#13

"Happy New Year! I began the New Year battling bronchitis and my stomach ulcer, but things can only get better from there. I thought that by explaining my illnesses to our friends, we would have a very quiet, uneventful New Year celebration! How quickly I forget that we are in Vietnam, and if you are sick, that is even more of a reason to have visitors.!

We managed to have a quiet New Year’s Eve, but by New Year’s Day, David and his girlfriend, as well as Hannah and her friend, insisted that we all have a party in our room. I told them that I would bake a cake for them, and that we could just eat cake and talk together. Well, they showed up with their own cake from the bakery, a LOT of candles that they insisted must ALL go on the cake, and a bunch of fruit. The cake really was a fire hazard. I included a picture at the end. I could barely hold it because of all the heat coming off of it from the candles. They loved the cake that I baked, and insisted that American cake is much better than Vietnamese cake. Their only complaint was the icing. They about choked when they took a bite of the icing, exclaiming “Ngọt quá!!”, meaning “too sweet”.

They gave me “lucky money” for the New Year, which is a tradition in Vietnam of giving small bills to young people to bring luck and happiness in the New Year. David started to sign the bill he gave me, but then stopped when he remembered that last year he signed a piece of lucky money and then the person died. They stayed for about three hours, and by the end, I was very tired, but also very happy. They told us that they just couldn’t stand to see us alone on New Year without our families. It’s a blessing to have such caring friends in Tam Ky.

We’ve been having a love hate relationship with Butter flavored Crisco that we found in a city nearby. I love baking, and we both love eating sweets, so I’ve been baking up a storm. We give most of it to our students, but we can’t help but eat part of what I bake. We heard that Hannah’s son tried to eat the entire half the cake I gave them without sharing any with his parents.

Thanks so much for your pr*yers and support again in this New Year! Please continue to lift up the university that I am communicating with. We hope to have teachers there next year if it's His will, but we have a lot of work to do to get to that point. We appreciate all the cards we've received! We hope that you each have a blessed year! We appreciate each of you, and all you do to enable us to serve in Vietnam!

Love,

"Yogi"