Vinh Le’s voyage to freedom became a journey to missions.
The Christian physician who fled Vietnam in 1982 is now a home missionary serving as a pastor and church starter in Denver.
Le’s grandfather was the first person in his family to leave Buddhism for Christianity. The grandfather made his decision when he was in his 60s, and it resulted in his wife and all but one of his seven children deserting him. The one child who also embraced Christianity was Le’s father.
Le became a Christian at 16, and he began to lead music groups at his church while he studied medicine. He graduated from medical school in 1966 and began his medical practice.
As Le treated patients, he also talked to them about Christ. He witnessed without constraints until 1975 when communists took over Vietnam. “They put pressure on me to keep my mouth shut,” Le says. “In the hospital I talked to patients about the Lord. The director of the hospital hated that.”
Le and his family prepared to leave Vietnam in 1975, but “the Lord did not let us. God wanted us to stay, so we stayed.” When government leaders threatened to put Le in a concentration camp because of his Christian witness, he says, “I realized it was time God wanted me to go out.”
Le’s family could not leave the country together. Four of his children came to the United States in 1981, Le escaped in 1982, and his wife and two youngest children came seven years later.
Le says he left Vietnam “on a small boat that was very dangerous at sea.” On the journey, Le shared Christ with his fellow passengers, and 35 of the 39 people on board became Christians. Despite bad weather conditions, “we arrived with celebration.”
Le was in a refugee camp in the Philippines before arriving in Denver in 1983. In the United States, he took an exam that would allow him to work as a physician, but could not pass it because he had not mastered the English versions of medical terminology.
Instead, he earned a master’s degree from Denver Seminary, a Conservative Baptist institution. He is currently working toward a doctorate from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in California.
In the meantime, Le became concerned for Vietnamese people in Colorado who were not Christians. Since 1983, he has started seven Southern Baptist missions, and he currently serves as pastor of Vietnamese missions in Aurora and Colorado Springs. Le says he hopes someone else will become pastor of the Colorado Springs mission because he would like to start another mission in Littleton. He has identified needs for Vietnamese churches in Bloomfield; another site in Colorado Springs; Omaha and Lincoln, Neb.; and New Mexico.
He’s also concerned about people still in Vietnam. “There’s only one Baptist church in Vietnam officially,” Le says. “People there need the Lord. I am burdened for how to do that.” Yet Le says he has no long-term goals other than to “walk with the Lord one step at a time.” His motivation is love. “When we love the Lord with all our heart, we want people to know him and come to him.”
One way Le and the Vietnamese missions reach out to newcomers is through refugee assistance. Le converted his carport to a storage area for household items to give to families arriving from Vietnam.
At 57, Le says he has no plans to slow down. “I don’t believe in burn-out. When we depend on him, he renews our strength. The more we do, the more strength we get from him.”
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Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press