Bring Good News

This article was originally posted in our Word @ Work Magazine in March 2016.

Close your eyes and imagine yourself amidst a group of pastors leaving their homes before dawn, and travelling long hours just to collect 50 to 100 Bibles for your entire congregation, located in the Mekong Delta region in Vietnam.

Imagine braving the rain, with fellow believers in Christ, traversing a bus along adverse road conditions, to a remote church. Along the way, some risk their lives by climbing to the top of the bus to remove overhanging cables and wires, which obstruct the bus. Many wait patiently at the other end to receive their Bibles.

"At each delivery point, we saw how the brothers and sisters treasured the Bibles. We often take the availability of Bibles in Singapore for granted; and how little we treasure His Word in our hearts," Says Lilian Tham, a BMT participant to Vietnam.

"There is also a real need for Bibles in their respective native languages," adds Pastor John Toh, who was the Trip Leader for the BMT to Vietnam.

The need for Bibles is great and the number of Christians are growing rapidly amongst the tribes. The Bible Mission Teams sent out by International Bible Experiences (IBEx) - the Bible Society's holistic mission arm - to the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam and the Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar, were deeply moved when they witnessed the hunger for the printed Word of God amongst the natives of Vietnam and Myanmar.

Our IBEx mission team returned from Myanmar with great rejoicing. The Founder & President of Myanmar Agape Ministries & Myanmar Christian Assembly, Joseph Biak Tin Sang, said, "We have been praying for 25 years for the Holy Bible for all of our children. Then God sent us some Bibles! Some of the children accepted the Holy Bible with their tears because they are very happy."

"The Bible teaches that 'it is more blessed to give than to receive', and indeed we found that whatever we invested in the 5-day trip was returned to us manyfold," said Ho Tor Kwun, who went to Myanmar.

Nancy Soon, who also went to Myanmar, shared that "Of all the mission trips that I had participated in, this is the most fulfilling and uplifting trip! God was with us throughout the trip. The distribution of Bibles together with the school & family kits to the Myanmar Agape Orphanage and some 300 families who were adversely affected by the flood was met successfully without a hitch. Like in the hymn 'God Will Make A Way' - God makes all things work together for good!"

 


Reviving Bible Mission Work in Vietnam

This article was first published in the June 2013 issue of Word@Work.

“My hope is that in 2012 and beyond we will encourage and serve the whole church, equip all national Bible Societies to be more effective in mission and continue to reach out to millions more with the enduring Word of God.”
- Mr Michael Perreau, General Secretary of United Bible Societies (UBS)

The United Bible Societies Service Organisation (UBSSO) was formed to provide support for Bible Societies in great need. The mission of the UBSSO is to work alongside and unite the 147 Bible Societies which operate in more than 200 countries and territories in a large global network. The Bible Society of Singapore is part of this network which helps to pull together the resources needed to plant and support Bible Offices where independent Bible Societies do not yet exist, sowing the seeds of God’s Word into places like Vietnam.

Bible Societies around the world today strive tirelessly to translate, publish and distribute the Bible to all people. However, the work of individual Bible Societies can sometimes be interrupted by challenges which they are not equipped to deal with: such as the lack of financial resources, civil unrest and religious restrictions.

After the change of regime in Vietnam in 1975, religion was forbidden and all religious material banned and confiscated. The Bible Society in Vietnam was forced to close its doors, leaving the Vietnamese people without God’s Word for many years.

This was the situation consultants sent by UBSSO found in the country when they visited Vietnam in 1990. However, after their prayers, support and advice, one of the Evangelical Church pastors in Hanoi managed to obtain permission from the government to import 5,000 copies of the Vietnamese Bible from South Korea. In 1991, another Evangelical Church leader obtained permission from the government to print Bibles in Vietnam, and the first 5,000 copies were printed in Ho Chi Minh City. This was the beginning of the re-establishment of the Bible work in Vietnam. Since then, more than 700,000 copies of the Bible and 2,200,000 copies of the New Testament were printed and distributed to the Protestant and Catholic churches in Vietnam.

