Vietnam: Darkness and Light, Page 4

February 2002

Articles in this issue:  Vietnam, Page 1 | Vietnam, Page 2 | Vietnam, Pakistan, Page 3 | Vietnam, Page 4

“Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent for I am with you.” Acts 18:9, 10

Vietnam: Darkness and Light...continued from page 2

          While the carols of Christmas elicit spontaneous gratitude from the followers of Jesus everywhere, an affidavit that Christians of Huoi Chom Village in Lai Chau Province were forced to sign in September reads, "Before we eat, we will not call on the Lord, we will not make a practice of prayer, and when someone dies we will not... put a cross on the grave of the deceased." 

          To these proscriptions the awesome power of the gentle Jesus responds through a courageous brother, Ly A Tua, a Hmong Christian leader who spoke for many. He wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister of Vietnam on November 10, 2001, "You can make my hand sign 100 pledge papers, but my heart still does not agree to a single one!" 

          For these Christians, Jesus has become "the dawn of redeeming grace" and "a thrill of hope"! He has freed them from binding animistic beliefs and spirits whose demands they could never meet. But the communist government uses propaganda and brute force to make tribal Christians return to ways of life which failed them. In Ea Hleo in Dak Lak province, Christians have been forced at gunpoint to participate in a "Ceremony to Repent of Following Christianity" by drinking a repugnant cocktail of the warm blood of sacrificed animals mixed with powerful rice wine. Like the First Family of old, many flee _ some across the border into neighboring Cambodia.

          The concert ended. Too soon! Platitudes, flowers and speeches from the organizers provided an anti-climatic ending. The Minister of Culture and Information rose and, Herod-like, wished us all a "Happy Christmas." All the while, his fellow officials in the remote areas of Vietnam continue their dirty work, determined to "arrest and reverse" the movement of followers of the "King forever, ceasing never, over us all to reign." Frozen in my seat I pray for the persecutors and the persecuted. The strains of "O Holy Night" echo throughout the theatre _ and the whole land! 

"The King of Kings laid lowly in a manger, 
In all our trials born to be our friend. 
He knows our needs, to our weakness no stranger, 
Behold your King, before him lowly bow! 
Christ is the Lord . . . His power and his glory evermore proclaim"! 

          Out of their darkness, blind students have brightly and clearly proclaimed the Story and the Glory in the heart of political power of a blind system. When communists won the war here 26 years ago there where 160,000 Protestant believers in Vietnam. Today there are 1,100,000! This Christmas Eve, millions of Catholic and Protestant Christians, seekers, and the curious will gather in cathedrals, in churches, in courtyards, in homes, in hovels and in the forest to bow before the manger. Herod still frets and schemes and threatens. Nothing will keep people from worshipping the King! 

Name of author withheld. 
Hanoi, Vietnam 
December 9, 2001

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POSTED:  March 9, 2002

February 2002

Articles in this issue:  Vietnam, Page 1 | Vietnam, Page 2 | Vietnam, Pakistan, Page 3 | Vietnam, Page 4