By Jeremiah Love –
A village once devastated by opium has been transformed into a thriving tourist destination, according to a YouTube video by Christian World News.
For years, Sin Sui Ho had little hope. Where now rice and vegetables are cultivated, mostly opium green in the 1980s by the Hmong.,
“We were selling opium like we were selling chickens,” says Hang A Xa, who is now a pastor. “Everyone was addicted, so no one worked in the fields. We did not have food, just leaves from the jungle. People were fighting.”
Pastor Hang’s father was village chief, so the communist Vietnamese gave him a radio to stay up to date on goings-on and government propaganda. Hang Lung couldn’t speak Vietnamese, so instead he listened to Christian radio signal broadcast from outside Vietnam in the Hmong language.
Lung got saved.
“My father became the first believer,” Pastor Hang says. “He wanted our family to receive Jesus.”
The Vietnamese government banned Christianity, since they saw it as competition to the communist political system – just like what was done in Russia and China and is done in North Korea today.
Police arrested and beat Lung various times. They threatened to kill him.
One time when he was brought into the police station, Lung asked officers, “Why don’t you kill me yet?” relates his daughter, Hang Thi Su. “Maybe he wanted to meet Jesus.”
They released him because they didn’t have food to feed prisoners. Communist Vietnam, like all places that go Marxist, suffered shortage.
In the village there was one Bible that got passed around, even though most people were illiterate. Others began converting, and they planted orchids instead of opium. They sold the orchids for income.
Others opened businesses, and the town became a center for tourism. CBN Vietnam sponsors English and music school in the afternoons. Kids also watch the Super Book cartoon Bible stories at the “School of Life.”
“God transformed a community through a church community,” says Phuc Truong, CBN Vietnam national director. “They didn’t start with the idea of making this village famous. They just started with the idea that they loved the Lord.”
