Vietnam's Most Wanted

Pastor Hong
Quang
Nguyen.

On Dec. 14, 2010, the bulldozer moved in to destroy the Mennonite Bible School in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. The Communist government mobilized 100 policemen to for a half-kilometer-wide ring around the area, adding a few hundred more inside the area. Two policemen used an electric cattle prod on the back of the school's director, Pastor Hong Quang Nguyen, after tying his hands behind him.

A few weeks before the school's destruction, 28 students had graduated, becoming the first graduating class of the three-year curriculum. Two-thirds of these students are from the Jorai, Bahnar, Hre, Kor, Steing, and Homng trible groups.

The police have arrested the Bible students many times as well for sharing about Jesus and passing out tracts. Pastor Quang goes to the police station to secure their release. In one series of arrests, police held 50 adults and 40 Bible students for 24 hours at the police station.

The state permits only a few Bible schools in Vietnam, equal to one per 30 million Vietnamese. Other groups, meeting in apartments or houses, either bribe local police to leave them alone or remain very small, with 10 or 15 students totally "underground."

Pastor Quang's churches and Bible school are different. They are out in the open, and they are growing. They will not be muzzled like many churches that, tired of the harassment, compromise by seeking registration and stopping or slowing their evangelism outside their church walls.

(from Voice of the Martyrs, April 2011)

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