What a beautiful holiday season here in Vietnam. Aside from ministry and adventure day updates, I would LOVE to give you some insight to what our Christmas season looked like! This was my first Christmas away from home as well.
In Vietnam, Christmas is a well known holiday but the reason behind it for them is not Jesus, it is secular unless you yourself are a christian (which is not very common as 1% of Vietnamese are christian). Daily life continues on Christmas too. School is still in session and is a normal work day. The streets, coffee shops, stores, and most places decorate for Christmas but no nativity type decorations. American Christmas music is often on in the background and lots of students know the famous Mariah Carey song and other Christmas pop. Going into Vietnam, I did not expect any of this since it is a closed country, but was VERY wrong!
We did go to a Christmas Eve service at the international church and helped with a popcorn, hot cocoa, and cookie station! That night we had ministry off so we hung out as a team for the day! We also watched home alone, which is a tradition in my household so that was very fun!
On Christmas morning, Adeline made us all banana pancakes and we opened our presents! We had little stockings (our actual socks on a piece of string) and we also did secret Santa! It was so sweet to shop for each other. I also gave myself a gift that I wrapped back in august which was a fresh pack of vacuum sealed underwear and socks which was a necessity because mine were ripping and I lost over half. Later, a few of us went to a dog cafe which had young golden retrievers and pomeranians! It was so cute. Overall, the day was SO much fun and relaxing. Was hard not being with family, but was not too sad about it because I have such good friends here!!
That weekend, we hosted a little Christmas party in our apartment with some friends we met at English club! We played some card games like uno, BS (we call it bologna sauce or bible study), spoons (but with chopsticks), some ping pong on the table, and cup stacking! We also had a few snacks and cookies to decorate. It was such a sweet night with our new friends!!
Shifting gears for New Years Eve…. what an exciting day!! Some girls from a different team were in town and slept over, so we went to the beach for a little bit, had English club, and then that night was when all the fun started! As some of you know, Ive gotten back into running in Vietnam (for the first time in 4 years) which was been really fun and a big step that God has lead me into. 2 other girls and I signed up for a 5k on New Years eve which was an absolute blast! We had only started running a few weeks prior and it went better than we imagined! Getting back into running for me had been a struggle in the past and the Lord truly turned that around for me. In Colombia, I said multiple times “I cannot run” “I am not a runner” “I am not build for that” “I’ll never be able to run” and by the end of 2025, I was back into it. We had a track right next to our apartment which made it really convenient as well. I finished the 5k in 30 minutes which was my goal from the start! I never thought I would reach that, as that was my average pace when I was a freshman. So being at the same spot was really special to me!! Besides meeting the goal, it was truly such a fun run. We ran along the river, across the dragon bridge, across the other side of the river, over a mother walking bridge to the finish. I was so much fun!! After the race was over, we got our medals and went to the beach with the boys (some of them also ran) and attempted to find a restaurant. We ended having McDonalds for our first meal in 2026!
Lunar New Year is very big in Vietnam, but we aren’t there during that time. During that holiday, most students go home for a couple weeks, similar to how we have Christmas time off of school in the states. The Philippines celebrates Lunar New Year as well so we are so excited to be there for that!
Hope you enjoyed this little update on how my holidays were on the race!! Also I am in the Philippines now!
Love you all,
Ellie
Ellie, I love reading your blogs and hearing about all the exciting adventures you are having. It is so sad that Christmas isn’t celebrated as a religious holiday in VietNam. Quite ironic that they use the word Christmas but there is no religious connotation to their celebration. God is at work!
Your mom told us at Bible study that you have made it to the Philippines safely. Looking forward to hearing about your adventures there!
Barb Janssen