By LaTasha Coates

Friday, April 18, 2014

Asian Invasion: Vietnam Pt. 1 - Justified Baptist Church Vietnam

Wow, it will be a month tomorrow since coming back home from Vietnam.  Needless to say, this blog is waaaay overdue.  In my defense, this is the first break that I've received since my vacation.  Not only have I been working a lot at my 2 jobs, but I picked up a third one at the children's hospital - even though I wasn't looking for one.  My boss at my second job emailed me one day to see if I was interested and I replied back with, "Hey, why not?" - well, I was a bit more formal than that, but that was the feel of the email from my end, in my head!  Lol!!

So let's get to it.  Before going to Vietnam, God put it in my heart to help while I was there.  What was I to do, with whom/what organization, how long, etc.?  I had NO clue, but I knew that I had to help in some way.  I was randomly chatting (like how I'm infusing my British side by using words like "chatting") with a patient, who doesn't even BELIEVE in Jesus Christ, and he told me that I should get in contact with Doctors Without Borders, an orphanage, or a church in Vietnam.  Omg, duhrrrrr, Coates!  A church in Vietnam! "Lord, why didn't you tell me directly, instead of using this guy?" I asked.  The Holy Spirit replied, "I will use anyone, whenever I want to speak to my children."  The next day, I googled Christian churches in Vietnam and came up with 9 results - all of them in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City).  Out of the 9, there were 2 Protestant and 3 Non-denomination.  Since I'm not Protestant, I emailed the 3 other churches.  One didn't answer back, one refused my help, and the last - well...

When I emailed this last church, there were 5 email addresses.  I emailed all 5 and received peace from the Holy Spirit.  I knew that this was the church that I was going to help at.  Immediately, 3 emails bounced back to me and that broke my spirit.  I asked Jesus how am I going to help if there are no valid email addresses?  He pointed out that 2 went through and one will get in contact with me.  I just need to have patience.  Patience is the most difficult thing that I struggle with...  So a week has passed and nothing.  Total radio silence.  Then one afternoon while I was taking a nap before going to work, I saw the Gmail notification on my phone.  I thought it was my boss' secretary since she always email us in the middle of the week to let us know if the patients confirmed or cancelled their appointments.  It wasn't from my job, but from one of the members of Justified Baptist Church, Tam Do.  One of the two valid email addresses belonged to Nguyen Quoc Dung, the pastor.  He forwarded my email to Tam and she contacted me from there.  Before I get into what the church is doing, I want to talk about the pastor.

Pastor Nguyen Quoc Dung came from a pastoral home.  He grew up with Christ in his heart and knew that God called him to also be a pastor and spread the Truth in an environment known to be quite hostile towards Christians.  They don't have the freedom as we do in countries such as Switzerland, Germany, England, America, etc.  Christians in some areas face regular discrimination, harassment, and even arrest at the hands of authorities.  Nonetheless, these threats have never stopped Pastor Dung from his duties as a pastor.  When he first began his ministry, he had a congregation of only 7 people.  As the Holy Spirit continued to work through him, he was blessed to see over 1,000 people give their lives to Jesus Christ.  1,000 doesn't seem like a large number - especially when there are churches that have over 1,000 people in each service.  But being in a communist country, in which Buddhism is the main religion - followed by Hinduism and Muslim, 1,000 is a large number.

 The people in Vietnam are VERY religious.  Even the poorest person has some type of extravagant Buddhist shrine and some have a shrine for Ho Chi Minh (the guy who the city is renamed after), a Hindu shrine, and a shrine for Jesus!  So you see, they WANT to worship a god, they WANT a god to lead them, they WANT a god to love and to love them in return - which is understandable and admirable.  However, their god is leading them straight to hell which is the sad part.  How I wish I could have talked to many of them about the true, living God - and how trusting in Him will not only grant you life, but He will fulfill that empty feeling and overflow your life with LOVE.  I can only imagine that Pastor Dung has felt this way before being a pastor.  With his actions, he STILL feels this way.

Pastor Dung does so much for the church and it was amazing to see.  He's actively involved in the community outreach programs and the church services.  On Saturday afternoon, they meet for praise and song.

Saturday afternoon praise and song service

Then, he has church services on Sunday.  In the morning and evening at the church and one in the afternoon immediately after the morning service at his home for those who couldn't/didn't make it out to the church.

Sunday morning worship service

Sunday afternoon worship service at his home immediately after the morning service in church

After seeing him being so involved in the church and listening to his message (which was translated to English for me by the wonderful Tam), he's not the type of pastor that says "nice" things to tickle your ears (a cheerleader pastor) or sits around, begs for/collects money for his own gain.  Unfortunately, these types of pastors are rare and I am blessed that God made our paths cross.  With that said, here is the information about their community outreach programs:

• There are two programs among the 7 pastoral programs which belong to the church and need support. They have a charity canteen that provided 1,500 free meals per week to children at the National Children Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City.  Volunteers do different tasks at this canteen from preparing the raw materials to cooking and distributing to the children and their families at the hospital and all members of this program are working volunteer completely. The budget for providing food are donated from different source and it is not truly sustainable but God does bless the program and it has development greatly and maintained over 6 years.  This program also provides God's word to those children and families and visit them at their home town later on.  Since they work so closely to children, there is a great need for clothes - especially newborn clothes/items. 

 Pastor Dung told me something that stood out the most in our conversation, "Even though we don't have a lot of money to fund this program, I don't focus on that.  Instead of looking at the money, I look at God.  He has provided and will continue to provide for this program."  How AMAZING is that?!?!?!  Praise God!

• Outside of this program, they also have another program for disabled people. In this outreach program, they have a longer term plan for project/activity such as providing handicap equipment to the people.
• Lastly, they need support in developing lessons on how to teach God's words to kids and youth at the Sunday school. They need help in terms of sending them materials/curriculum to spread God's words to children.

If the Holy Spirit placed it in your heart to send items, you can send them to:

Nguyen Quoc Dung

518/5 Cach mang thang 8 P.11

Q.3 Hochiminh City

Vietnam

Or, if He placed it in your heart to donate money to fund any of these programs, you can either go to the church's website: 

www.vietnamductin.org (it's in Vietnamese, so make sure to set your browser to translate) and click on Donation ([email protected]), which will change to Paypal OR just simply go to Paypal and type in that email address.  

Another way to donate money is via bank transfer.  Here are the account details:

Nguyen Quoc Dung

Asia Commercial Bank

acct. # 90916449

Swiftcode: ASCBVNVX

They are selling homemade crafts and the money will go to fund the children's program.  You can view them here:    

http://www.slideshare.net/Revquocdung/handcrafts

I am not familiar with this website and don't know how to buy these items, so your best bet would be to contact Pastor Dung for the details.  Or if you want to contact Pastor Dung with other matters that God has placed in your heart, I'm sure he would be happy to hear from you.  Here are his contact details:

Email: [email protected]

Phone: (08) 093.861.5997

Facebook: Daniel Nguyen

I pray that the Holy Spirit allows you all to help out in some way.  Above all, please keep this church, its members, and the entire nation in your prayers.  God bless!!

Posted by LaTasha Coates  at 2:30 AM

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