A Week of Learning

It's been a long week and hard since Kim's been gone, and he's having all this fun with Sarah, Rob, Rilo, Sean, & Megan in Colorado - and I'm sittin' here getting the pictures and "stuck" with no car. Some days I was walking back and forth to school two and three times to come let Charlie out, and then Tuesday morning came - and things were put in their right place.
We had a treat on Tuesday morning. One of our fellow students in Church History has a moving life story and so Tuesday morning before class she came in and shared her testimony with us. Mihn is from Vietnam and started her story as a young girl of about ten in the early sixties. Soldiers came to her town and around her house and herded people out into the streets. She stood there with her father, her brother and her sister (her other brother and mother were someplace else). Her father was questioned and he was pleading with the officers to leave his children alone, they're just children. The officers had them all get down on their knees and then proceeded to go down the line and shoot them - first her father, then her brother and sister, then her. She was shot in the head, but apparently not seriously. She was able to get up after the soldiers left and was later reunited with her brother - her mother didn't make it.
Mihn and her brother were eventually captured and imprisoned where they spend some years there, working in the day in either rice or corn fields. She liked the corn fields because she could get some kernals of corn and add them to her "soup" for dinner.
Apparently they tried to escape a number of times, and on the third try were finally able to get away. They were able to get to the coast where they became some of the many "boat people" who escaped the insanity of the regime. They saw others in boats get caught and killed by pirates, but they were able to hide and get away and eventually made their way to France where they lived for four years.
Mihn later moved to Australia where she lived for another twenty-five years before coming to the US four years ago. She has dealt with depression and PTSD her entire life being on anti-depressants and other drugs, but in the last few years God has done a huge healing in her and she is no longer on drugs.
Mihn told her story in fifteen minutes, but I felt like I had just gone through an entire lifetime with her. There were tears on both sides of the podium as she shared her life, and I think many of us were stunned that she could actually be standing there with all that she'd been through. You'd think she'd just be a heap of a body with no soul left.
The story of God's pursuit of her and of her questioning His existence in the midst of such evil and suffering made each of us introspective. It made me wonder, "Would I continue to believe in God with such suffering and abuse on a daily basis?"
Hearing Mihn's story put the rest of the day, and actually the rest of the week in perspective. Despite the work that needed done, the activities ahead, and the classes to attend, nothing was overwhelming...or when it started to seem that way, it was easier to put it in the context that it deserved.
God is good. He's using Mihn's story to give others hope who have none, and to encourage us to remember that God is bigger than any situation, He is always with us, will never leave us, and will help to make good things come from bad and evil things...But we need to ask Him.
I'll try to remember this as I struggle with Hebrew, study for my tests this week, and try not to get overwhelmed with life as it is now. Kim is driving through Indiana as I write and should hopefully get home this evening (with lots of Rilo and kid pictures!). I've had enough of singlehood for quite a while.
Continued prayers for school and balance. Prayers of thanksgiving for Friday nights with seminary friends and the blessing that has become for all of us! God IS good, and He continues to pursue me, too, drawing me closer and closer as we journey together through life. I pray that you hear His callings to you as well, and you draw near to be fed with the bread of life. You know, that kind of bread that actually fills you so that you don't hunger any more...
Blessings.
~Sally