Pedro in Vietnam: fall conference in mui ne

Twice a year, ESI teachers get together in their respective regions for a conference/retreat. In the case of the Vietnam team, we're the only ESI teachers in Asia, so we get to stay in country for our retreats.

This fall, the Vietnam team met together in Mui Ne from November 17th through November 20th. This included the teachers living in Tam Ky, Ho Chi Minh City, Bien Hoa, and Da Nang. We pretty much all met up in Ho Chi Minh City, and took a 5-hour bus ride to Mui Ne.

Mui Ne is beautiful. From the excellent weather to the nice beaches, everything was great. Since Mui Ne is a tourist location, there were many foreigners, which was weird since I'm not used to seeing many foreigners at all in Da Nang. Also, it was interesting to see that most of the signs on the restaurants and along the streets were in Russian. There were more Russian signs than there were English signs. I suppose a lot of Russians travel to Vietnam. Who knows.

Anyway, the weekend was very nice. We pr*yed, had a lot of devotional time, and listened to talks on different subjects related to our stay/work in Vietnam. I heard a lot of things that I needed to hear, and I received motivation/encouragement to continue down the path that's been set before me, at least for this year. Other than that, we also had a lot of time of rest and relaxation. Because it is a tourist location, most of the restaurants near our hotel served (good) western food, which was a nice break from eating Vietnamese food every day. Some of us visited some sand dunes, and others did things such as playing mini-golf. Below are some pictures.