Sept 17th, 2021: Freedom & Truth


It took the US about 25 years to normalize the diplomatic relationshi Clinton visited Vietnam to make that official in Nov 2000. People remember him having a bowl of Pho at Pho 2000 in Ho Chi Minh City during that visit. (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.afar.com/places/pho-2000-ho-chi-minh/amp). Both nations have been trying to come to terms with that war, and that will take time.


Vietnam has changed both for the better and the worse. She is not alone in that aspect of being a nation that is trying to catch up with the rest of the world. I have come back a few times for different reasons. I have my own reservation about what is happening in the country. However, I have been encouraging people to visit it because it has so much beauty and history. Recently, I have been helping a professor in Vietnam to give some Zoom lectures to one of her classes. It was good to listen to younger generations of Vietnamese who were born after President Clinton's visit. Life is happening therqe. People have their economic struggles, political annoyance, and cultural ambivalence as much we do here. Maybe that is what we all have in common. We live in the absence of the truth.


Many folks will find it impossible to accept the changes and will continue with their fight. I understand where they are coming from because some of them have suffered a lot. Others have learned how to work and live with the new reality, not just in Vietnam but in the world. Some Christians in Canada feel persecuted by their current Government as much as some Vietnamese have felt toward theirs. There is no such thing as a "Free World" in this new reality. The day when we are not free to express our moral convictions is the day freedom dies.


2 Corinthians 3: 17

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
 

John 8: 32

“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

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