Hello friends! David’s testimony hit another peak. Before we begin, please take note that there was a war between North Vietnam and the government of South Vietnam during 1955-1970.

A friend and a US pastor told David that the Vietnamese customs officers were notorious for demanding bribes. With that in mind, David prayed for his first trip to Vietnam to be problem-free. In June 1996, David went to Vietnam with cartons of medicine, boxes of Vietnamese Bibles, bundles of used clothing and GR tapes for the believers there. The immigration check was smooth, but David was stopped at the customs clearance and was led to a private room. Having no clue in mind as to why, David prayed silently, “Lord, help me! I am neither prepared to give him any money, nor do I want these materials to be confiscated.”

Upon their request, David opened his luggage bag. An officer picked up his toiletry bag and checked the content. Suddenly, the officer screamed “Get out! Get out!” David quickly stuffed everything in the suitcase and headed towards the airport exit.

Only God knows what went wrong with the customs officer. Without any doubt, David was convinced that it was God’s intervention. Proverbs 21:1 says, “In the Lord’s hand the king’s heart is a stream of water that He channels towards all who please him”.

David had only one aim for the visit – to meet church leaders for GR distribution. He tried to depend on networking and people to accomplish his plan. So he trusted an old friend who conducted Vietnam tours for Singapore Christians who wished to network with Vietnamese churches. And this person promised to link David up with Vietnamese pastors who might be interested in using GR materials. But what he promised did not come true.

David believed that God allowed him to fail because he was too dependent on human help. He did not seek God wholeheartedly for His direction and wait upon His timing. Just as how Sarah in the Bible made the decision for Abraham to sleep with her servant girl Hagar to get a son.  

While David almost gave up the idea, Habakkuk 2:3 reminded him that God has his own timing in accomplishing His plans. That renewed his hope. “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.”

I forgot what God had been teaching me since my youth: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” (Proverbs 3: 5-6)

Mission is the outcome of prayer. Countless missions have been born out of prayer, and waiting upon the Lord until such time when He shows the way is the best method to accomplish His work. Many mission and churches today make mistake, employ marketing technique to do mission work. I believe that if mission is God’s work, we need to seek his guidance. It is just like when Jesus on earth, He often pray before he did something. He seek God for His plan, He seek God for messages, that’s why He is so successful in ministry. Therefore we need to follow the Lord. If the Lord himself as God need prayer, how much we who are human being and servant.

God saw David’s desire to contact churches in Vietnam for His work. God made a way - He showed David He has His servants.

The Vietnamese tour guide, Esther, was a pastoral worker in a church. She spoke perfect English. David and she got along well because of their shared interest and she was aware of David’s intentions. Esther brought David to a nearby café to meet Pastor Du on the day when the tour group had a free-and-easy program. Pastor Du shared a lot with David and even provided him with much information on Vietnamese churches and missions besides giving invaluable advice. Since David fulfilled the aim of his visit, he left for home with joy. John 4:34 says, “To do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.”

But God had another plan and other servants to use for His purpose. In 1998, David was invited by the Great Commission Institute (GCI), an organisation that trains pastors and leaders in Asian countries, to teach some courses in Vietnam. When David was teaching there, he met Dee from New Zealand who worked as a coordinator for GCI. Dee shared that there has been no official Bible school after the Vietnam War. Many Bible school buildings were either destroyed during the war or taken over by the authority. The Communist government clamped down Christian activities which made training for pastors difficult.

Trainees in GCI were very committed. There was a sister who travelled across an island to Hanoi in the mainland and by train for three days to Ho Chi Minh City for the training. Once, David even conducted classes in a farm with the pungent smell of pig waste in the air! David saw how people hungered to learn God’s Word: some students did not have a Bible; some even copied the entire Bible into exercise books and students sat on floor for hours for lessons and still gave their full attention to the lecture.

Dee told David that there was great potential for recording work in Vietnam and she knew a Vietnamese brother who could duplicate cassettes. So on one teaching trip to Vietnam, David brought in master cassettes in 56 Vietnamese languages and dialects. That day, the customs did not check his luggage because there were swarms of Taiwanese and Japanese tourists arriving at the same time.

With the master cassettes, Dee duplicated and distributed tapes for the Vietnamese to listen to gospel. Also, she passed them to other missionaries and church leaders she worked with, who would use them for their outreach.

Through Dee’s organisation, David sent money to her for cassette duplication from 2000 to 2004. Later, a church in the US adopted GR work there and took over financing the distribution. Since the south now had sufficient resources, David turned his focus toward the north.

