A Vietnamese man discovers God’s peace in Jesus and shares that peace with many more Vietnamese people—including his parents.

My name is Tao Duy Nguyen. I’m currently serving as pastor at Peace in Jesus Vietnamese Lutheran Church in Boise, Idaho. I’d like to share my story and that of my parents—how the Lord changed me to become a believer and a servant at Peace in Jesus Vietnamese and how he also changed my parents’ hearts to become his believers. God answered my prayers. Glory be to God!

Discovering peace in Jesus

In the 1990s, my family immigrated to the United States as refugees from Vietnam. I witnessed my family facing numerous challenges. Having experienced poor living conditions and hardships in Vietnam, my parents and older siblings prioritized working tirelessly to earn money. However, this wasn’t my immediate concern; as a young teenager, school was my focus.

Yet even attending school presented difficulties. With the language barrier, I didn’t have many friends, and studying became very hard for me. I was grateful that our sponsor’s family consistently gave me a ride to church every Sunday. In fact, Sundays became my happiest days because I could go to church and pray for strength to overcome the challenges of school, the English barrier, and even being bullied on the bus.

Even though I attended church with my sponsor, I struggled to understand the hymns, sermons, and Bible readings due to my limited English. It wasn’t until 2000 that I met Pastor Daniel Kramer, who was engaged in outreach to the Vietnamese community in Boise. When I was invited to a worship service at Peace in Jesus Vietnamese, I attended and was surprised—and deeply thankful—to find the service conducted entirely in Vietnamese. Finally, I could understand! Thank you, Lord! Following this, I completed Bible information class with Pastor Kramer and became a member of Peace in Jesus Vietnamese. I’m profoundly grateful that God led me to this church, allowing me to understand and worship him in my native Vietnamese language.

Perhaps you’re wondering about my religious background before I came to the US or became a Christian. My family originated from Tay Ninh, a city in southern Vietnam, where the majority of the population adhered to Caodaism. Caodaism, a Vietnamese religion founded in the 1920s, integrates elements from various Eastern and Western religions—Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and Roman Catholicism. It is a monotheistic faith with a hierarchical structure. Both my parents and grandparents were followers of Caodaism. Reflecting on it now, it sometimes felt unsettling, making me question the exact nature of their beliefs. There was a great deal of uncertainty in spiritual matters at that time.

Training to proclaim peace in Jesus

After becoming a member at Peace in Jesus Vietnamese, I enrolled in the Pastoral Studies Institute (PSI) offered by Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. My hope through this program was to deepen my knowledge of God’s Word, enabling me to share it with other Vietnamese people in Boise. Nine years later I was ready to graduate from the program alongside my Vietnamese brother, Trung Le, another member of the congregation.

The congregation often wondered about the future of Peace in Jesus Vietnamese and its outreach ministry after Trung Le and I graduated. While everyone was excited for the Lord’s work, there was also a shared curiosity: “What would happen next for Peace in Jesus Vietnamese?” We had no answers, so we prayed for direction.

God allowed a wonderful plan to unfold. From May through September 2023, many blessings occurred for Peace in Jesus Vietnamese Lutheran Church.

In May 2023, Trung Le and I graduated from the PSI program at Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

Pastor Trung Le received a divine call to serve as a Vietnamese outreach pastor at King of Kings, Garden Grove, Calif., an area with a significant Vietnamese population. He accepted the call and relocated to Garden Grove.

In June 2023, Pastor Kramer received three different divine calls. He ultimately accepted the call to serve at Crown of Life, New Orleans, La. This church is conveniently located about a mile from a Vietnamese community.

Upon Pastor Trung Le’s and Pastor Kramer’s departures to serve elsewhere, Peace in Jesus Vietnamese extended a call to me to serve the church. I accepted this call in August 2023. We are thankful to God for the smooth transition.

Sharing peace in Jesus

Since becoming a full-time servant at Peace in Jesus Vietnamese, the Lord has granted me more time to share the gospel with my mother and father. We’ve had many meetings where I’ve shared the good news with them. Faced with many uncertainties about their previous beliefs, the afterlife, and the state of their spiritual lives, my parents ultimately found that Jesus Christ, our Savior, is the only way to salvation and eternal life. As John 3:16 states, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

My parents found no peace in Caodaism, a manmade religion that heavily emphasizes good works over God’s grace. Many follow it due to ancestral tradition or cultural ties. However, the inherent uncertainty about the afterlife left my parents without hope or peace. This was the spiritual state my parents experienced before coming to know Jesus.

I am grateful that both my mother and father recognized this and became more interested in the gospel. They began attending Bible information class with me.

Many years ago, I prayed that one day my parents, my siblings, and their families would believe in Jesus and we’d all sit together in church and worship God. In March 2024, God answered my prayer: My parents confessed belief in Jesus Christ as their Savior. I thank God and give all glory to him! God allowed me to share the good news of Jesus with my parents and to perform their baptisms in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. As their son, there are no words to describe the happiness I have knowing my parents are baptized and under God’s grace, happy and confident of their salvation in Jesus Christ. “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever” (Psalm 136:1).

After being baptized, my mother and father now have peace not only in this life but also in the life to come. They were lost, and now they are found through the Lord Jesus Christ. They now know where they will go. At their age, in their 80s, what a comfort and peace it is for them to know that God’s grace has been given to them, has saved them, and has provided them eternal life.

I pray that the Lord will continue strengthening their faith as they follow Jesus Christ for the rest of their lives. I will also continue praying for all my siblings and their children, that they too will come to believe in Jesus.

Read more about Trung Le’s life and ministry. 

Author: Tao Nguyen
Volume 112, Number 08
Issue: August 2025