In 2011, the UBSSO Country Programme Director Rev Arun Sok Nhep, together with Vietnam’s churches, succeeded in registering the Vietnam Bible Society as a trading company with permission to print and distribute Bibles.  We rejoice with the Secretary for the UBS Asia Pacific Area David Thorne in “giving thanks to God and expressing our appreciation to the government of Vietnam.”

The ministry of the Bible Society exists now in a Vietnam Partnership Programme between the church in Vietnam and UBSSO. Today, UBSSO works closely with leaders of the church in Vietnam to plan the publishing and printing of the Scriptures. Beside Bibles and New Testaments, Scripture portions are produced yearly for youth, children, new readers (especially among ethnic minorities) and visually impaired people.

The UBSSO network supports Bible Societies around the world, ensuring that all nations have access to the Bible even if their national churches lack the numbers, resources, or freedom to support a Bible Society on their own. May UBSSO continue to support the 147 Bible Societies in reaching out to people around the world with the gospel.


The long journey of the Bunong New Testament

Story by Bonnie Lepelaar, Bible Society in Cambodia. This article was first published by United Bible Societies.

Tot Nhernh, 93, vividly remembers the panic he and his family felt as the bombs started falling on their village in north-east Cambodia. It was the 1970s and the Vietnam war was spilling into the region as members of the Viet Cong crossed the border to hide.

With their village totally destroyed and desperate to escape the continued US bombing in their region, Mr Nhernh and his family, along with many others, crossed the border into Vietnam. Not only were they traumatised by the destruction they had witnessed, they were also deeply worried that in their haste to leave they hadn’t had time to make offerings to appease the spirits.

Mr Nhernh is a member of the Bunong tribe, which, like all the hill tribes in Cambodia, is traditionally animist, regularly sacrificing livestock to the spirits. Although they were relieved to have escaped the bombs, and were trying to rebuild their lives in Vietnam, they felt overwhelmed with grief and fear.

But then some Vietnamese people began to visit these desperate refugees. They offered them help and friendship, and also shared some good news: God loved them and had released them from all bondage through his son, Jesus. Mr Nhernh recalls how he felt all his fear falling away, replaced by a peace and freedom he had never experienced. He was among several Bunong refugees to become Christians, learning much about their new faith during their time in exile.

Return home

When the war ended, he could not wait to return home and share the Gospel. He and the other new Bunong Christians planted small churches in Bunong villages, and also evangelised other hill tribes, including the Krung and Tampuan. They, too, had lived in fear and obligation to make costly sacrifices to the spirits, and were overjoyed to hear about the freedom and peace they could have in Jesus.

Although work to translate the Scriptures into Bunong had begun in Vietnam in the 1960s, the work had been disrupted by the war and the manuscripts lost. Some small portions of Scripture in Bunong were published before the war but these were only available in Roman script – understandable to the Bunong in Vietnam but not to those in Cambodia, who use Khmer script.

So Mr Nhernh and other Bunong evangelists in Cambodia were sharing the Gospel by simply telling people the story of Jesus. Later, people began writing out the few Bunong Scripture booklets that were available into Khmer script so that these could be shared more widely with Cambodian Bunong people.

The two decades of communist rule that followed the war were very difficult for the Church in Cambodia, particularly for ethnic minorities like the Bunong. But Christianity grew steadily, and today, around 10% of Cambodia’s Bunong people are Christians. (Around 75% of the Bunong in Vietnam are Christians.)

50 years after the first attempt

This May, around 50 years after the first attempt to translate the Scriptures into Bunong was stopped by war, the Bunong people of Cambodia and Vietnam will finally receive the very first New Testament in their language. Undertaken by Vietnam Parntership, the Bible Society in Cambodia and SIL, it will be printed in both Khmer and Roman scripts.

Are Bunong Christians looking forward to getting the first New Testament in their language? The look of delight on the face of 93-year-old Tot Nhernh when he thinks about holding it in his hands says it all!