Our Blog

By: Pastor Peter Schlicht

Our June Jumble Days raised over $7,000 this year, all of which will be given to the WELS mission in Vietnam. (I’d like to say another “Thank you!” to all the volunteers who made this possible!)  In line with the donation, I called our WELS mission office and spoke to Sean Young, Senior Director of Mission Operations for the WELS, to get an accurate and up-to-date picture of the mission effort. 

God’s grace opened doors for an unbelievable mission opportunity in communist Vietnam. In 2011, leadership from the Hmong Fellowship Church (HFC) in Vietnam invited a WELS pastor, Bounkeo Lor, to train their church leaders in the truth of the gospel after watching a few of his sermons online. His presentation of law and gospel was the clearest explanation of Scripture they had ever heard. Since then, Lor and other WELS representatives have made numerous trips to Hanoi, Vietnam, to train approximately 60 church leaders at a time. 

The message of free grace received from Jesus Christ replaced the HFC’s old works-based preaching and brought peace to the Hmong Fellowship Church. As a result, church leadership stabilized and the Holy Spirit produced peace and kindness in the members of the churches. In 2018, the communist government in Vietnam noticed this positive change and invited WELS to build a theological education center in the capital city of Hanoi. WELS is currently the only protestant church with official government permission to work with the Hmong in Vietnam.The HFC was a church body of 55,000 members in 2011, but in the years WELS has provided training, the HFC has grown from 55,000 to over 135,000 members and formed many new churches! The Lord is opening a door to reach the more than two million Hmong people who live in Vietnam and the surrounding countries.

In 2020 alone, the Holy Spirit brought more than 12,000 Hmong people throughout Vietnam to faith in Jesus. Regular online training with 57 HFC leaders began in November 2020. More than 1,360 HFC leaders are waiting eagerly for someone to train them in the Word of God. WELS has now called two full-time missionaries devoted to this effort: Bounkeo Lor and Joel Nitz.

By God’s grace, the HFC broke ground for the Theological Training Center in northwest Hanoi in the beginning of May. Plans have been completed and, God-willing, the Theological Training Center will   open in December of this year. Also, I am working with Sean Young, who may come to Eastside this fall to give a presentation on the mission as his schedule allows. What a blessing and a privilege for our church to contribute to God’s work in Vietnam! Freely we have been given; freely let us give.

Let us pray: Holy Spirit, strengthen the understanding of God’s Word in our brothers and sisters in the Hmong Fellowship Church. Help us also to reach many new people in Vietnam—Hmong, other minorities, and the Vietnamese—with the power of the gospel. Bless our gifts and hear our prayers for those dear souls! Amen.