When you think about it. . .just allowing a change of your mindset and the alteration of your behavior shouldn’t really cost you all that much; the pursuit and involvement in goodness is just an interior redesigning after all . . . isn’t it?
But the pursuit and involvement in goodness must not just be a spur-of-the-moment whim as you push your market basket through the super market of good causes and catchy programs offered by our culture’s non-profits.
The need is for lots of folks, who realize just how extravagantly blessed they are, to be willing to resist just “thinking in” and to begin “thinking out” to the opportunities to help those in need who may be very close to them, or half way around the world. Being involved in goodness like that can exact a very high cost.
The pursuit of goodness just may require you to let go of things you now possess in order to lay hold of brand new, exciting and rewarding possessions that will last forever. My dear friend, Dr. Vinh Ngoc Le, from Vietnam, experienced such a life of unusual sacrifice and reward.
My relationships with Dr. Vinh Ngoc Le began when he walked into my office at Project C.U.R.E. in Colorado in 1998, and asked if I would partner with him in his Nehemiah Project. I had already been traveling to Vietnam since early1996. But Dr. Vinh Ngoc Le had a compelling dream to take medical help back to his people in Vietnam. He told me, through his heavy accent, that in 1982 he had escaped North Vietnam in a small boat and had not been able to return until just one year before our meeting. Little did I know that it would take literally hundreds of hours of traveling with the man to patch together all the pieces of his epic story.
It was a privilege for me to travel with Vinh Ngoc Le on his second trip back to Vietnam since he had escaped. His description of the need in Vietnam was dramatically demonstrated while we were together in Da Nang. That was where we were stranded in our hotel during the tragic flood in Da Nang. That was the incident where we finally left our hotel and traveled most of the way to the inundated Da Nang Hospital by a homemade boat with a one-cylinder gas engine. We passed people perched on top of the house roofs and animals floating out toward the open sea squatting on random chunks of broken buildings, and Dr. Le kept impressing on me the fact that his people desperately needed help from Project C.U.R.E.
Vinh Ngoc Le’s mother had been a Christian. She had been converted by the man who would later become her father-in-law, Khanh Van Le. “Like a tree in a dry land for a long time, my grandfather felt something fresh and soothing that quenched the thirst of his anguished soul,” explained Vinh. It didn’t take long for his spiritual motivation and devotion to give direction to his life. He destroyed all his idols and burned the Buddhist altar. He gave up alcoholic beverages, smoking, gambling and drugs and before long, was preaching the gospel to others in his area. Khanh Van Le’s wife, children and relatives abandoned him and only his son, Nam Le converted to Christianity.
One day, a young woman named Loi Thi Tran listened to Khanh Van Le’s talk and also became a Christian believer. Later, Nam Le married Loi Thi Tran and together they had eight children. Vinh Ngoc Le was one of those eight children.
Politically and economically, things worsened dramatically in Vietnam as Vinh Ngoc Le grew up. His father joined the French army in order to help fight off the insurgence of the unbelievably cruel Japanese. Nam Le and the entire family became very active in an evangelical church in Saigon. Vinh Ngoc Le learned to play the piano and the organ. He also spent time translating gospel songs which had been written in English into Vietnamese. His talents even led him to compose over 200 original religious songs in Vietnamese.
Ving Ngoc Le’s family was too poor to send him to the university. But Vinh took a pre-medical exam and scored so well that he was given a scholarship to attend medical school where he graduated in 1966. Upon graduation he was immediately inducted into the Vietnamese army where he was required to tend to war-related traumas in the Da Nang area.
In 1973 the U.S. withdrew its forces and retreated back to America leaving virtual hell to break loose within Vietnam. The Communist Viet Cong soldiers captured city after city forcing refugees to flee to places like Da Nang. Just before the Viet Cong entered Da Nang in March of 1975, Vinh Ngoc Le hurriedly sent his wife and four daughters further south into Saigon. During the intensity of the takeover Vinh decided it was time for him to leave as well and escape Da Nang with his two small children to a safer place.
Dr. Vinh Ngoc Le secretly made a deal with a man who owned a boat. For a high price the owner promised that he would help them escape in the dark of night and take them to Hong Kong. When they arrived to board the small boat, they found about 70 other people who had paid to escape in the little boat. But the overcrowded condition was not the worst part of the ill-fated voyage. About one mile out into the sea the engine just stopped running. “Many other refugee boats passed by us,” explained Vinh, “but nobody paid any attention to us even though we begged many to help us.”
