Legacy of love

War cut their work short, but 36 years after Saigon's fall Southern Baptists' investment in Vietnam is paying off.

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Belying its humble beginnings, Grace Baptist´s modern glass building towers above Nguyen Van Troi Street in Ho Chi Minh City, the same location it has occupied since 1970 when Southern Baptists´ gave $50,000 in Lottie Moon Christmas Offering funds to purchase the property. Sam James greets old friends after Sunday morning service at Grace Baptist Church, some of whom he has known since he first came to Vietnam in 1962 - nearly 50 years ago. Today, at 78, James remains a passionate advocate for Vietnamese Baptists and still speaks Vietnamese fluently. Pastor Huy Le (left) prepares to baptize Hanh Nguyen, 34, at Grace Baptist Church in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Le took over Grace Baptist’s pastorate in 2010 when his father, Chanh Le, retired. “Our vision involves evangelism through relationship,” Le says. “I believe that a life must be changed to evangelize others.” At age 16, Chanh Le was hungry, homeless and hopeless, planning to end his life by stepping into oncoming traffic. But through a chance encounter with the Gospel, Chanh became the first Vietnamese to accept Christ through the witness of Southern Baptist missionaries. Now 72, Le recently retired from Grace Baptist Church after serving as its pastor for 40 years. New believers Lam and Hanh Nguyen stand with their sons in the family’s modern home in Ho Chi Minh City. Recently, the couple was baptized at Grace Baptist Church and recruited Pastor Huy Le to help them remove an altar from their home that they once used for ancestor worship. Hung Le holds a photo of her husband, Thanh Do, who planted and pastored Faith Baptist Church in Saigon in 1968 with the help of Sam James. Sadly, Do died from a sudden illness in 1973 after just four years of marriage, leaving Le alone with the couple´s two young children. Communists shuttered Faith Baptist in 1975 after the fall of Saigon; now Le, 64, attends Grace Baptist Church. Bien Ka pastors Hope Baptist Church in Phan Thiet, east of Ho Chi Minh City. With an average Sunday attendance of more than 600, Hope Baptist is the largest Baptist congregation in Vietnam and caters specifically to the country´s Raglai minority. As a young woman, Dung Do studied to become a kindergarten teacher through a special program at the Vietnam Baptist Theological Seminary. But after Saigon´s collapse she spent three years working for the government as a forced laborer. Today, Do owns her own kindergarten in a Ho Chi Minh City neighborhood and actively attends Grace Baptist Church. Trang Tran, 29, pilots a boat down a branch of the Mekong River. With more than 25 percent of its population under the age of 15, Vietnam is a young nation; the country´s median age is 27 compared with 37 in the United States. Grace Baptist Pastor Huy Le believes reaching this demographic with the Gospel is the lynchpin for evangelizing all of Vietnam. Vietnamese believers share a meal following Sunday morning services at Phuoc Thien Baptist Church in Vietnam´s Mekong River Delta. Phung Le (left) prays with the congregation of Phuoc Thien Baptist Church in Dong Binh, Vietnam. Le and her husband, Ut Tran, started the rural church in their home in 2007; average Sunday attendance now tops 70 people. As a young man, Ut Tran (right) was an ardent communist who spied for the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. Today, the 58-year-old rice farmer leads Phuoc Thien Baptist Church — part of the Grace Baptist network — near the city of Can Tho in Vietnam’s Mekong River Delta. Tran became a believer in 2000 after watching Jesus transform the life of his son, Quoc. Viet Tran leads Faithfulness Baptist Church in Dong Thang village, near the city of Can Tho. Before becoming a believer, Tran says he was the laughing stock of his neighbors — poor, uneducated and often drunk. The church meets in Tran’s dirt-floored home, averaging 20 to 30 people each Sunday. With a briskness befitting a man half his age, Sam James winds his way through a neighborhood in Ho Chi Minh City. "We are standing right before a time when Vietnam is going to be open to the Gospel in a way that it hasn´t for many, many years," James says.

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