Pastor Vue is one of the pastors with the Hmong Fellowship Church who is training under Rev. Bounkeo Lor and Professor E. Allen Sorum. Currently he has some family members who are suffering persecution in their village. He shared his story with Prof. Sorum.

Pastor Vue’s niece lives about 200 kilometers from his village. His niece married a man from her village who was not a Christian. His name is Kua. Now, Kua and his wife and his wife’s parents are the only Christians in this village.

The village leaders came to Kua and persuaded him to divorce his wife. The people in the village do not like Kua’s wife or her family because they are Christians. Kua submitted to their will and divorced his wife. This broke her heart and she sought comfort and encouragement from her uncle, Pastor Vue.

After a time, Kua felt ashamed that he had mistreated his wife. He went back and apologized, and asked her to marry him again. He promised he would stay true to her and never abandon her. So they remarried. This made the leaders of Kua’s village very angry and the people beat Kua’s wife to the point that she lost some of her hearing. They also beat Kua and tied his hands behind his back. After they bound him, they dragged him to a different village to continue to beat him.

Two Christian families lived in the village where Kua was being held prisoner. They reported to the wife’s family where he was being held. The family came and, with the help of the two Christian families in this village, they rescued Kua.

The elders of Kua’s village negotiated an agreement with the police that required Kua and his wife to leave their village, their families, and property that had belonged to their families for generations. They were forcefully relocated to the village where he had been held, simply because there were two other Christian families there.

Of course Pastor Vue wanted us to pray for his niece and her husband, Kua. But, more importantly, Pastor Vue wanted us to ask God to make the government bold to protect Christian citizens from persecution. The Vietnamese government has opened the door for Christianity, but support and protection for Christians is not consistent. Christians are getting pushed off of their property and are not being protected.

The Hmong Christians are vulnerable because they are Christians in a land that does not like Christians and also because they are ethnic minorities in Vietnam. This is why the Hmong pastors in the HFC are usually pastors in the village where they were born and raised. These pastors need the support, protection, and assistance of their Christian family and friends so they can be the spiritual leaders of their people. Currently, it is too dangerous for the HFC to send a trained missionary/pastor to go to a different village to start a new church. While they do want to do this and are dreaming about the day it may happen, for now, it is just not possible.

Please join with me in praying the prayer Pastor Vue has asked us to pray.

Pastor Vue shared his story with Professor Sorum. Fay Lor, Rev. Lor’s wife, translated for them.

Pastor Vue collaborates with the other pastors who are in training.