02/25/2021 Vietnam (International Christian Concern) – On the 30th of January 2021, a group of police officers came to stop a Bible study group in the house of sister Le thi Hoa in A Ngo commune, A Luoi district, Hue province and confiscated all their Christian materials accusing them of illegally conducting religious gathering.
Le thi Hoa is from the Ta Oi tribe (or Ta-oy/Kantua). She is a mother of ten daughters with the youngest in her 10th grade in school; her husband abandoned her to marry another woman hoping to have a son to carry the name of the family.
One of her daughters went to Saigon to work and became a Christian. Soon Hoa followed her daughter’s step. Being aware of Christianity, some of her other daughters went to work in Danang city and attended a church in TinLanh. Eventually, all of them became Christian.
In 2020, sister Hoa returned to her village due to her loss of job. Together with some of her daughters who are living in the village, they started to meet at home for Bible study and pray together. Some of her neighbors also started joining them.
Their meeting eventually caught the attention of some hostile neighbors who later reported her to the local authorities. On January 30, when the group was meeting, the neighbor called the police and informed them about the meeting. A group of officers including village authorities, communal police, and district police soon visited her house and stopped their meeting, before confiscating all the Bible study materials. The authorities prohibited them to meet saying that this is a ‘communist village’ and they are not allowed to have any religion including Christianity. They banned the people from gathering again and requested sister Hoa to report to them whenever anyone visits her in the future.
Sister Hoa and the people at her village are very simple, they do not know what to do next. A daughter of sister Hoa in Saigon sent her the link of an online service of her church in Saigon and told her to join. Currently, Hoa and her daughters attend the online service of that church. In the meantime, there are some Christians from the Tinlanh church in Danang who still visit and encourage Hoa and the group.
Sister Hoa and the people there need your prayers so that God will guide them in their next steps. We are praying that God will allow Hoa’s daughters and herself to find a new job in Danang and work there so they have more spiritual support. Christians in Danang are praying for them to be equipped so they can one day lead the group. They also will try to connect the group to the Tinlanh church in Hue to help register the group with the government.
For interviews please contact Alison Garcia: press@persecution.org.
