ive never heard of it. it wasn't a major conflict in my nations history was it?

Our college group cooked pancakes for one of the dorms on campus Saturday morning. We’ve finally been allowed to minister openly on campus, so we tried to get this opportunity as soon as we could. We had a nice little info card from my friend James Kwon, pancakes, and enough syrup to drown a college student.

I’ve never felt like a nervous person. I mean, I get stressed out about things, but I usually don’t deal with really heavy nerves before speaking or an event like this or whatever. Oh, not Friday night. I couldn’t fall asleep. I hadn’t had time to go get the groceries and wasn’t sure how many students were coming to help from PIBC or how many students we’d get to meet. I was a wreck. I dreamed about the morning going badly twice and woke up three times during the night. At 4:00 a.m. I told myself that they would in fact have pancake mix at payless supermarket and tried to go back to sleep. At 6:10 I told myself I wouldn’t burn the pancakes and that they would have the milk and eggs needed when I went shopping. When I woke up again at 6:40 I decided to get up and go shop just in case.

I bought the pancake batter and other supplies (payless didn’t disappoint) making my way back home still with a knot in my stomach. I had our rave cards. I had the groceries. I had the griddles. I had my pants on. What was there left to be nervous about?

So I got to the college, picked up the PIBC students to help, and started cooking some pancakes. All in all the day went well. We served maybe 30-45 students and had some cool conversations. I got to talk to two guys almost the entire time students were there and only made a fool of myself once. One of the guys was from Vietnam. When I asked him where he was from I couldn’t understand his response, after asking twice I just said, “I haven’t heard of that. Where exactly is it?” He and his friend looked at me and politely said Asia. Hahah! About an hour later I asked again and understood he said Vietnam and was able to correct the blunder, which made us laugh for a good 3 minutes. They were concerned for the tall white American who hadn’t heard of Vietnam.

So now I may not be such a nervous wreck for the next pancake brunch. I know payless has pancakes. I know our campus group will show up to cook. I know students want to eat. And I know where Vietnam is.