Day 18 – Pleiku

We arrived in Pleiku, a small village outside the city, at 5am. We stayed at this nun’s house and went to mass early that morning. We walked all the way to the church and associated with everyone. I still have no idea what’s going on. There were A LOT of people though. I think it was almost the entire village plus visitors there. So everyone broke up into groups and we played icebreakers. After played games for about an hour and a half, everyone gathered at the front of the church and got ready to move inside. The church was completely filled up with people that there were more standing outside. I didn’t understand why there was such a big event until the homily came. The mass was spoken in both Vietnamese and the local village language. The reason why everyone was gathered, why there were people from all over Vietnam who came, why different priest from all over the area came, why I came was because we were all celebrating mass and worshiping God together because none of us were able to go to Australia for WYD. It was a gathering of praise. The priest said they didn’t want to go to Australia without the people and they didn’t forget them. Mass was about two hours long. Afterwards, everyone went for lunch.

That night, everyone came back again for dinner and more celebration. There was a big show or concert sort of thing. It was great. Hundreds of villagers, kids, and adults all gathered and sang songs of praise. It was a great experience.