The gospel of Vietnam

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HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM — Crowds of hundreds sat on the tennis courts of Tan Son Nhut Air Base. They waited, desperate to board a commercial plane, a military C-130 or anything that would take them away from Saigon as the North Vietnamese army drew closer and closer.

On April 29, 1975, a rocket attack at the air base claimed the lives of U.S. Marines Charles McMahon, 21, and Darwin Lee Judge, 19, the last of the more than 58,200 American soldiers to die in the Vietnam War. The attack rendered the runways useless, so frightened evacuees huddled on building tops, waiting for helicopters to deliver them as Saigon fell.

Fifty years later, crowds of hundreds stand in long lines at the Tan Son Nhat International Airport, waiting to get into the former Saigon, renamed for the communist leader of the northern forces, known to most here as “Uncle Ho.” The visitors come from all over Southeast Asia, Europe and North America to navigate the Can Gio mangrove forest, relax on the beaches of Vung Tau or sip from tall glasses of iced coffee and big bowls of pho.

On the other side of the immigration counter, Hai Huynh waits patiently for his guest from The Christian Chronicle to clear customs. The 39-year-old was born in a unified Vietnam, nearly 15 years after the war ended. In school he studied about the occupation of his homeland, first by the French, then by Americans. The war claimed the lives of some 882,000 Vietnamese, including his grandfather and uncle — simple rice farmers who got caught in the crossfire.

The pain of those losses endures, Huynh says, but “it’s all history, the story of the Americans and Vietnamese.”

Huynh grew up in a humble neighborhood in Can Tho, a city in the Mekong Delta about 100 miles southwest of the airport.

The few American visitors he encountered seemed rich, aloof, “high level,” he says. Then his cousin introduced him to “brother Tom.”

Myles Thomas Tune, who served in the U.S. Navy during the final days of World War II, spent part of the Vietnam War years preaching the Gospel in nearby Hong Kong. He worked a variety of ministry jobs in the States, including a stint as part-owner and business manager of the Chronicle, before returning to the seas in 1979 aboard the Dorcas Sue, a 45-foot sailboat he named after his daughter. He sailed to South America, the Mediterranean and the South Pacific, preaching and planting churches.

He came to Ho Chi Minh City to supervise construction of The Ship of Life, a medical mission boat that would bring healing and hope to impoverished communities along the Mekong River in neighboring Cambodia. Tune met kids from impoverished families who hung around the docks. He found sponsors to pay the children’s school fees and taught Bible lessons to anyone willing to listen. Huynh and several of his family members became part of his ministry, dubbed Tom’s Kids.

“He really loved us, though we were strangers,” says Huynh, who grew up nominally Buddhist. Intrigued, he asked Tune why he was so motivated to help others. The answer: Jesus.

Tune worked closely with Stephane Phomasone, a graduate of Sunset International Bible Institute in Texas whom Tune nicknamed Frenchy. Phomasone served small groups of Christians in Vietnam with support from the West Ark Church of Christ in Fort Smith, Ark. As Tom’s Kids and their families studied the Bible with Tune and Frenchy and were baptized, new Churches of Christ sprang to life in Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho.

In 2013, Tune died from heart disease at age 83. His son, Mike Tune, then preacher for the Church of Christ in Falls Church, Va., took up the work.

Tom’s Kids grew up. One earned a business degree and launched an English school. Huynh and his brother learned to preach, training at Four Seas Bible College in Singapore. Now they lead a congregation 60 members strong — and growing.

Following Christ in a communist, predominantly Buddhist nation isn’t easy, Huynh says, but “I have a commitment just to God, and I believe that Tom wants me to continue to take care of the work here.”

‘Triumphs and Tragedies’

From the airport, Huynh and his hired driver wade into a sea of motorbikes amid the afternoon traffic. They pass the War Remnants Museum and its collection of captured and abandoned Huey helicopters and M48 Patton tanks. Massive skyscrapers and construction cranes tower above memorials to the victorious People’s Army of Vietnam. Banners alternating between a single yellow star and the communist hammer and sickle, both on a red field, hang from lampposts next to coffeehouses, 7-Eleven stores and McDonald’s.

Churches of Christ existed in southern Vietnam before Tom Tune’s arrival — and the arrival of the People’s Army. Two church members, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Joe Hale and Air Force Staff Sgt. Ken Wilson, were assigned to the U.S. embassy in Saigon in 1962. Missionaries Maurice Hall and Phil Carpenter followed, planting churches in Saigon, Da Nang and small villages in the south.

Hall and his wife, Marie, traveled to Oklahoma Christian College (now University) in 1963 to recruit Christians to work with a church-sponsored childcare program and the English American Vietnamese International School. Ralph and Gladys Burcham were among the 32 young believers who answered the call. They arrived on a steamy August afternoon in 1966.

