As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by life and the expectations that it has on my life, Evan asked the Buddhist monk about the statues that he had made and about how proselytizing is done in Buddhism. The monk told us that the different statues were representations of the Buddha in different life/worship postures: teaching, meditating, resting, collecting alms, etc., but he did not know what all of the statues represented, which Evan and I found odd. When the monk was addressing the issue of proselytizing and conversion, he said that people do not go out to try to convince people to follow Buddhism, that one becomes a Buddhist because one feels called to or wants to. There is a great sense of live-and-let-live-with-as-little-conflict-and-disagreement as possible.
We left the temple, quickly visited another Asian store (this one owned by Vietnamese) and then went to Kim's house. Kim is an older woman who is/was an oyster shucker, and Pheng had a fairly close relationship with her, so he wanted to say visit her before he left for Laos. She lives with her son and dog in a trailer. Kim's son speaks virtually no English and Kim speaks very little. Given that Evan, Pheng and I speak no Vietnamese, our conversation was very challenging (but so worth it). Kim told us stories of how she married a GI in Vietnam and had a daughter. She actually saw her husband and his squad killed by an NVC bomb. Since her daughter was born of a GI, Kim was allowed to come to the US. It was very sad to hear about her daughter. Kim's daughter married a Vietnamese man, who Kim does not like and he does not like Kim. This has estranged Kim from her daughter and her three grandkids even though they live just down the road. Kim told us about her work, how even as an old lady she shucks oysters faster than younger men, and how she has been out of work b/c of the oil spill, but BP has paid her $1000 for the month. It is less than she can make oyster shucking, but she is thankful to have the money.
Kim told us about Thi, and how he has ministered in her life. Apparently, before Thi came, she was having serious health issues that caused her to walk with a stooped back and with shuffled steps. Thi came in with (I think) J.D. and they prayed for her and she was healed! (I didn't get if it was a instantaneous healing or over a little bit of time.) At that point, Kim accepted Jesus and what he had done for her. In her words, "He number 1. Number 1!"
After Kim's house, Pheng took us to Dauphin Island to see the Gulf. It was interesting in that I have never seen oil/gas/whatever rigs out in the ocean. We got our feet wet and Evan found a wild hermit crab walking along and we picked it up and checked it out. Evan then decided that he was going to go in the water. We had no swim suits, but he had a change of clothes in the car. So, Evan went in. Pheng decided to join him (even though he had no spare clothes), and, being thoroughly human, I eventually caved to the peer pressure. Let's just say that Pheng and I had a not-so-comfortable ride home, but the water was amazing. So much warmer than Jersey! And the sand was white and fine, not like the yellow chunks up north!
That was day 2. And it was good (but very long)
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