Our Family
Bobby, Ruth, Aaron, Frances, Mercy, Rachel, Glenn, Theodore
In this picture, from left to right,
Glenn, Tuya, Onsor, Ruth, Glenn, Rachel, Frances, Mercy, Uuchin
The kids are all going to Vietnamese Schools and this is quite a blessing. Besides being very inexpensive, a primary consideration in our work, their education is well grounded in the basics. Their reading, writing and arithmetic are quite good and since they start learning a very advanced form of mathematics right from the start.
Ruth and I are well and fortunate to be able to live together, work together and be a family. All around us, there is pain, suffering and many difficulties. We can count on someone having trouble or watch them being placed in a terrible situation and are fortunate that nothing has happened that we were not able to overcome without the Lord's help. We are certainly grateful for all the help we have been given.
Bobby, Robert W. Watts (daddy)
I have been very fortunate to have been able to keep an office at home. The kids have been able to come and go from the office at will. I do a lot of work with the American Chamber of Commerce, trying to keep the poor and needy in the eyes of the rich and powerful. The business community here, as a whole, has been wonderful. The American Chamber of Commerce here has committed to give donations to the poor from every function they hold. I am a member of several of the committees and I have the opportunity to try and make the donations as large as possible.
Ruth A. Watts (mommy)
Ruth has been a wonderful partner. I wish I could be as good at being a partner as she is. Ruth takes the lead in our teaching ministry. As in most Communist countries, we cannot teach about Jesus in our house, so we train secretaries and hire people to work for us. Since the rate for wages is small, it is possible to help many of the Vietnamese. I pray often that I could start a business where I could help more people.
Aaron
Aaron is our oldest son. Aaron is going to college in California and then will be returning to live with his Grandmother, Wilda, in Lincoln Illinois. Aaron has decided that he does not want to live in Asia with his family and he is on his own. God has blessed him with health and we are very happy that he is comfortable with his choices.
Theodore tells me that Aaron is doing fine. Though we have no communication with him at the present time, he is going to college in Stockton, California. At least we know he is doing well. Though he does not write (yes mother, I now know what that feels like now), we do have communication through our church in Stockton.
Pray with us that Aaron will decide he wants to come out and join us in our work. We hope that he is getting a good Christian foundation, but then...
Frances is 10 years old; she is in the 4th grade and is one of three in the top of her class. These three seem to change places regularly and every one of them is ashamed to tears if they get 7 or less out of 10. Frances is the boss. She translates for us, speaks Chinese, both Mandarin and Haka, the language of the south of China, Tagalog and Illacano, languages from the Philippines, Vietnamese and English. Though the other children learned the languages when we visited, Frances is the only one that remembers most of them. The other children pick them up rather quickly, but Frances has the brain for languages.
Mercy is 9 years old; she is in the 3rd grade and is average in her homework. She likes sports better than school, but seems to be doing well in picking up her grades. Mercy is having trouble reading. We figure she is a bit lazy because her older sister does everything for her. The children all learn songs at school and have even begun talking Vietnamese in their sleep. Vietnamese is their primary communication language though they condescend
Rachel Ruth Watts
Rachel is 7 years old and she is in the 2nd grade. She is average as well. She is a tough little girl. She needs to try to keep ahead of her brother and try to keep from being taken advantage of by her older sisters.
Glenn Evert Watts
The youngest, leanest and at times, the most difficult, Glenn is a handful. Glenn is 6 years old and in the 1st grade. Every year, the kids change teachers and so Glenn is now being taught by the same teacher which taught Rachel last year. This is quite an advantage for the kids because they can look over the homework of the one ahead of them and find out what they should do.
Theodore C. Stapp (our adopted father)
Our Friends
Hat, Duc, Huyen, Quyen et.al.
Since the laws of Vietnam are a very serious hindrance to talking about anything, let alone Christ, we need to work around their desire to keep the people controlled, uninformed and without choice. The advent of CNN and the e-mail system has opened the door for us in ways that were never possible before. Though CNN talks of and trains people in every holiday, they are intensely informative about Christmas. This leads to questions and an eventual opening where there was none before.
Please pray with us that we will be a good witness to the staff, that they might have open hearts, and come to know the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
Nguyen Thi Hat
Hat has worked for us the longest. She is 50 and she started to work for us when we first moved into our house. We have had to be very careful about what we do and what we talk about because to teach about Jesus is morally wrong in Vietnam. In the past, she has had visits from the police, asking her what we have talked about and we have now passed the test. We can do what we want, when we want and to date, we have not been visited by the police for a year and a half. That is quite a relief for us as we can be told to move without notice. Hat speaks little English, but our kids are fluent in Vietnamese and have been attending a Vietnamese church, so they are aloud to preach the gospel now. Duc has started to pray with the kids.
Nguyen Thi Minh Duc
Duc is the sister of Hat, she started working for us as a maid and to my surprise, she was trained as an Engineer in Russia. She is now being trained for computer engineering at our house. She is quite a lady and though she speaks no English at all, she is learning quickly.
Yen
This is the third Yen we have worked with. The first became a Christian and is now working with another group of foreigners, the second received awards and a scholarship and is now working with another company and this Yen, the third has just come to us. Yen is a girl from the villages surrounding Hanoi and is quite a girl. Though she wants to do everything everyone tells her, the implements of the West are strange indeed to this girl. We have our work cut out for us...
Ha
Ha is the latest of the secretaries that have come here to learn English and learn how to be a secretary. She is the latest of a long list of girls that have come our way and she is learning fast. Ha is 22 and her parents are from a village just north of Hanoi. Her parents are very poor and they have asked us to help her find a job. There are 8 million people on our doorstep and most of them are very poor. Wish we could do more, but we need to do the best with what we have. We train secretaries to work with other businesses and other companies. This gives us the opportunity to work with Vietnamese all through the house and on occasion... we get to see eternal results.
Huyen
Huyen is a strange girl. She came to us through a friend, Madam Lieu. Madam Lieu is the head cook at the Swedish Embassy. A wonderful woman and she loves to help the poor. Huyen was one of our latest students from Madam Lieu. When we visited her father, he cried when he asked us to help her find a good job. Huyen is the baby of the family and is a bit stubborn. We have been training her to work on computers and shoot videos. Our idea is to train her so she can get a job where she will not need to work late in the evenings or on the weekend at nights. These kind of jobs are available for the girls, but they often lead to life in a more seedy area. Many of the girls from the villages end up prostitutes or marrying men for the sake of their money. We want to help Huyen as much as possible.
Orientravel, Premiere Travel Services
Angelfire - Easiest Free Home Pages
WhoWhere? - The Best Communications Guide on the Web
Matt's Script Archive - Awesome Web Server Scripts
Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Government and Policies
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