What God is doing in the Vietnamese American Church

God loves His Vietnamese-American children ❤️ & is transforming their hearts in college.

God has opened my eyes to see that He has been and is continuing to pursue the hearts of Vietnamese-Americans through the fruit of college ministry. This Thanksgiving, I was encouraged to meet sister Hanh who met Jesus through InterVarsity at Northwestern in the 90’s. Few years ago, I met sister Ai-Thien who met Jesus through college roommates from UCLA. When I heard these stories, it reminded me of my family’s journey with God. 🤗

While I became a Christian in high school, I started following God and having a real relationship with Jesus when I attended Stanford in 2015. Before coming to Stanford,

I was intimidated to open the Bible and would feel uncomfortable praying aloud. Stanford was the place where I learned how to read the Bible to know God’s ways, and how to pray to talk to God. I am SO grateful to God that He sent people (missionaries) to Stanford to share God’s love with me. My life has been forever changed because of the seeds that have been sown by campus ministries like  InterVarsity, Parakaleo, Chi Alpha. My senior year, I wrote a reflection of my faith journey with God. God not only pursued me in college, but also my two brothers.

My brother, Jesse developed a friendship with God during his time at Stanford. He was so transformed by God’s work in his freshman year that in his sophomore year, he wanted to be a Bible Study Leader for freshman.

My brother, Steven actively sought to grow in his faith since his freshman year at Vanderbilt. Last Christmas, my brother also shared his testimony of how he wanted to experience the deep things of God. He had been listening to the song, Refiner’s Fire and was led to pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire. Many of us know John 3:16, but God also wants us to experience Luke 3:16.

Let’s continue to pray that this year many Vietnamese-Americans across all college campuses would encounter the love of Jesus and be transformed by the gospel!

God wants us to have compassion for the Vietnamese people 🌸

For hundreds of years, the Vietnamese people have endured trauma being occupied by China and France and most recently, going through the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975. And this is true of my family’s story. When the Communists began to gain control of the government and move South, my father’s family relocated from Quy Nhon (Central Vietnam) to Saigon. During his childhood, my father witnessed and experienced so much suffering, hearing bombs go off at night, losing his mother at the age of 7 years old, going to prison 3 times, seeing people die at sea, and coming to a foreign country with little money and no parents. I later learned that this would explain why my family would have a hard time expressing their emotions, or why they would be concerned about financial stability.  

While I have found the Vietnamese to be the most resilient people I have ever met, they also carry deep wounds from the war. Many families were separated and dispersed because of the war. Some family members stayed in the North while others moved to the South. Some escaped by boat to another country while others died in combat. Whenever you meet Vietnamese people whether at the nail salon or the pho restaurant, I encourage you to be the family of God 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦. Take time to listen to their stories and celebrate their presence, the gift of their life. 😊