Peapod on Purpose

How much time do you spend being thankful for your clothes dryer or having readily available parasite- and arsenic-free drinking water? How about sidewalks that allow you to safely walk from one place to the next, your United States passport, or Target? How often do you treat yourself to a $6+ coffee? 

Before August 15th, all of these were regular parts of our everyday life that our family didn’t give much thought to. But from the moment we stepped foot in Vietnam, everything we knew about regular life was turned upside down….in all the best ways possible. You can read every book or watch every documentary about life in a third-world country, but it’s all so nebulous until you live it. 

For one month we stayed in a 3-bedroom villa with a semi-private pool and an on-site housekeeper. She cleaned the house weekly and met our every need 6 days a week.  Charcoal for the grill? Toilet paper? Fresh drinking water? At your front door in less than 30 minutes. And still, living the most privileged of lives here, was a shock. It took us days to figure out toilets and grocery shopping and the basics of life. 

Of course, the version of Vietnam we experienced was still so far off from the daily lives of most locals, who might spend their whole day trying to make a few USD from the tourism industry by driving for Grab or selling trinkets/fresh foods in the market. Or, for life in the village, waking up at 5 AM to clip wild spinach or catch snails and crabs in the canal to sell to the highest bigger for a few cents.

Friends, WE HAVE SO MUCH. I don’t share this because we feel bad about our American life, or to make you feel bad about your American life. More so because we are grateful. It’s beautiful to have the option to work hard and receive the financial benefits, and it’s eye opening to see how that just isn’t really an option everywhere. 

As we continue to spend the next six weeks in Southeast Asia, we’ve found ourselves becoming more thoughtful. Asking questions like: Is this really something we need? Can we do without this? Is this something we can get for less? Not questions we regularly asked ourselves in our daily life, when JP worked around the clock to make the big bucks and finance all of our desires. But good questions, useful questions. A new way of thinking that will benefit our lives going forward as JP considers the next stage of his career and what that will look like.

Time is another currency that we took for granted. Although we’d been protective of our time back home, saying “no” as much as we said “yes,” we have literally been forced to slow down. To stop multitasking. I thought I was convinced that multitasking was no good before, but now I know I’m convinced. 

Hand washing every dish. Visiting 3-4 markets or grocery stores to get the basic items to cook a meal. Hand grinding your aromatics and herbs into a paste. Cooking your meals in stages because you only have one or two burners. Having your clothes made to order by a seamstress. Planning your washing carefully so your clothes are dry in time to wear when you need them. Doing laundry every other day because you only have 1 bath towel per person. Just living takes up half of the time. 

And day by day, you start to enjoy the slow process of caring for your family’s daily needs, when there’s nothing else fighting for your attention. You spend more time thinking and praying when you’re not running from one thing to the next or trying to accomplish multiple things at once. 

Before you begin to think our time here has all been hard, let me correct you. We LOVE Vietnam and everything it has taught us. Our time has been beautiful and perfect and exactly what we needed. We organized our weeks around the rhythms of the early church, with fasting and sabbath and church and meals with new friends and serving as our only major commitments. We read and sat and walked (even when it was 95 degrees outside). We were together, after spending 12 years organizing our weeks around JP’s travel schedule. The kids finally got an expert math teacher (kids…if you’re reading this… I never want to speak of it again) who can teach them life skills like budgeting and spending projections. 

We got to see a better way to do food, and how broken it is in America. Local markets with local farmers selling local meat that they butchered that very morning. No preservatives, meaning food goes bad after a few days. Fruit, vegetables and eggs on the counter, because they were harvested last week and don’t need to be kept any longer. Homemade noodles measured by the kg, and only buying from the store when there’s no other option. While we haven’t quite figured out how to shop like a local – impossible without the critical piece of knowing the language – we can see the value and we can FEEL the value in our bodies. We feel great after eating a meal, completely satisfied but never heavy or bloated (unless it’s from a western-style restaurant).

And the people…the people are kind and generous and loving and so relational. As is true in many non-western cultures, families live together, with multiple generations working together to bear the burden of the household. Oftentimes the parents of the younger generation leave the house for the day to work, while Grandparents stay home and care for the children and the home. It’s common to see elderly women and toddlers at home during the day, spending time in the front yard washing dishes from a hose or hanging laundry or sweeping leaves.  As you walk through the narrow streets, every front door is wide open, every Grandparent has a smile and a hello. No one is too busy to look up from their work and say hello, with their words and their eyes. 

Not only were the people beautiful, but the land was indescribable. Pristine beaches with green water coexist with rice fields and the ancient ways of life. By God’s grace, we couldn’t have planned our time in central Vietnam more perfectly if we had tried. Arriving at a home surrounded by lush, green fields full of water buffalo and farmers anticipating the harvest. Leaving behind charred, smoldering remains with new life peeking through. We took such delight in watching the rice harvest, and the rhythm of life during harvest season. Daily walking the same routes, seeing the process and the people, trying to anticipate what was next and always being wrong. 

So many lessons to be learned from rice. The value of generational knowledge. The beauty of being refined by the fire. The fruit that comes from mastery.

each plot of land 
managed by a farmer that’s owned it for years
planted at the right time 
ready precisely when the rented rice harvester is available
irrigation canals closed and opened without needing to wonder when
harvested rice laid to dry along the streets to be 
run over by feet and cars and motos
covered before the first drop of rain starts to fall
grain separated from husk by hand using ancient techniques
bagged and spirited away by young men carrying loads bigger 
than what seems possible
then the burning begins
each farmer knowing how to make the fire obey
and not cross the boundary of their perfect square
after three days, new life everywhere
the soil has been regenerated through the fire
ready to start again

Of course, I’m using a lot of generalities here. There are big cities in Vietnam, and our time in Ho Chi Minh felt not much different than NYC (except you can get a taxi across town for $2 and dinner delivered for $9). We stayed on the 39th floor of a high rise, with western-style grocery stores and juice shops on the ground floor. But what really captured our heart was Hoi An, a small town between rivers that taught us so much. And of course, we had tons of fun and ate SO MUCH GOOD FOOD. I’m sure Big Pea and JP will share more about what we did in Vietnam, but what’s left the greatest impression on me is what we learned. 

On a bit of a lighter note…as you might imagine, it’s not super popular for American families with three kids to follow the well-established backpacker train in SEA. In fact, our American cuties have caused quite a stir. Don’t be surprised if you see them on TikTok, because the number of times someone has quickly pulled out their smartphone to capture a video upon seeing blonde hair is probably higher than the number of noodles we’ve eaten. 

I’ll end with this: never before have I given much thought to the privilege of having a US passport. But when we were on the bus to cross the border out of Vietnam and into the next country on our list, the Pakistani woman behind me was told she would have to skip lunch and proceed immediately to an interview with the immigration officers as a matter of policy. So, take a minute today to be thankful that you have the “golden ticket” and the world is almost wide open to you. Be thankful for the gift of a cold iced coffee that stays cold for more than 5 minutes, and your next “Target run.” And maybe slow down a little, I promise it will be worth it.