Day: 25

Vietnam’s Faithful Christians

“When I am persecuted, it shows I belong to Jesus. It confirms who I am and shows I am doing the right thing.”

This was a Vietnamese pastor’s response when asked about Jesus’s words in Matt. 5:10: “Blessed are those who are persecuted.”

This same pastor had just seen 22 people come to Christ. Persecution struck them almost the moment their hearts turned from stone to flesh; local authorities found out about their conversions and demanded the new converts deny their faith. They refused and were arrested on the spot.

Persecution is a way of life for the believers of the Vietnamese highlands. The pastor told me about a time when police brought him to the station and demanded that he drink whiskey and get drunk with them. They also killed a chicken and ordered him to worship it.

When he refused, the police assembled the whole village. They told everyone the pastor was a Christian. They also claimed he was a spy for the U.S. and was fighting against Vietnam and their culture.

You can imagine how things went for him after that. He continues to get a lot of attention from the secret police because he refuses to bend to turn away from Jesus.

I met a different pastor on the same trip to Vietnam. The Communist party had vowed to drive out Christianity within two years in his province. He was so badly beaten by the secret police that he couldn’t eat for two days.

Another pastor’s family wasn’t permitted to use the village well, and his children were kicked out of school. He was often subjected to weeks of all-day interrogations at the police station.

Yet another believer, a career soldier, lost his military pension because he became a Christian. The authorities also burned down his home. He worked as a field hand to support himself after losing everything.

The soldier came to Christ in 1992. His son had fallen drastically ill and he traveled a long distance to get his boy to a doctor. On arrival, he was told the boy was too far gone and he would die. His son died on the trip home from the doctor.

This soldier lost the most precious thing to him in the world: his son. On his return trip to the village, no one visited him because of superstitious beliefs about death. He grieved alone. In that moment of isolation, Christians came to him and told him that God could raise his son from the dead.

To his complete amazement, the son did come back to life. It was so dramatic that over 1,000 villagers came to Christ as a result of the event. Following his son’s miracle and the large conversion in his village that followed, he became a permanent enemy of the police. In fact, he was imprisoned at least ten times after the mass conversion.

Fools for Christ

During my visits to Vietnam’s Highland Christians, I saw that poor Christians were denied welfare. Others were denied flood relief, some suffered regular beatings, and many Christian men had seen their wives raped.

I think of 1 Corinthians 4 as I reflect on the sad stories of the people I met:

“Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour, we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.”

1 Corinthians 4:8-13

The Vietnamese pastors were extremely dedicated but entirely overworked. One church leader had only five pastors for 12,000 people in his flock. He is currently overseeing the training of 200-300 new pastors to relieve his burden.

When you look at all the abuse and hardship the believers suffer in Vietnam, you may wonder, “How do they endure it?”  I thought about this a lot while in Vietnam; I even asked one of the leaders how his followers endure the beatings, rape, and prison sentences.

What he told me should be a lesson to all of us in the West:

He said, “You can’t shake a monkey out of a tree.”

This seemingly silly word-picture has substantial implications for Christians.

The point is that we must be like monkeys. When their tree is shaken, they hold on all the tighter to the tree. No matter how much you shake their tree, they will not let go.

Of course, the “tree” in the story is God.  and you can guess who the monkey is!

Take note believer. Shaking will come in your life. You will probably not be imprisoned, beaten, or raped for your faith, but heavy trials will come into your life and you will be shaken to the core.

Take some time and ask the Lord to show you what it would look like for you to cling to Him with all your might so you are ready when your tree is violently shaken.

God knows what he is doing with the world and with your life. Though you may be experiencing a period of incomprehensible difficulty, you must still trust in the goodness of God and know whatever happens, if you are in Christ, then he will save your soul even if all else is consumed. .

When the trials come, think of the example of our brothers and sisters in Vietnam and hold onto that tree!