Testimonies in Vietnam 🇻🇳

These past three weeks in Vietnam have already been so fruitful! I’ve seen the Lord moving so much in the hearts of the people here and the relationships we’ve built.

Some background on the culture and religious values & beliefs the majority of people have in Vietnam. Going into Vietnam we were told that the majority of the country leans towards Buddhism or ancestral worship. They are also very superstitious and value the zodiac. While this is true I have seen God show up in these people in ways I wasn’t really expecting. The specific city we are staying in is pretty remote and still on the upcoming. Not many people come here for tourist reasons and because of that I guess I was expecting it to be fairly unreached. However we have met so many strong and open Vietnamese Christians as well as missionaries from all over. Christmas also isn’t a national holiday here so not many people celebrate it as Christ’s birth or they don’t celebrate it at all. However, we’ve seen so many people interested in the Christmas season and have questions on why it’s such a joyful time of the year. And lots of places are playing Christian Christmas music which is so encouraging honestly.

One of our main ministries here is teaching English to elementary and middle school age children. We do this four nights a week and I get to be with the same class every week for two of the nights. Most of these kids have never heard the story of Jesus or what it means to know Him. We got the opportunity to take 85 kids from these English classes to the movie King of Kings. This movie was so perfect! It basically went through the entire life of Jesus, the miracles He performed, and why He died for us. It even explained the Creation and why Jesus came out of love for His children! Afterwards I got to talk to a few of the students and they all seemed to love the movie. One boy who is 13 and who we’ve gotten to pour into these past few weeks, even told Emma that he wanted to become a Christian after seeing the movie. I just pray that the seeds that were planted in these kids would continue to grow.

Another testimony from being here so far was from the woman who we helped clean her house after the flood. This woman is a Christian but her husband is a Buddhist. He doesn’t support her going to church and is abusive. A few times he even threw her out of the house because she openly believed in God. When the flood swept through the countryside it damaged their house pretty bad. The waters started rising and completely flooded the first floor of her house. As she was seeking safety on the second floor she couldn’t stop praying for God to break the Buddha statues in her home. After the flood, she found out that all of her husband’s statues were completely shattered and non repairable. Her husband, in trying to recover the statues shattered his foot on the glass so bad that he had to go to the hospital. Because her husband wasn’t at home, we were able to partner with a church to help clean up her house and pray for her. Praise God!

We’ve also gotten to talk about God to a lot of high schoolers and college age people during our English Club on Saturday nights. This is a time where we sit and talk about already formed discussion questions. There are plenty of opportunity to talk about Jesus here and they are also very curious and have many questions. Some are even very interested in Christianity and wants to know what makes us different.

Cant wait to see what else God does during our time here!

Maleah