Humanly speaking, it’s impossible Even tapes sent into the country run the risk of being confiscated by the customs. But God raise up for GR a western missionary, with a passion for distributing Gospel tapes there, and manage the work. She volunteers to do the distributing, promote the recording and supervise the duplication of tapes. Finally God also move a church to finance the work. The original plan for the Vietnam project would have taken ten years. However, we did it in four. Glory be to God! The apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 3: 20-21, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to this power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen”.

GR targeted North Vietnam in 2005 - an area even harder to work due to stronger government control. There were more than a dozen language groups that needed to hear the gospel in their languages. Some villages in sensitive areas are inaccessible to tourists, while other tribal groups do not welcome strangers to their villages. David saw great spiritual need in North Vietnam and he put his trust that God would prosper the mission.

GR Moves Forward

GR started with phonographic records in 1939 and switched to cassette tapes when they became popular. As CDs grew in popularity, GR Singapore (GRS) received lots of requests for CDs. GR did not have the means to produce CDs. But God knew their desire and the needs of the users and He guided GRS through the process of CD production. God had someone in mind.

The founder of GRS, Joy Ridderhof, always reminded her staff to treat visitors like guests visiting their homes. GRS agreed that their ministry is not merely providing tapes or CDs but is also a ministry to individuals. Like our Master, GRS is interested in people.

David met Leong Kok Weng, the librarian at the Biblical Graduate School of Theology (BGST) when he went to collect some Cantonese tapes for his mother. Kok Weng was the person who converted audio-taped messages and VCR tapes into audio and video CD format in BGST. He expressed with gladness to help David in CD production! This is the one God has in mind for GRS!

Kok Weng showed David different printers that could print CD labels and he gave David a list of suppliers for blank CDs and CD labels.

Having acquired the know-how, however, GR was short of funds to buy a CD duplicator. Almost immediately, God supplied GRS the money through a large donation!

Though CDs are given out freely, David said GR would ensure best-quality recordings and they requested GR USA to send the languages and dialects that are commonly used in this region.

Today, we mostly distribute CDs but some cassette tapes as well, as our target audiences largely live in undeveloped countries. Thank God for sending Leong Kok Weng to our office!

God’s Work in the Middle East

Spreading the Word of God in the Middle East is indeed a great task! But Matthew 19:26 affirms that “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

David heard wonderful news at a leaders’ meeting in late 2006 that 500 free Arabic New Testaments were snapped up in a day. He believed that God planted a vision in his mind – an outreach in the Middle East.

An American missionary told him that since Saddam Hussein lost his power, tens of thousands of Iraqi had turned to Christ. Regrettably, there was a lack of follow-up.

In 2007, GRS started the distribution work in the Middle East. Initially, the distribution was through networking with marketplace Christians with business dealings in the Middle East, and through Christians giving gospel tapes to their business associates.

A lady, whom David referred to as Eunice in his book, carried the burden to reach out to the Middle Eastern women. She stayed in the Middle East with her husband who worked there. David gave her various Arabic CDs and other languages for her outreach.

“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2: 27). From three attendants in the Bible study group organised by Eunice in her rented house, the Lord had kept increasing the number since they moved to a new home.

Eunice always prayed that the Lord would tell her whom to approach for the Bible study. Knowing the religious and cultural backgrounds of the women there, she approached them cautiously. Her priority was to sow the seeds of the gospel through her friendship with them.

Our great big God works miracles endlessly. In 2010, Eunice gave a Persian CD to an Iranian woman called Fatimah. Fatimah reviewed that she had sought all kinds of medical treatment for her infertility. Eunice asked whether she could pray for her and she agreed. Miraculously, Fatimah became pregnant!

There are times when our ministry may be only sowing the seed – just making friends with non-believers. Someone once remarked, “Just make friends? You’re wasting your time on the mission field!” That is not true. The seeds that people had sown so many years before are now bearing fruit.  Thousands of people in Israel are now turning to Jesus. Praise to Lord! God’s plans are beyond our comprehension for Isaiah 55:8 says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways”.

I have heard numerous testimonies of people in the Arab world turning to Christ through dreams and visions. Let me close with a particular incident. A South American was riding his motorcycle through a village in Bahrain. An Arab man stopped him at the foot of a hill.

“Do you have an Arabic Bible?” he asked.

“Yes, I happen to have only one in my backpack,” the missionary said. “Why do you want an Arabic Bible?”

“Sir, I had a dream. Jesus told me that a man on a motorcycle would pass by my town at a certain time today. He would have an Arabic Bible in his backpack. I was to get it from him” he explained.

We long to become a part of God’s amazing work to bring more in that region into His kingdom. Isaiah 55:11 says, “So is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent.”

Wow! Indeed, God is a miracle-working god. Let’s continue with
David’s story next week.