God is good, even in the midst of turmoil, and An Van Pham is dedicated to sharing that message with the Asian population that is spreading throughout Georgia. As missionary to that people group, Pham uses experience gained from years of fighting with God to teach others that His will is always best.
He and his wife, Lienhoa, are among 5,200 missionaries in the United States, Canada and U.S. territories supported by the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. They are featured during the March 7–14 Week of Prayer and the North American Mission Study, which this year focus on “The World at Our Doorstep.”
As a young boy in war-torn South Vietnam he watched as communist soldiers killed his father when they overran his village. But he knew that his father was with Jesus that night.
“That night I began to cry‚ not just for my father’s death, but for my sins. I knew I had never personally asked God into my heart, and I understood that He let my father die so that He could save me,” Pham said.
When the war ended he was imprisoned for helping the Americans during the war. At first bitter about the communist victory and temporarily ending his relationship with God, Pham renewed his faith after contracting a serious disease that had killed half the prison population.
“That’s when I realized that God sent me to be a missionary in that prison,” he said.
Then God began to teach Pham another lesson. “After three years I cannot tell you how many cell groups were begun in that prison as the church went underground.
“So, that is the lesson I learned from prison — that wherever I am, God has a plan for my life and if I follow that plan, many people will come to faith in Him,” Pham said.
Late one night, after the end of the war, Pham, his wife and baby son fled the country in a small boat with 120 others. They were rescued after being adrift in the sea and near death from starvation, and were housed in a refugee resettlement camp in Thailand. Later the family moved to the United States.
In 1987 Pham was appointed as a missionary, working with the Georgia Baptist Convention.
With the same dedication he had in prison, today Pham travels the state as he helps to plant churches among the growing Asian population. Just as in his prison days, he finds himself winning the unchurched to Christ, helping to train them, and then sending them out as missionaries to their friends.
The most important part of his ministry is the training of both youth and adults.
An International Youth Camp sees teenagers grow in their faith, and for adults he schedules workshops to train as many as 40 adults as mentors, pastors and church planters.
Those individuals, from at least eight different language groups, spread out across Georgia with the potential to start up to 50 congregations in a year.
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