When we got there, I asked where Fr. Minh's father was. Then I hear "Teacher!" from way up. It was his father on the top of a huge pile of rice stems. We all laughed so hard. After all, he is 67, but he has the energy and agility of a teenager.
I took some pictures of the outside of Fr. Minh's parents' new house that I did not take before. It looks like it's from a fairy tale. The center of the house is the family room, and on either side are two bedrooms and a bath. Notice that you can barely see a house on the left of the new house. That is where they live now, three small rooms. Talk about a step up!
We then stopped at Fr. Lich's parents' house to drop off more milk. This is a threshing machine that belongs to his brother. The long stems of rice are put in one side, the top part of the rice is collected inside and the stems are shot out the other into a pile on the ground. The rice is then dried and sold to a co-operative. This is now toward the end of the harvest, so the machines run from early morning to dark.
Here I am at Fr. Lich's uncle's house. After some tea, we sat down for a huge feast. There was food for days, and we could not eat it all. Above, I'm posing with our host, Chinh, both of us being a bit goofy.
Each parish has a parish council, and Thiu is the president of the local parish, Van Hai. I offered him lessons in how to use chop sticks. He politely declined.
Fr. Lich grabbed the camera and took a few shots. In the back you can see one of his nephews who is 8 and a niece who is 4.
It was a great time, and we laughed loudly in both Vietnemese and English. It's funny. But these are men who are the same age as me or older, and we could have been enemies in the 60s and 70s, but now we're just friends who live in different parishes. It always amazes me how God works.
