Evangelist Luis Palau says, “The churches in Vietnam are far more fired up, I’ll be honest with you, than the churches in the USA, with regards to training people, preparing them, and motivating them. They are eager to win people to Jesus Christ; they want to be trained.”
Although the church is good at winning souls one-on-one, they admittedly need help to train preaching evangelists and to gain unity between north and south Vietnam, as well as between unregistered and registered churches.
Out of their excitement to spread the gospel, unregistered and registered churches alike have asked Palau to come to Vietnam to help their people move forward in faith and in progress. Even governing officials have welcomed Palau to the country.
What could cause an atheistic country such eagerness for an evangelical believer? Palau entered Vietnam for the first time last year, revving people up with the reality of full-life transformation that should take place when someone accepts Christ. The concept is covered in Palau’s February 2011 release of the book, Changed by Faith.
“What we did with this book Changed by Faith is demonstrate what the Bible teaches: when you come to Christ, not only does your own mind change, your emotions change, and your spiritual life [changes],” Palau says. “It begins to change your relationship with your family and your attitudes at work. You begin to have an impact on society around you: in the neighborhood at first, then it spreads out through the local churches. It can even, in many cases, touch nations.”
This is the message Palau brought and will bring to Vietnam. Officials agreed that in order for the nation to move forward, people needed to hear Palau’s message.
This, of course, provides an unparalleled opportunity for the gospel to move ahead in the historically oppressed nation.
“Some of the ministry I’m going to have will be about the spiritual life of God’s leaders there. My son Andrew Palau [will] train people in mass evangelism and preaching evangelism,” Palau says. “Then we’ll speak to the nation that the presence of Jesus Christ is a source of blessing to the nation because it transforms individuals, it changes them by faith in Jesus Christ, and it makes them better citizens-respectful citizens, and by God’s mercy, I even believe prosperous citizens.”
The Vietnamese church has great expectations for Palau’s month-long visit to the country in April. They have told Palau, “We want 10 percent of the country converted by 2020.” Palau says the one million more the church hopes to welcome to the Kingdom by 2023 is doable with the Lord’s help, but prayer is certainly in order.
People are earnestly seeking truth in Vietnam. Pray that people will be changed by the power of the Spirit as they hear the Gospel for the first time. Pray that, in a country often riddled with persecution, believers would not be afraid to attend training. Pray that every government-promised permit would truly go through so that the Luis Palau Association might be free to train and reach out to Vietnam during the month of April.
Palau’s message for transformation is not just for Vietnam. People across the globe have already been transformed through Changed by Faith, and of course ultimately, Christ. Palau’s book encourages readers with amazing stories of transformation, including that of a woman who was planning to kill Palau when she came face-to-face with Jesus Christ.