During the night a giant storm swept along the coastline sending huge waves crashing down onto the small, overcrowded boat. Vinh tried to calm the other passengers by reciting Psalm 128:17-18, “We shall not die, but live and tell the works of the Lord. The Lord has disciplined us severely, but has not given us over to death.”
No one was in the mood to believe him because they already knew they were sitting ducks in a circus shooting gallery. They were still close enough to the shore to be spotted by the Viet Cong once the sun came up. So, even if they survived the terrible storm, they would be taken back and killed or imprisoned for trying to escape.
The severe storm lasted not just overnight, but for three days. When the winds stopped, the clouds lifted and the sun came out Dr. Le realized it was Easter Sunday morning. He gave thanks that they were still alive but they were still hopelessly adrift at sea.
A fishing boat spotted them and returned to the harbor to inform the Viet Cong of their failed attempt to escape. The 70 people on board the small boat were absolutely helpless as the military ship raced out toward them. The soldiers on board the military ship were fully armed and were proudly flying the Communist flag. They were on their way to punish those who had tried to escape during the night and the 70 people had nowhere to go. They were helplessly trapped.
Fear and stark terror nearly paralyzed the would-be escapees as the communist military ship sped through the calm water toward them. Their fate was sealed. “As it was approaching,” recalled Vinh as he described the scene to me, “a soldier of the former army, who was standing right behind me with his back leaning on mine, pulled out the pin of a hand grenade to commit suicide.” Not thinking of anyone else but himself he knew what would happen to him if the military got hold of him trying to escape. “There was a tremendous explosion on the little boat. I saw here a hand, there a leg, over there intestines . . . oh, what a terrible scene!” recalled Vinh.
You would have thought that to be the worst thing which could possibly happen. But there was more tragedy to take place in the next few minutes. The military people on the approaching ship heard the loud explosion and presumed that someone on the escapee’s boat had a weapon and was shooting at them. They opened fire on the small boat with their automatic weapons and continued to shoot as they circled the craft. When they stopped shooting there were only 20 of the 70 escapees still alive. Most had gotten buried under the bodies of the 50 dead people whose bodies had shielded them. Dr. Vinh Ngoc Le and his two young children pulled themselves out of the carnage. All three were miraculously still alive!
Vinh’s two children were placed with friends and Dr. Le was “invited” to attend a camp which would “help educate” him about his new government. Vinh knew he was not going to some seminar for a week. At the camp he was joined by at least a thousand former military officers of the captured South Vietnamese army. They were imprisoned.
Vinh was introduced to the “camp” director who turned out to be a nephew of a pastor friend of Vinh’s who had already escaped to America. The director asked Dr. Vinh if he could help procure some medications for a wide breakout of dysentery and malaria they were experiencing. Vinh told the director that if he could travel back to his clinic, he could retrieve some of his hidden medication and bring it back to the camp. He was allowed to be escorted back to his clinic in Da Nang.
In Da Nang he discovered that his wife and four other children had returned from their safety in Saigon to be with him in Da Nang. They couldn’t be together but by using the medicine retrieval as an excuse, Vinh was able to secure several “visits” to his clinic and thereby was able to spend some hours with his family.
One night at the prison camp Vinh was walking across a dark field and fell into a hole. He tried to get out but realized his foot was broken. He had to be carried to the prison infirmary where they placed a cast on his foot and leg. His accident happened just as the Viet Cong were getting ever closer to the prison camp with their bombing raids. The camp had to be moved further inland and every prisoner had to march to the new location.
Strangely, the camp director and a high communist official came to Dr. Le and told him he was to remain on his bed until everyone else had left the camp. Then he was to return to Da Nang to help with the medical problems there. “Brother Jackson,” Vinh told me in amazement, “I believe God allowed me to break my leg so I couldn’t go on to the next prison camp where many of my friends later died of starvation and disease.”
Earlier, Vinh had paid a lot of money for his clinic in Da Nang. After he had prayed about what he should do he decided on a strategy. He took the offensive and went straight to the military officials who had taken over Da Nang and gave them his clinic. They had already taken over everything anyway, but it was a shrewd gesture on Vinh’s part to “give” them his clinic. The communists were very pleased with his “attitude” and assigned him to a responsible job at the Da Nang Hospital. He was even given permission to see some of his former patients at his old clinic. “I accepted the appointment on two conditions: first, I would be allowed to attend church; and second, I would not have to perform any abortions.”
