Phuoc Nguyen will never forget the woman he met the summer
of 1973 in Saigon, Vietnam. At
12 years of age, his love of reading drew him to a church library that was
open to the public in
his neighborhood.
During one of Nguyens frequent visits there, a “nice
lady smiled at me with a mouth that had no teeth,” he recalls.
Phuoc Nguyen will never forget the woman he met the
summer of 1973 in Saigon, Vietnam. At
12 years of age, his love of reading drew him to a church library that was
open to the public in
his neighborhood.
During one of Nguyens frequent visits there,
a “nice lady smiled at me with a mouth that had no teeth,” he recalls.
“She witnessed Jesus Christ to me. I can feel
it through what she told me,” Nguyen (pronounced “Winn”) says.”The
power of Jesus Christ touched me through her story and through her work.”
Since then, Nguyens life and Saigon have changed
significantly. Communists took over Saigon and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City,
and Nguyen now lives in Central Louisiana as a naturalized citizen of the United
States. He recently was ordained to the gospel ministry by First Baptist Church
of Pineville, serves as pastor of the churchs international congregation
and preaches to Vietnamese inmates at Oakdale Federal Detention Center.
His physical pilgrimage from one homeland to another
and his spiritual pilgrimage from a child in a primarily Buddhist country to
a bivocational Baptist minister are the stuff of courage and faith.
Even so, he has not forgotten the beginning of his
Christian walk and those who led him to Christ.
Nguyen began working with the church as soon as he
accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior. He visited people, witnessed to
them and spent a great deal of time in prayer with his fellow Christians until
1980, when he had an opportunity to flee the communist government that had taken
over the area five years earlier.
In the five years communists were in power, they
placed limits on peoples actions, food and even when they could meet,
including restricting church meetings.
“The government tried to take over the power
of Christ,” Nguyen explains. “We had to face all kinds of problems,
and I had problems myself, too.”
Nguyen says he constantly prayed about his and the
churchs plight under the new government and what he should do about it.
Nguyen received an answer to his prayer in 1980,
when he was told in deep secrecy about a fishing boat that would ferry people
out of Vietnam. Under the cover of darkness, at age 19, he and 31 other people
crammed onto a small fishing boat. They set sail for what would be a perilous
journey of five nights and four days. They finally landed on a small island
of Indonesia and became part of the “boat people” who left their homes
for freedom in other parts of the world.
Nguyen stayed on the island for almost a year, waiting
on paperwork to clear. He also began using his limited English to interpret
for the agency handling his paperwork.
More importantly, Nguyen fell in love with Anne who
also had fled Vietnam in a boat. But they were soon separated as she was sent
to Paris, France, where her father lived. Nguyen knew he would be sent to the
United States.
“We said if we really loved each other, we would
keep in touch,” Nguyen says.
And they did – through letters and phone calls and
even a personal visit in Paris, they maintained their relationship.
In 1984, nearly four years after they met and were
separated, Nguyen traveled to France to marry the love of his life.
While they were separated, Nguyen had started his
new life in the United States where he first lived in Houston.
“The first day I got here (in the United States),
the best impression I had in my mind was, America is a blessing country,”
he recounts.
Nguyen says he remembers being amazed after his first
trip to a supermarket.
“You can buy anything you want – you dont
have to wait in line to get it. … You have an opportunity to do whatever you
want to do,” he says.
Nguyen was working in a fast-food restaurant during
his first year in the United States. He recalls how a customer became upset
because Nguyens limited English hindered him in taking the mans
order. Nguyen turned the experience into an awakening, realizing his need to
focus on more than simply material things.
“At that moment, I sat down and thought about
Jesus Christ again,” Nguyen says.
He says he appreciates the experience because it
taught him about his walk with God. “The way we walk with God is not as
smooth as we think.”
One year after arriving in Houston, Nguyen moved
to Austin, Texas, and studied everything he could for five years first
at Austin Community College and later at the University of Texas.
After finishing school, a friend in Austin taught
Nguyen how to run a business in order to make more money. “No matter what
we do, we have to make more money,” he says he learned.
Nguyen moved to Alexandria and started a business
called Smoothies and Yogurt in the local mall. However, he quickly learned that
money still was not of the utmost importance. While equipping his rental space
for a food business, his contractor ran off with $25,000, leaving Nguyen with
nowhere to turn but God.
“The first day I was here, God knocked me on
my head. … I had time to think about why it happened to me, and He reminded
me of something else,” Nguyen says.
He says he realized he had not fully relied on God
in his endeavors. “I realized that in this world we cannot go on our own.
We just live in this world a short time, and he has a purpose for us,”
he says.
Nguyen says he found that purpose in Matthew 28:19-20,
which instructs Christians to tell others about Jesus Christ and keep all of
Gods commandments.
He has since been focused on being faithful in his
walk with God. During this time, significant opportunities have opened for him
to minister to others, he says.
For about three and one half years, Nguyen has led
a Vietnamese congregation on Sunday mornings at First Baptist Church of Pineville.
Since it started, the mission, known as International Friends, has grown from
two or three people to 15 to 20 each Sunday.
“We just see the work growing and spreading
in influence,” says Grace Lee who directs the overall international ministry
of the church and who first asked Nguyen to lead the mission. She is the wife
of former Louisiana Baptist Convention Executive Director Robert L. Lee.
Nguyen also finds himself being called on as an interpreter
for hospitals, law enforcement agencies and other community agencies in the
Alexandria area.
“His influence is widespread,” Lee says.
She says she has seen Nguyen grow as his ministry
has grown.
“Ive seen him grow also as a Christian
and as a minister as he is faithful in his prayer life and in his ministry,”
Lee says.
In addition to his work as an interpreter, the Vietnamese
worship service each Sunday and Nguyens business, he recently was asked
to preach to inmates at Oakdale Federal Detention Center. The facility has a
large number of Vietnamese inmates to whom Nguyen ministers. He says many are
at the moment when they need God the most – when they cannot do anything else.
The first time he preached at the center, 17 inmates
accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Nguyen baptized them on June 22.
Now, Nguyen will hold a worship service at the center
every third Thursday.
“I think this is a great opportunity to be a
witness for Christ,” he says.
Nguyen was ordained into ministry on June 18 and
says he wants to continue to serve God in any way possible.
“I feel a calling because after all the problems
and things I tried to do by myself,” he explains. “I tried to put
it all together, and asked myself What is the purpose of my life?”
That purpose is to seek the kingdom of God, and everything
else comes later, he says. Nguyen says he strives to do this daily and believes
his future will be only according to Gods plan.
“To me, thats the honor – to follow his
call,” Nguyen states.
For now, Nguyen, his wife, and their daughters, Rachel,
nine, and Sarah, five, will continue their service to the Lord in a bivocational
manner.
“They love to go to church every Sunday, and
to me thats a good thing,” he says of his wife and children.
Nguyen says the future is in Gods hands.
“I cannot tell you what will happen in the future,”
he acknowledges.
“What I can do is take it day by day.