Several people have expressed some curiosity about us doing missions in Vietnam, because it is still a Communist Country. Some have even asked what our “cover” will be, assuming that Communists wouldn’t let us into the country unless we lied to them.

Those who know me know that I have a problem with deceiving people and I particularly have a problem doing so “for the greater good” – the ends justifies the means, kind of stuff. I was delighted, then, to find that Glocal Ventures & Northwood Church also believe in going through the “front door” by telling the government exactly who we are and what we are doing.

There is a difference in going through the front door. You cannot be given over to the process of evangelism that culminates with someone saying the “sinner’s prayer” and your departure. That process gets you to doing all the things we do in America that we are now finding create a backlash among those we seek to save. We want to do large scale evangelistic meetings and street encounters with people we don’t know.

The government is not likely to let anything like that happen and I think that is probably for the best. It forces those who would take the Gospel to the people to invest in the lives of those people. The government lets missionaries in who make a difference in the every day lives of the people in their country. Making a difference in their lives opens the front door.

In the next few weeks I look forward to sharing with you some of the possibilities that we look forward to pursuing in the lives of the people of Vietnam.

In conclusion, though, let me say that growing up in the 70′s and 80′s in America, during the culmination of the Cold War, had left me with several predispositions about Communism that I have had to deal with in preparing to go to Vietnam. While I think a free trade economy and the American democratic republic government in which I live is far preferable to me, I have also come to the conclusion that despite Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire,” communists are not evil. At least they are not evil because they are communists. The government of Vietnam wants the lives of the people in their country to improve.

I hope to help and be a witness to the love of God in so doing.

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