“Some of our friends and loved ones thought I had lost my mind to take a family into a war-torn country,” Ralph Burcham wrote in his memoir, “Vietnam: Triumphs and Tragedies.” “Without a doubt, we believe God called us to share the Good News of Christ with a people who had struggled for so long for political freedom, yet, we believe the inner struggle for every person is for spiritual fulfillment. It is good that God allows us to live a day at a time without knowing what the future holds. Yet we knew, without a doubt, who holds the future!”

In the following two years, the team worked with children and studied the Bible with U.S. servicemen and Vietnamese adults. The Tet offensive of 1968 forced them to leave Vietnam. During the chaotic evacuation of 1975, the Burchams helped refugees find safe passage and settle in the U.S.

“We believe God called us to share the Good News of Christ with a people who had struggled for so long for political freedom, yet, we believe the inner struggle for every person is for spiritual fulfillment.”

After the war, many soldiers who fought for the southern Vietnamese army spent time in jail or reeducation camps. Minh Ho was one of the lucky ones. His family, like many in southern Vietnam, was divided during the war years. Some fought for the south, but others fought for the northern army or supported the National Liberation Front, the southern communist guerilla force that American soldiers referred to with the slang term Viet Cong. As a result, Ho avoided incarceration, he says.

Huynh and the Chronicle visit Ho and his family at their multi-level apartment home in Ho Chi Minh City. Ho, 73 and confined to a wheelchair after a recent traffic accident, shows them the small, tiled-floor room where a small Church of Christ meets. A Vietnamese Christian shared the Gospel with Ho in 1989, and he’s preached ever since. His son, Ho Nha Ca, grew up hearing his dad’s sermons and decided to follow in his footsteps. Nha Ca graduated from a program of Sunset International Bible Institute housed in the building of the Pasir Panjang Church of Christ in Singapore.

In recent years, Vietnam’s government has allowed greater freedom of religion, Huynh says, but winning souls for Christ in the booming metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City is a challenge, and the congregation here is small. The Ho family conducts gospel meetings outside the city and has experienced some success. Jesus’ parables, including the story of the prodigal son, resonate with people here, Nha Ca says. Congregations nearly disappeared during the final years of the war, but now small Churches of Christ exist in Da Nang, Phan Rang, Vũng Tàu and Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi.

“I want to share with people and tell them that God’s the one who knows everything,” Nha Ca says. “We can trust him, and he is the one who leads us to the right way.”

Floods and umbrellas

Before returning to Can Tho, Huynh stops by an apartment complex on the western outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. It’s a brand-new facility with a pristine, white facade, though the pavement outside bears cracks from the 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck Myanmar, 1,300 miles from here, in March.

Two more of Tom’s Kids, Vinh Duong and Nam Nguyen, work with a small Church of Christ that meets here. Mike Tune, now retired from full-time preaching and living in Tennessee, joins them by internet on Sundays to share Bible lessons. The small group of believers praises God quietly, respecting their neighbors.

“I’m Vietnamese, so I understand how the government thinks about churches,” Huynh says. In the past, the leaders of some denominational groups have dealt dishonestly with church members, especially in financial matters. Huynh says he works to be transparent with fellow Vietnamese Christians and respectful of their government.

Duong and Nguyen grew up in poor Catholic families. Tom Tune helped them with school fees and food. They studied God’s Word with Tune and Frenchy.

“I knew about the Bible, but we had never read it before,” Duong says as Huynh interprets. “I saw, more and more, the wonderful things in the Bible.”

Sharing the wonders he’s found in Scripture is difficult, he adds. Even in a communist country, the lure of materialism is strong. As Ho Chi Minh City grows, physically and economically, busy city dwellers have less and less time for spiritual matters as they pursue financial gain.

Duong loves Christian evidences — stories from nature that affirm his faith. He’s studied ancient literature and scientific journals that tell of a great flood, a story he knows from Scripture. In a country where monsoons drench the streets for months at a time, the flood narrative resonates, he says.

“If you want the rain, before you do the prayer, you need to bring the umbrella.”

Nguyen’s favorite Bible story is Jesus walking on the water in Matthew 14. When Peter, Jesus’ disciple, attempts to join his master, he becomes distracted by and afraid of the mighty winds and begins to sink. The story shows the importance of faith, Nguyen says, faith that endures decades of occupation, warfare and the peace that follows.

“If you want the rain,” he says, “before you do the prayer, you need to bring the umbrella.”

Prayer has yielded tidal waves of blessings in Vietnam, Huynh says. When people follow Christ’s teachings, they become less anxious about their money, their jobs — all of life’s material concerns.

In a land scarred by decades of conflict, Huynh says, only Jesus can bring peace.

“History happened, (but) we always love people, respect them,” he says. “We don’t keep the past in our heart.”

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ERIK TRYGGESTAD is President and CEO of The Christian Chronicle. Contact [email protected].

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Filed under: Gospel International News Southeast Asia Sunset International Bible Institute Top Stories Vietnam Vietnam War