Dr. Vinh Ngoc Le worked quietly at the hospital and ministered clandestinely at the church until 1981 when one of his patients asked to speak to him privately. The patient was organizing another escape boat. The charge to get on the boat would be $1,500 for each person. Vinh wanted desperately to get his four oldest children and their adopted boy out of Vietnam and eventually to America, but $7,500 in U.S. money was beyond reach. He was finally able to scrape together $4,500. Eventually, another individual loaned him another $2,500.
The risk of getting caught was even higher than it was for the previous attempt. If discovered, the children would probably be killed and it would mean death or imprisonment for Vinh and his wife if anything went wrong. The day came for the children to leave. Vinh and his wife realized they might never see their precious children alive again. But their desperate desire to get them out of Vietnam and to the opportunities in America gave them the needed courage. They hugged them goodbye and watched them disappear through the morning mist. Their five children were now totally in God’s custody.
There was no communication regarding the fate of the children for over a month. Finally, Vinh and Lori Thi received a message that their children were safe in Hong Kong in a refugee camp. By January 23, 1982, they received additional information that the children had successfully arrived in a place called Colorado where hundreds of other Vietnam refugees were being taken to live.
The wrath of the Communist Party once again came down on the head of Dr. Vinh Ngoc Le. Angry over the escape of the children, the military told him the only way to save his life was to sign incriminating statements against his evangelical Christian friends. “I told the men that I would not sign any such documents because true Christians were people of only peace and love and all they ever wanted to do was to help other people.”
While the pressure was being put on Vinh, his earlier strategy to give away his clinic started to pay great dividends. He had been treating wives and children of some very high officials. When they heard that there were threats to possibly take away their doctor, they strongly protested. The pressure was most effective and soon Dr. Le was allowed to return to his practice and to his work at the Da Nang Hospital.
Six months after receiving word that the children were safe in America, Vinh began working on another escape plan. He asked to be sent to Saigon to help in the casualty scene there. He knew in Saigon he would not be watched as closely as he was in Da Nang. One day, using phony medical travel papers, he flew all the way north to Hanoi. The plans were for his wife to follow soon thereafter and join him. There was to be another boat leaving for Hong Kong from Hanoi.
However, the Viet Cong intercepted a telegram from Vinh to his wife and she was immediately placed under house arrest and troops were sent to retrieve Dr. Le from Hanoi. Vinh had run out of options and the rope was tightening around his neck. If his wife even tried to leave her house to return to their home in Da Nang she would be imprisoned and tried for treason. She sent word to Vinh in Hanoi begging him to go on without her and find their children in America. She encouraged him that God would somehow get the family all back together somewhere in the future. Vinh stayed hidden in a secret room in Hanoi as the military searched for him. There was no turning back.
On July 10, 1982, with the vivid scenes of the previously failed and bloody escape attempt replaying in his torn mind, Vinh was secretly taken away from his hiding spot to another waiting boat. “I was deeply sad,” Vinh recalled, “my wife and other two children could not join me. How great was my anguish then but I could not give up the trip and turn back home anymore.”
The boat was even worse than the previous escape vessel. It was much smaller and 39 adults and children were crammed into the soggy, leaky Chinese junk. “Tung”, Vinh’s friend who had helped hide him in Hanoi and successfully slip him onto the old boat, realized at the last minute that the Viet Cong troops were wise to his arranging Vinh’s escape. Tung had no place to run or hide. So, at the last minute he also boarded the crowded boat without even being able to get word to his family that he too, was escaping. As the old boat creaked and groaned and the water poured in, many of the people talked about turning back as opposed to certain death.
Late at night the boat was about a mile off shore when the dilapidated boat struck a submerged rock, water gushed in and the terrified people began to cry and pray to their gods. Convinced they were all going to drown, Tung jumped overboard in an effort to swim to shore. Suddenly he began to laugh. Soon all the escapees were laughing. Tung was standing up and the water was only up to his chest. They had landed on a very shallow beachhead of China. Everyone then jumped out and helped push the damaged boat closer to the shoreline.
