forward in Him. He is calling us to GO! The first place that He is calling us to go to is faith. Faith is a location. It is where I put my hope and trust. Prayer is how I put them there. Jesus is who receives them. Love is His exchange to me. 

Our friends obliged to the sudden change in plans and got into buses that took us to the address on the napkin. It was a shipping yard on the banks of the Saigon River. A massive riverboat clipper was tied to the docks there, and our friends from the coffee shop stood next to it, frantically waving for us to rush onto the boat with them. Per their instruction, we were sent to the bottom of the boat and asked to wait. After about an hour, our friends came down and invited us to join them upstairs. At the top of the stairs was a grand ballroom where hundreds of pastors from 29 different Vietnamese denominations were gathered. For fear of persecution, arrest, and extortion, they felt they needed us to meet them there, in secrecy, in the middle of the river.

That night we witnessed them celebrate their 30th anniversary of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Vietnam. We watched lives being restored, hope filling the future, and the real love of Jesus Christ empowering His people to overcome any trial they could imagine. They had made it to faith, and so had we! 

As we GO to faith together, let’s pray this prayer: 

Jesus, I put my hope and trust in you. Help me. I choose to go wherever you are leading me, and I trust that your love will overcome all obstacles along the way. Send me to faith today, I pray. Amen.

Please join us in the vision to witness a world connected through prayer that brings Christ-based change to those in need. SEAPC will host four quarterly Friends Around the Table events in 2021. We want you to be a part of this movement of friendship in Christ by attending, praying, financially supporting its efforts, or sponsoring someone else to go. To learn more about these opportunities, email us at friends@seapc.org.