GREENSBORO, N.C. (ABP) — One North Carolina Baptist pastor isn't content simply to reach out to his fellow Vietnamese living in the United States.
“God has opened the doors in Vietnam, allowing the gospel to be shared, and there have been many lost souls who now embrace the Lord,” said Hoa Duc Vo, pastor of Vietnamese Baptist Church in Greensboro, N.C.
Vo tries to make at least two trips a year to his home country. Of more than 82 million people in the Southeast Asian nation, Vo said only one percent are evangelical Christians.
Vo was raised Roman Catholic. He left Vietnam in 1975 with his wife and three-day-old daughter as “boat people” after the fall of South Vietnam at the end of the long-running conflict over communism there.
“With a weak and sick wife and child on the vast ocean, I prayed to whatever god to save us and vowed that whatever god or religion that rescued my family, then that was the religion I was to dedicate my life to,” he said. “It was then a Christian family from Salisbury [N.C.] sponsored our family and brought us to the United States.”
Vo came to America and began to work, putting his promise out of his mind. His family expanded to include two more daughters and a son. They moved to Charlotte and opened an ethnic food store and fish market.
“We were living the 'American dream,'” Vo said. “However, I never had any peace, and I then remembered my promise of 1975. It was then that I sold everything and dedicated my life to be the Lord's servant.”
Southside Baptist Church in Greensboro brought the Vo family to that city and established the Vietnamese Baptist Mission.
“When I first came to Greensboro in 1986, there were only about eight or nine families with a total Vietnamese population of about 70 people” in the area, Vo said. “I began the mission with my family as the only members, then I readily went out witnessing to the Vietnamese people in Greensboro. Steadily God opened the doors allowing many refugees to immigrate to North Carolina, and from there the Lord's work began to grow.”
Then in 1991, Southside helped build a facility to house the growing church. Vo said the debt for the building was paid off in seven years, which opened financial means for him to go to Vietnam to minister to people in his country.
Vo's most recent trip to Vietnam took place over two months last fall.
“I visited churches throughout Vietnam, from the north to the south, with the purpose of encouraging, having revivals, training, leadership [and] discipleship conferences so that the new believers and leaders are adequately equipped so that they can go out and witness to the people of Vietnam,” he said. “I was able to baptize 520 new believers on my latest trip.”
Vo said he typically baptizes about 500 new Christians each trip to his home country.
“God has given me a vision of 1 million lost souls to the Lord and for that reason my sole agenda is to bring the gospel to the lost before I am called home to be with our Savior,” Vo said.
The majority of the Vietnamese population is Buddhist, he said, but the Great Commission is his driving force.
“It is his word, our Lord Jesus Christ's Great Commission,” he said. “Every time that I return to Vietnam, it seems that the servants in Vietnam find great encouragement that someone cares for them.”
Vo's next trip is scheduled for March 15, but he said he's waiting on God to provide the needed funds.
“I know if he opens the door, then he will make a way and provide the financial assistance that is needed,” said Vo. “Over the last 10 years, it has been by this faith that I have worked.”
His trips have been financially supported through Southside Baptist, the Piedmont Baptist Association and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, as well as individual donations.
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