Restaurant called Yesterday
There's a restaurant in Ho Chi Minh city called 'Yesterday'. But if you look carefully at the menu, you'll see that the Vietnamese translation reads 'Ngay Mai', which means 'tomorrow'.

When I asked the owner why this was, he remarked, 'You foreigners are always talking about yesterday. You say, "Do you remember when...?" Here in Vietnam people have forgotten about yesterday. The only thing they care about is tomorrow.'

It's true. I can see how keen the young people are to do something new, to learn something, to be something. The previous generation seems to have known nothing but war and poverty. But young people today have hope. They want to achieve something, anything.

• Pray for the young people of Vietnam, that their curiosity and their enthusiasm to try new things will lead to an encounter with Christ, on whom alone true hope is founded.

A house divided?
H is an energetic Christian businesswoman in Ho Chi Minh City, married with two young children. For all her liveliness, her eyes brim with tears whenever she talks about her children and how she longs for them to grow up to love and serve the Lord.

H was raised in a Buddhist family, but became a believer at 17 through school friends who took her to church. Initially she was enthusiastic, but after a time her faith weakened substantially. She began to disregard some of the Bible's teachings, and at 25 she married a kind but non-Christian work colleague.

Like most Vietnamese, H moved into her in-laws' home immediately after the wedding. She and her husband - and soon two young children - had just one room in a large house of relatives.

From the first day, H's brothers- and sisters-in-law made life unpleasant for her and her husband, and it wasn't long before they won H's mother-in-law to their side too. Any child minder H hired was forced out, and members of H's family even hit the two children.

The main motive for their actions was greed: they wanted to prevent H's husband from inheriting the family house and business.

But prejudice also fuelled the torment: no one in the house approved of H's faith. The mother-in-law, in particular, attempted to force H to worship the family's ancestors and, when alone with her grandchildren, would ridicule their mother's beliefs.

These troubles, together with problems at work, didn't cause H to abandon her faith, but rather led her back into the arms of her Lord. Regular church attendance was difficult, but she began reading the Bible and praying earnestly again.

Relationships in the home only went from bad to worse, and H and her husband knew they had to find a place of their own. But how could they afford it? H kept praying, and they saved every penny they could.

Prayers began to be answered with a new job and promotions. Finally, after seven long years, they had a house. H's mother-in-law celebrated the family's departure by sacrificing an entire pig.

But the family's troubles didn't end there. Although enormously relieved to have their own home, from the day they moved in they were plagued by illness.

The children kept being sick, H's husband was diagnosed with early signs of tuberculosis, and H had the strangest symptoms: she would feel fine at the office all day, only to return home with terrible headaches. She felt completely exhausted in the house, especially on Sundays - to the point where she was unable to go to church.

After about six months, H learnt that her mother-in-law had asked a spirit-doctor to put a dangerous curse on her. To everyone's amazement, H didn't react with hatred or desire revenge, even when a neighbor who was also a spirit-doctor offered to curse H's mother-in-law in return.

Instead, H spoke of a God who loved her and would protect her, and she warned that the curse was dangerous not for her but for those who inflicted it.

Just a short time later, her mother-in-law's spirit-doctor died suddenly. Since then H and her family have enjoyed full health. Meanwhile, her mother-in-law's health rapidly deteriorated, and she has now died as well.

Today, H not only attends church regularly but is beginning to serve there too. Her children enjoy Sunday school and insist on prayers before bed. But their father is still dismissive of H's faith, and H now understands that marrying a non-believer makes it difficult to raise her children in God's ways.

• Pray for Vietnamese Christians married to non-believers - may they remain steadfast in their faith and may their spouses see the love of God in them, and turn to Christ.
• Pray that through the witness of Christians, many Vietnamese will learn of the freedom that comes from faith in Jesus, and turn away from spirit worship.