recap for august

Let's see- earlier this month, Michal came from Hong Kong for a 2 week visit in which we had a great pool party with Mexican food. Mom and Dad back in Eagle Pass supplied the tamales that I brought over frozen, as well as the colorful corn tortillas from the Mexican grocery store in Piedras Negras. There were kids everywhere, which only doubled the excitement since they all got to play with each other in the pool, and the parents were relieved because they could relax and enjoy margaritas while the kids entertained themselves. It’s also great to have your brother around whenever Mexican food is involved (no dirty leftovers to clean up...haha)

We even played "Loteria", a Mexican version of Bingo that uses pictures like “la luna” (the moon) and “el pescado” (the fish) in the spaces instead of numbers. I never really paid attention to how politically incorrect some of the pictures were until I called out cards like "el borracho" (the drunkard), "el valiente" (the brave man with a razor blade), and "el negrito" (the black man).

The night ended with D standing on a chair and announcing that it was time for something special. Then someone turned out the lights and a cake lit with candles in the shape of "52" came out of the kitchen. D then explained about Michal and my birthdays being on the same day (July 18) and every year we try to get together to celebrate, no matter where we are in the world, and this year we were turning 52 years old cumulatively. Everyone then sang “happy birthday” to Michal and me and enjoyed the delicious cake. The party was a great success and everyone commented on how tasty the Mexican food was, so THANK YOU, Mom and Dad!

Just before Michal headed back to Hong Kong, I had previously been job searching (I quit working at Raffles, the Singaporean Design & Business University, before going to the USA this summer) and was called in for an interview for a company called International SOS ( www.internationalsos.com)- they were looking for a Marketing Manager. I was then put through interviews with the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City offices and then was told I also had to be interviewed by the head offices in Hong Kong and Singapore. FIVE interviews later, I was offered the job.

So, now I’ve been working with International SOS for the past two weeks and things are looking ok. The company provides mostly medical services and has a 24-hour call center that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. You pay a membership fee to have access and this call center gets you in touch with doctors on the phone immediately. No matter where you are, even in the Vietnamese countryside or on a train traveling from Moscow to Paris, they can get international-level medical care to come to you. This is great in countries where there is no emergency service or even adequate medical care. They also do further services like if I get robbed while traveling in India and lose my money and passport, I can call the hot line and they get me in touch with the US embassy and can even front me some cash. This is even better in places like Jakarts where the hotel was bombed- the SOS members stuck in the hotel called the SOS call center and they were able to figure out the best way to keep them safe and get them in touch with people to help them It’s a pretty unique service but definitely tailored for people who travel in several different countries. International SOS has a medical clinic in Hanoi that is open to members and non-members, but non-members have to pay a higher price, so unfortunately the reputation of the clinic has been a bit negative since people can’t see why they charge so much (the reason is partly because they aren’t members, but also because it’s just a higher grade clinic).

My job as Marketing Manager is to help people realize some of the great things SOS does. SOS participates in a ton of community work here and all over the world, so it’s just a matter of getting people to know the work that they do and the quality if medical service they provide. It’s a big job, no doubt.

Study towards my Masters degree also continues to go well. For those who don’t know, I started my MBA with the University of Hawaii a year ago. It’s an executive program, which means we enter as a cohort and I have the same classmates throughout the full two years and classes are held at night and on weekends. It gets tough when you work all day and then have to sit in class all evening then go home at 10pm and write a paper, but all of my classmates are in the same boat and we manage. Our professors fly from Hawaii to teach us here and their focus is on Asian Pacific business, with an even narrower concentration on Vietnam. It’s been tough but I’ve managed to keep a 3.5 out of 4.0 GPA. I even got to go to Hawaii for summer school, studying Japanese Marketing, and really enjoyed it. Graduation date is July 10, 2010 and you are ALL invited, so book those flights to Hanoi soon. :)

D has been working hard too. He’s done quite a bit of training here in Vietnam over the years, from hotel managers at the Sheraton and Hilton hotel openings to United Nations Water filtration systems training in the countryside. In his nine years in Vietnam, he’s definitely had quite a bit of experience across the board. In order to bring some of that together, he’s been branding himself under the company name “VietPro”, which has 3 parts- Academic, Executive, and Corporate. All three parts focus on career coaching and helping people get to the next step of the potential.

Under the Academic portion, he coaches individuals who are looking at full-ride scholarships such as the Fullbright and Hubert Humphrey’s programs that basically focus on a very high academic group of peple in Vietnam to be accepted into the program. For Executives, he does interview and resume coaching and has already successfully coached four people into getting the job they wanted (one Irish, one Swiss, one American, and one Belgian). On the Corporate side, he designs and leads workshops for companies to do staff development and such. He’s hosted a workshop on leadership and cross-cultural communication for the Australian embassy and tomorrow he’ll do a 3-day workshop for the World Bank on project measurement for their 4-year country development plan (so, basically he will help them figure how much work they’ve done to aid Vietnam in becoming a developed nation and how much more they have left to go). The website is coming soon (Bethany is currently working on it in Austin) so I’ll let you know when it’s done.

It keeps him very busy but I’m very proud of him, as you can imagine. :)

Church is going well too. Our Hanoi international Church had a “kick-off” Sunday to welcome new arrivals to Hanoi and kind of start off the new school year with a blessing. The service was done with a special focus on prayer for our congregation as a whole. At the beginning of the service, we passed out paper so people could write down specific prayers (for sick persons, kids at school, friends who are traveling, etc). We then collected them and redistributed them to other people to then pray out loud throughout different parts of the service. It was really neat to have so many people praying for each other in a variety of accents and ways. The whole thing was followed by a big pot luck at one of the members’ homes, which was really enjoyable.

I am also especially proud of some of my Phu Tho students this month. I taught out in Phu The province for about 2 years, which is one of the poorest areas in Northern Vietnam and students who get into the University where I taught realize what a great opportunity it is for them. Unfortunately, the usually don’t get much other opportunities beyond that. Michael, one of our LCMS volunteers who joined us from Hong Kong, has arranged for a group of students from the University in Phu Tho to go to Hong Kong with him. They are being sponsored by various people (I think from Michael’s church in Hong Kong) and will be there for a total of ten days. I’ve taught a lot of the students, so it is wonderful to see them getting the opportunity to travel outside Phu Tho, much more, Vietnam. Pray that they have a great trip and bring back a wealth of experiences and excitement to share with other students in Phu Tho.

Other than those things, it’s all really boring around here. :)