A Long Journey to the Pulpit

Along with many other Vietnamese, Tin Trung Truong arrived in the United States via a circuitous path, both geographically and spiritually.

Truong’s father, Paul, fought alongside U.S. Army soldiers during the Vietnam War. When the North Vietnamese triumphed in 1975, the new government sentenced Paul Truong to a “reeducation camp” for 3½ years. Once released, Paul Truong knew he needed to flee Vietnam with his wife and four children. Because the government considered him a “traitor,” the Truong children couldn’t attend college. Also, after Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978, Paul Truong worried that his young sons one day would be drafted to fight in the nation’s Communist army.

After four attempts over an eight-year span to escape Vietnam, the Truongs finally succeeded in 1986, fleeing to Indonesia in a small boat crammed with 52 people. The family soon made their way to the Philippines. Although raised a Buddhist, 13-year-old Tin walked into a Sunday School class at a Baptist church. Not too long afterward, a missionary baptized the entire family.

“God led us to learn the Bible — and then to believe in Him,” recalls Tin, who memorized Scripture in Vietnamese- and English-language Bibles he still owns.

In 1987, the family immigrated to the U.S. as sponsored refugees, arriving in Orange County, California. As a teenager, Tin first found work as a janitor at an independent megachurch. In adulthood, Truong filled various laity roles primarily at Presbyterian and Christian & Missionary Alliance churches, including leading youth group, Sunday School, and worship.

After Truong and his Vietnamese wife, Diane — whom he met in community college — had three children, Tin decided to attend seminary. He enrolled in Bethesda University in Anaheim, a school founded by Assemblies of God South Korean pastor David Yonggi Cho.

Ken R. Walters Jr., an AG minister teaching at Bethesda, helped Truong through the credentialing process and got him plugged into a Vietnamese AG congregation in Westminster, where Truong first had an opportunity to preach. Within a couple of years, the AG’s SoCal Network helped Truong to plant a new church in 2016.

The congregation, Viet-American Full Gospel in Garden Grove, California, is one of the leading congregations in the Vietnamese Fellowship of the Assemblies of God https://www.vnag.us/.

Viet-American Full Gospel started in Truong’s garage with a Friday evening prayer meeting. When 50 attendees packed out the space, the church moved to a school, and later a retail location, which again grew too cramped. In July 2024, the 175 attendees of the church moved to a leased industrial building that has enough parking for 300 vehicles.

Truong preaches a first Sunday morning service in Vietnamese and a second in English, as he is fluent in both languages. Several attendees, like Truong, escaped Vietnam as refugees, although younger adherents typically are only familiar with American culture.

“Language is not the main issue because we don’t need to do translation,” Truong says. “The main challenge is what all churches face: a stable spiritual life, especially regarding family matters.”

During his time in America, the good-natured, entrepreneurial-minded Tin started a variety of businesses, ranging from a restaurant to a real estate firm. Today, Diane manages their property management company, while the 52-year-old Tin devotes himself to full-time ministry.

Truong’s father, now 80, plays bass in the church’s worship band and leads a Bible study for older adults. Tin’s brother, Trung, likewise oversees a Bible study.

VIETNAMESE FELLOWSHIP
The Vietnamese Fellowship is one of two dozen recognized ethnic/language groups in the AG. Que N. Nguyen is president, and the only female leader of any of the ethnic fellowships.

“One challenge about the Vietnamese Fellowship is we’re all over the place,” says Nguyen. She notes that the congregations tend to be in urban areas where Vietnamese tend to work and live: Chicago; Dallas; suburban Phoenix; Charlotte, North Carolina; Portland, Oregon.

As with most Vietnamese churches, Nguyen is bivocational. She pastors Vietnamese Christian Center of the Assemblies of God in Worcester, the second largest city in Massachusetts. But her full-time day job is as a pharmacist for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

One of Nguyen’s priorities since taking over as Vietnamese Fellowship president in 2022 has been advocating for the translation of the required Assemblies of God credentialing courses into Vietnamese. Many lead pastors don’t speak English well, if at all. Subsequently, credentialing ministers sometimes proves cumbersome. In recent months, Global University has completed a draft Vietnamese translation of the first credentialing course, which is now being refined in collaboration with Vietnamese Fellowship leaders.

“Many churches are led by pastors who fled Vietnam during or soon after the end of the war,” Nguyen says. “It’s a huge challenge if a pastor is not fluent in English, because young Christians who are called are all English speakers.”

Parts of Nguyen’s story is remarkably similar to Truong’s. At 51, she is a year younger. She fled the homeland with her family as a teenager, arriving in the U.S. after her father, Vy, had been released from a prison reeducation camp. Vy had served as a captain in the South Vietnamese army. The family settled in New Jersey, where Vy found menial work.

Six months later, the family moved to Worchester, where Vy met pastor Samuel Dong Truong and his wife, Esther, at an English as a second language class. The couple told Vy and subsequently Que about the need for Jesus as their Savior.

Nguyen began attending the church Truong pastored — which is the church she has pastored since 2013. Every Sunday morning, Nguyen preaches Vietnamese in the main service and a shorter service in English afterward for youth. She says around 80% of attendees emigrated from Vietnam. Many are hardworking, family-oriented people employed in blue-collar jobs.

Even though she is one of very few lead female pastor among AG Vietnamese churches in the U.S., Nguyen has grown more confident in the role.

“God has opened doors for me, and I see the needs that are there,” Nguyen says. She hopes her journey will encourage young Christian women to look beyond traditional expectations and to trust that if the Lord calls them to serve, he will provide the path.“I want to be a role model so female leaders who hear God’s call won’t hesitate because of their gender to enter ministry,” Nguyen says.