Pastor Jeremy Stephens

This morning we finally landed in Ho Chi Minh City. I think my travel time door to door was just about 36 hours. That’s a lot of time sitting down!

After getting situated and grabbing a quick shower, I took a brief walk through the neighborhood of Saigon where we’re staying. It was amazing. I thought walking the busy streets of manhattan were dangerous. I was evading hundreds of thousands of mini motorcycles. Some of these motorbikes function as the family minivan carrying father, mother and sometimes 2+ children!

We walked to the War Remenents Museum. This was a frustrating time for me. On the one hand I was face to face with graphic pictures from the war…always of civilians of course. Descriptions always talked about American agression and atrocity. I just have a hard time believing much of it because of the socialist propaganda machine. At the same time, there is little doubt that this war is a dark spot on our nations history.

After touring the museum, we were taken to a noodle house. Here we had the traditional dish of phu. As our meal wound down, we were let in on the history of the restaurant we were eating in. Just a short distance from the US embassy, many Americans ate there oblivious to the fact that the Tet Ofensive was being planed upstairs.

I was a little bothered by that indormation, but I was really frustrated with the pictures on the wall of the men who participated in the embassy bombing. At this point, I wasn’t really happy to be one of their patrons.

Tomorrow is a busy day. We’ going to see a bhuddist temple.
A Hindu one, a mosque, and the catholic cathedral. Should be fascinating!