See pictures below..

For the month of June we had the pleasure of taking a team of 23 to Chau O, Vietnam to build a playground in between 3 public schools.  We were partnering again with Unireach International who builds relationships with governments and the people through health and education projects. We built a playground with them last year in Hanoi and another in 2000 in the city of DaNang.  Unireach was very reluctant to do another project in the DaNang area (Chau O is 3 hours south of DaNang) because of the struggles they have had with the government in the region.  There is a stronger Communist government in this region versus other parts of the country.

The area of Chau O is very interesting from a few perspectives.  First, it is only minutes away from the city of My Lai.  You may remember the My Lai Massacre that happened in 1968 when American Forces came to this small hamlet and murdered over 500 innocent men, women and children.  This event was obviously a terrible tragedy that affected Vietnamese and Americans alike.   In My Lai the memories of this tragic event still linger, especially with the older Vietnamese people.  Second, there are only 4 churches in the greater area of Chau O while there are over 500 in the surrounding highlands.  There is not much Christian or American activity in this region.

So here we were, 23 American Christians, going to build a playground in a very delicate area.  The one nice thing we had was the playground which allowed us to travel and work freely in the area. The government was very excited for this gift that we were giving them.  They renamed the park we built the playground in to “Friendship Park” and did extensive work around the playground area to make it a great place for families to come and relax.

While we were working we had a lot of games and programming that we did with the school children.  Our whole team got involved in it and it was great.  A lot of neat relationships were built between the volunteers and the kids.

Before the dedication, the government had called our key contact in the area, Pastor Tan, and told him that they weren’t sure how to organize the dedication event.  This was the first American group they had come in contact with and they wanted to make sure they did it right.  (In fact, we were the first large, American group to come to this area since the war.)  They were so nervous that they had Pastor Tan write their dedication speech!!

The dedication went great. The kids were so excited and would just hang on all the volunteers and never let go.  The ceremony was very positive and it seems as though the impact this project had on the community would be felt for a long time.  We also learned at the dedication that the President of Chau O’s son accepted Christ during the week!

It takes small steps to affect a Communist country for Christ; small battles and small victories.   But we feel we made a huge difference in this small community.  For most of these people, they now have a different perspective of Americans and Christians.  We’re not like what they see on TV or saw in the Vietnam War.  We’re normal people who love their children and want to give our resources and love to them.

We are hoping to hear great reports from Pastor Tan as he now has an inroad into this community and government.  We hope he will be able to make great strides in establishing more churches in Chau O and the surrounding cities.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support for us during this trip.  We also had great reports from several pastors in Vietnam who are using our flannelgraphs.  Last year we taught 25 Vietnamese and 25 Cambodians how to teach the Bible to children and they love what we taught them.  They have great success stories that we hope to share with you soon.

For The Kids,
Chris Marshall
Kids Around The World
Regional Vice President, West