The Chinese residents near the beach could not believe the Vietnamese had tried to escape in such an unseaworthy old boat! Later that night, a storm arose and the wind and merciless waves totally smashed the boat to small pieces. “I knew we would all have died if we had not been driven upon that submerged rock,” Vinh confided to me. All the escapees were taken immediately to a fish processing factory and given temporary jobs in the Chinese town. The factory manager found the refugees warm clothes and places to stay. When Vinh asked why he was so kind to them, the Chinese man confided to Dr. Le that he was a Christian but could not practice Christianity openly. Vinh was thrilled and told the Chinese man that he too was a Christian. “There are 300 Christian families in this town who are secretly Christians,” said the factory manager.
As Vinh continued to tell his story he would just shake his balding head and repeat, “God had it planned and he took care of us in every detail.”
The stranded refugees stayed and worked for almost three weeks. One day two other small vessels stopped at the village to buy needed supplies. The ships were not full, so the local Chinese police convinced the two boats to allow the refugees to sail with them on to Hong Kong. Twelve days later, on August 14, 1982, the boats arrived in Hong Kong where the weary travelers were directed to a refugee camp where they met up with thousands more Vietnam refugees.
As soon as Vinh and Tung arrived at the camp, they prepared a Thanksgiving celebration for the other refugees. They filled all their waking hours setting up an evangelical mission in the refugee camp and not only ministered to the people, but also began to teach them the English language. When they arrived at the Hong Kong camp there were only eight Christians there. When they left the camp, there were over 200 and an established church.
From Hong Kong, Vinh made his way to the Philippines where he was finally cleared to enter the USA and seek out his children in Colorado. In Colorado he saw 10,000 Vietnamese refugees. “They were like sheep without a shepherd,” he told me. “I took my Colorado medical exams and could have begun a medical practice, but God called me to do something different. He gave me a threefold vision and promised to help me accomplish a very large task. First, I was to work through all the red tape to get my wife and other two children to Colorado. Second, I was to establish Vietnam language churches in Colorado to serve the Vietnam refugees, and third, one day I would return to Vietnam to take medical aid and expertise to my homeland and people.”
In 1989 Loi Thi and Dr. Vinh Ngoc Le’s two other children were allowed to join Vinh in Colorado. In the meantime, Vinh went back to school to better prepare for his new life of ministry. Eventually, he earned a Master’s Degree and later another doctorate and all six of his children were able to attend university in America. Vinh was able to establish more than seven churches to minister to Vietnam refugees in Colorado.
In the ensuing years, Vinh Ngoc Le and I traveled together on seven different trips to Vietnam. We covered nearly every square inch of the country, performing needs assessments on as many as 20 different hospitals during a given trip. Ving Ngoc Le would go ahead of me and choose the hospitals, medical universities, and clinics. He would then set up all the appointments with the medical personnel, Ministry of Health officials, and shipping connections. Then, together we would walk every hallway, meet every department head, and determine what we would need to put into the huge ocean-going cargo containers from the Project C.U.R.E. warehouses in USA to be delivered to the needy medical facilities in Vietnam.
One of the thrills of our traveling so many places together, occurred on Tuesday, June 27, 2000. Anna Marie was traveling with us as we returned to the Thanh Khe Hospital in Da Nang. The Communists had placed Vinh Ngoc Le in charge of the Than Khe hospital in 1982. It was from that position Ving Ngoc Le successfully escaped to Hanoi, and then on to Hong Kong. Things were a bit tense as we approached the hospital. Many of the same doctors and nurses were there at the time he made his escape. Would they consider that he had been fortunate and quite lucky to have escaped successfully, or would they hate him as a turncoat traitor and resent him for having abandoned the cause? It only took a split second, as they all began talking at once in Vietnamese. There were tears, hugs, jumping around, and a whole lot of emotion you don’t usually see displayed by Asians. No, the good doctor had not abandoned them at all. He had gone away, and finally returned with help that otherwise they could have never expected in their entire lifetime. What a joyful reunion! Anna Marie and I just stood there crying like babies!
When we were finally alone, Vinh Ngoc Le looked straight into my eyes and said, “Doctor, James Jackson, you are my dear friend, and God brought me to you and you have generously helped me to accomplish the third part of my vision. You have brought millions and millions of dollars-worth of desperately needed medical goods into Vietnam. We have been able, with God’s help, to bring health care to hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people and together thousands and thousands of my former countrymen’s lives will be saved. There is no possible way that we can ever out give God!”
The pursuit of goodness just may require you to let go of things you now possess in order to lay hold of brand new, exciting and rewarding possessions that will last forever.
Next Week: Announcement of a new Adventure