Trusting in God : Vietnamese Pray for Safe Return of Their Pastors

The church is red brick, pastel-paned Middle America. The music is a drum-and-guitar version of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The religion is hand-clapping, tears-of-joy Pentecostal.

It is a typical evangelical revival meeting--except here all the Bibles, the sermons and the faces are Vietnamese.

Born as a result of immigrant conversions, the unusual congregation of about 150 at the Vietnamese Christian Church here remains a close-knit island in Orange County’s mostly Buddhist or Catholic Vietnamese-American community.

Preaching salvation and prosperity, the 10-year-old Pentecostal house of worship is neither wealthy nor growing. But its members are firmly committed to their strait-laced, fundamentalist faith.

At the 9 a.m. service Sunday, congregants drew on that commitment and their faith to remain optimistic about the arrest in Vietnam three weeks ago of two of their pastors, the Revs. Tuan Phuc Ma and Nhi Van Ho. The shaken congregation still has no word on their fate, but based on information from contacts in Vietnam, members believe that the pastors are being detained along with scores of others by the communist regime.

Publicity about the pastors’ plight will bring scrutiny to the lack of freedom there, the hopeful congregants believe. They are optimistic that outside intervention on behalf of the detainees will persuade the regime to relax laws on religion.

“I think a miracle will take place,” said Nhi Van Ho’s son, Vu Van.

Similar to the evangelicals who a decade ago were smuggling Bibles into China and the Soviet Union, the Vietnamese-American Pentecostals say they want only to spread encouragement and training to those who cannot openly express their religious beliefs.

“It’s not that I try to be brave,” said Vu Van Ho, a 31-year-old missionary who said he plans to resume his work even after escaping last week just before his father and Ma were arrested in Ho Chi Minh City. “We’re committed to serving God. It’s the only reason we live.”

Protestantism had begun to make inroads into Vietnam in the 1950s, with the more charismatic denominations following in the early ‘70s, Ho said. It is estimated that less than a third of the more than 71,000 Vietnamese residents in Orange County are non-Catholic Christians. Ho said there are half a dozen Vietnamese Pentecostal churches in the United States: three in Southern California, one in North Carolina and two in Texas.

Sinh (Paul) Xuan Vo, the church’s associate pastor, said followers converted either in Vietnam or here after particularly moving episodes in their lives or testimonies of faith from other Vietnamese or Americans. Vo, who arrived here 16 years ago with a wife and five children, converted from Buddhism in 1962 after hearing Vietnamese Christian youths proselytize in Vietnam, he said.

The Ho family was also Buddhist. But during the final evacuations before Saigon fell on April 30, 1975, former Air Force Lt. Col. Nhi Van Ho lost contact with his wife and three sons. During the separation after the chaos of war, he found no answers in Buddhism or Catholicism and turned to the fundamentalists, Ho said in an interview with The Times last year.

The family was reunited 10 days later in a refugee camp in Guam and decided to follow the American missionaries who were touring the camps.

Vu Van Ho, a former service representative with Pacific Bell, said he was converted by Assembly of God missionaries in Camp Pendleton relocation camps. The Bible, he said, “gives hope. We believe in the Bible 100%.”

In contrast, the Ma family had been Protestant for at least four generations and turned to the more expressive Pentecostal Church after settling in Southern California.

After leaving the refugee camps, the families who stayed in Orange County began to gather weekly for prayers. Some attended Southern California Theology Seminary in Stanton and other seminaries. Eventually, 10 Vietnamese people were ordained by the Assemblies of God.

They include Ma, who started the Orange County congregation in 1981, and three members of the Ho family: Nhi Van, his wife Kiem Xuan, and their son Vu Van. They help run the Santa Ana church as well as the Vietnamese Assembly of God in Long Beach. A third group has organized in Lakewood.

In designing their services, Vu Van Ho said, they listened to tapes and patterned their worship after other Pentecostal churches such as the Vineyard in Anaheim.

Now, about 25 families--half of whom arrived 16 years ago--make up the Santa Ana congregation. Its main goal for the future is to keep increasing membership and help create more Vietnamese Christian churches, Vo said.

But proselytizing the Vietnamese hasn’t been easy. Typically, Vu Van Ho said, Vietnamese people do not tend to be emotionally expressive and are difficult to convert.

Sunday morning gatherings take place in a side chapel, leased from the First Christian Church of Santa Ana. Nine o’clock services end promptly at 11 a.m. to make room for the Korean and Hispanic congregations that follow. There are youth groups and Sunday school classes for children. Saturday nights are devoted to a healing service, along with the emotional singing and praying common at revival meetings.

On Saturday, the unknown fate of their spiritual leaders gave the service an added meaning that moved many to tears.

With tightly closed eyes, a tearful face and right arm extended skyward, the Rev. Ma’s wife, Ngoc Le Ma, sang a hymn imploring Jesus Christ to deliver believers from a world of darkness.

Between singing, the Rev. Vu Van Ho led the congregation in prayer. Worshipers spoke aloud to Jesus Christ, clenching their fists and thrusting them down for emphasis. Cries of “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” further punctuated their fervor.

During the prayers, Ma, Ho and other family members of the two captive pastors beseeched God to safely deliver their loved ones home.

The mood Sunday morning was less fervent, but no less somber.

Xuan-Nhi V. Ho, Ho’s eldest son, told the congregation the latest news about his father and the Rev. Ma. About 11:30 p.m. Saturday, he said, a relative in Vietnam phoned the Ho home in Cypress and spoke in code for fear of being caught. The relative said the men are in a hospital, but their ailments are not serious. But he said the conditions of their friends are serious.

Xuan-Nhi V. Ho, a Vietnamese activist, interpreted the message to mean that his father and Ma will be released. “It’s just a matter of time.

“We believe all that has happened is in God’s good intentions and is in God’s program,” he said to about 75 members present. “This is not accidental.”