As parents you aren’t supposed to have a favorite child. I can honestly say I don’t. Many parents admit reluctantly in the passing of time that they did or do. It’s in our nature to have favorites, to resonate with the frequency of certain things and places and people more closely than others. So I don’t fault parents for having favorites.
I don’t. Favorites have always been hard for me. When there is so much beauty and grace and hope in the world it’s hard to have a favorite over others. Hard to pick one song, one cuisine, one book, one anything.
But some things and people and places definitely rank higher overall. And for me, Hanoi is one of those places.
I first visited Hanoi in 2016, visiting friends serving for the church there. It was my first experience in Southeast Asia and I’m sure that contributed strongly to the deep impressions etched on my heart and mind by this city of fashionable possibility. My first time sampling street vendor food on impossibly small plastic squatty chairs in the halo of lightbulbs against the blackness of night. My first time wandering down streets and alleys where trees and buildings vie for the honor of first bowing and touching their crowns in honor and deference to the trees and buildings on the other side of the damp stone beneath my feet.
And Hanoi remains a favorite place of mine today. So I am not sad in the least when I journey there three or four times a year to provide pastoral care and support to staff. To sit in cafes and listen. To wander briefly the hallways and haunt the occasional unused office at Concordia International School Hanoi. To gather with teachers and staff before classes start for Tuesday devotions in the library, where I struggle to raise my voice above a whisper as the ghosts of school librarians of my past flit by with their fingers pressed tightly against pursed, ephemeral lips.
The conversations are not always easy. As Nanci Griffith sang so sweetly, It’s a Hard Life Wherever You Go, and not even darting mopeds or coconut iced coffees or the soul-nurturing richness of pho or banh mi can fully erase the reality of sin and suffering in the world and our homes and our lives. The men and women who serve our Lord all over the world are not immune to that sin and suffering simply because of who they serve or the beauty of the places they live. There is no place or person or vocation who gets a pass on sin and suffering in their own heart and lives and in the world they live and the people they care for.
Which makes time together so important. To remember who we are – created and loved and redeemed and sanctified and propelled through time and space towards and for something and someone. To remember forgiveness in the crush of sin and the agony of repentance. To remember the very real presence of our Lord in the midst of dark nights of the soul and existential quandaries. To remember promises of wisdom and words at the right time when confronting pedagogical and ideological challenges and shifts of an epochal scale upending schools of all sizes and shapes all around us.
It’s a privilege to listen. To whisper. To remind. To point. To feed. Thank you for your partnership that makes this possible not just for me but for these people in this beautiful city and this school so full of potential and promise and grace.
The Nelson Family Indonesia 