The day that our group went to the leper colony was one of the best days that I have had here in Vietnam. I believe that the devil was really trying to keep us from going but we just laughed about the experiences and kept going with God at our side.
Once everything was packed in the truck we got to choose how we wanted to get there, either the truck or the motorbike. I decided that I wanted to ride in the truck with all the supplies in it, instead of going on the motor bike because I have had enough bumpy rides on the bike.
As we were riding down the road I look down and saw a lot of smoke coming from the seats. Not knowing what was going on we stopped to get gas and to see what was wrong. Of course not understanding what was being said I just sat back and listened and watched. I did see that he put some fluid into the engine that was below the drivers sit. As we drove away we noticed now that the smoke was coming out the back. It was the funniest thing because as I was looked back I saw part of our group on the motorbikes covering their faces because of all the smoke. As we got closer to the colony the road turned into a dirt road and of course it had just finished raining so there were puddles of water everywhere.
There was one puddle that the sister didn’t think that we could make it through so we stopped and she put a stick in the middle of the puddle. As we were waiting some of us decided that it would be a good idea to go to the bathroom, but you see there is no bathroom so we just watered some weeds. When we were all back to the truck we tried to go around the puddle but instead we got stuck. So after a few minutes of pushing, we got the truck out of the hole.
The only other way was to go through the puddles. To our surprise we got through the puddle and kept going. Of course I was laughing the whole way through the puddle because if we had just gone through it the first time we wouldn’t have had any trouble.
When we finally arrived, it seemed like everyone came to us, they were very excited to see us. We first unloaded the packages of rice and other supplies from the back of the truck. As the parents were getting the food we took the kids and played games with them. You should have seen their faces light up as we played simple games with them. Every one of them just smiled. They were so cute. Some of the children didn’t have clothes to wear and the kids who were fortunate to have clothes were either dirty or had holes in them. We got the opportunity to eat lunch with them. As we passed out the sandwiches, milk and candy you could see that all the people were smiling and that they were very thankful that we were there to spend time with them.
Sarah (North Carolina)
