Vietnam Ministry Update
The pandemic has hit hard on lives globally and has impacted much of the church’s missionary and pioneering plans, yet these unfavorable circumstances have been a blessing in disguise to the pioneering work in Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh). Every Friday night, we have 4-6 local Vietnamese friends who attend our Zoom Sabbath Services together with our Vietnamese members in Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. Service times had to be arranged just in time for our volunteer speakers to finish their respective countries’ Sabbath Services and conduct the Zoom Service from 8.30 to 9.30pm (Vietnamese time).
The slowdown of the economy and pace of life has allowed our Vietnamese friends time to attend our activities, which they rarely did pre-pandemic, especially on weeknights. As most of them, including our local Vietnamese members work on Saturdays, hence we are not able to gather them for our Saturday afternoon Sabbath Services, which are currently attended mostly by Taiwanese members who work in Ho Chi Minh. Commencing from the 2nd quarter of 2022, arrangements have been made to allow our Taiwanese members to lead the services in a systematic study of the Book of Acts, instead of our previous arrangement of only volunteer speakers from Malaysia and Singapore.
Close to the past 1 year, we have been consistently conducting weekly outreach programs via the banner of “Learning English”. We have now separated the 3 friends into 2 different groups, given their different needs and availability. The course material used by our volunteers from Malaysia and Singapore for learning English (grammar and speaking) are our Basic Beliefs articles, Hymns, Testimonies, Church publications, etc. Even Bible studies are conducted for one particular person, as we hope to invoke his thoughts in a guided manner to discover the doctrine of salvation himself from the Book of Acts, at the same time as he learns English.
Virtual RE Classes are conducted weekly for our 2 children living in Dong Nai (2 hours drive from Ho Chi Minh City, approximately 90km apart) and once a month we will have Sisters’ Fellowship via Zoom.
At present, we have mainly 2-3 Taiwanese members who gathers for Saturday Sabbath Services via Zoom when they are in Ho Chi Minh. It is still hard trying to contact or get a response from the rest of the members from Taiwan, Malaysia, and Sabah whom we know are working and residing in Vietnam but far away from Ho Chi Minh.
We would hope that various General Assemblies, Coordination Boards and Churches can encourage their Vietnamese members to join the Vietnam Virtual Volunteer Ministry (3VM), to assist in the ministry work for Vietnam from their own respective countries and in the comfort of their own homes. For a start, our Vietnamese members residing outside of Vietnam can join our Sabbath Services (especially Friday night), our Fellowships, or help keep in Contact with some of our local Vietnamese friends. While it is still Day; while the local Vietnamese community has yet to revert back to their long working hours & hectic life, we would hope that our members can hear God asking: “Whom Shall I Send?…Who will go for Us…?”
Vietnam Coordinator: Dn Isaiah Chang
Whatsapp/LINE/WeChat/Kakao: +65-9752-4399
Sabbath Service (Zoom) : https://zoom.us/j/3982818890?pwd=L3FGb1U1NmFWaCtrNlNPOWh4WTUvZz09
Friday 8.30pm (UTC +07:00) | Saturday 5.30pm (UTC +07:00)
Ho Chi Minh Evangelical Point: 19, Đường số 24, Bình Phú, Phường 11, Quận 6, Hồ Chí Minh
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