Pastor Lam Thien Loc, vice general secretary and director of education of the Vietnam Evangelical Alliance, an organization representing 650,000 evangelical Christians in Vietnam, is a prominent evangelical leader in Vietnam. He pastors a church of over 200 members in Dong Nai Province, near Ho Chi Minh City, and serves as the president of the Vietnam Methodist Church. In addition, he served as a translator during the large-scale evangelistic crusades held in Vietnam in 2023 and 2024 by Franklin Graham, chairman of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
Pastor Loc is of three-quarters Chinese descent and a third-generation descendant of a family that migrated from Shantou, Guangdong, to Southeast Asia. In an interview with China Christian Daily, Lin told his family's long and moving story of faith.
From China to Vietnam: A Journey of Loss and Survival
The story begins with his grandparents, who left China for Singapore before 1930 to build a business. His grandfather, a Chinese businessman, traveled back and forth between China and Singapore to manage his trade, and his father was born in Singapore in 1930.
In 1935, when his father was five, his grandparents took him back to mainland China, where he lived until 1947. By then, his grandparents, having grown wealthy from their business, owned extensive land in China. But in 1947, amid political upheaval, the Communist Party of China confiscated their land. Fear drove them to plan to send Lam's father back to Singapore to continue the family business. The journey, however, proved nearly impossible.
A suggestion arose: go to Vietnam first, then find a way to Singapore. So in 1947, Lam's 17-year-old father, his 10-year-old uncle, and his grandmother set out. They reached Saigon's Chinatown, but the war trapped them there. Unable to reach Singapore and cut off from his grandfather in China, they fell into poverty. Lam's father, who had once grown up in comfort, now worked tirelessly to support his mother and younger brother.
The family remained in Saigon's Chinatown until 1955, then moved to Longton Town, 50 kilometers away, where Lam's father found work in a bakery. There, he met Lam's mother; they fell in love, married, and raised nine children—five sons and four daughters. Lam, the youngest, grew up hearing his father's stories of childhood in China. His parents often prayed that one day they could return to the homeland.
"The mother of my mother came from China as well. So my father is 100% Chinese, and my mother is 50% Vietnamese and 50% Chinese. So in me, I have more Chinese blood than Vietnamese," Lam said.
Their prayer was answered in 1999—52 years after his father left China—when his father, mother, oldest brother, and one sister visited relatives in Guangdong. During that month-long trip, his father shared the gospel with his younger siblings and nieces and nephews, leading them to Christ. Not long after their return, he was diagnosed with cancer and went to be with the Lord on January 4, 2001, at the age of 71.
A Family From Buddhism to Faith in Christ
Lam's family practiced Buddhism, and his grandmother, a devout Buddhist, was widely respected in Saigon's Buddhist community, with many seeking her guidance. His uncle, however, became the first Christian in the family.
Living in Saigon from age 10 to 20, he accepted Christ there. Afterward, he went to Taiwan to study chemistry and graduated as a chemical engineer, planning to return to Vietnam to start a business. However, he sensed God's call to study at a seminary in Hong Kong instead, and he obeyed. Today, at 88, he still lives in Hong Kong, married to a local woman, with one son, serving faithfully as both a pastor and a professor.
The Christian faith entered Lam's immediate family through his oldest brother. Born in 1957, he grew up amid Vietnam's civil war. By 1974, their family had eight children, still Buddhist, yet deeply unsettled—daily surrounded by death and suffering, but finding no peace in the pagoda. That year, at 17, Lam's brother, overwhelmed by despair, contemplated suicide.
He was wandering around the town. Suddenly, he noticed a church building. He walked in and met a man, busy in shorts, carrying boxes and bags. The man asked, "Young man, why do you come here? Who are you looking for?" His brother replied, "No, I don't look for anyone. I don't know why I come here." And then he said, "Oh, because you are busy, so let me go." The man gave him a Gideon New Testament and urged him to read the Gospel of John.
Raised in the Buddhist tradition, he had a deep respect for holy books. During the interview, Lam paused, picked up a Bible, and held it with both hands, palms facing up, to show us the way his brother had carefully carried the Bible home. In that gesture, he transported the Bible over one kilometer and read it that evening—first John, then Matthew, Mark, and Luke. God moved his heart, and following the instructions in the back of the Bible, he prayed to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
The church is a Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) church. The following Sunday, he returned to the church and discovered the man who had given him the Bible was the new pastor. After the service, he asked countless questions, and the pastor's answers revealed life's purpose. Within months, he brought the whole family to church, and they all accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Soon after, the pastor, impressed by his knowledge of the Bible, made him a youth leader. A year later, he sent him to a seminary 500 kilometers away. The family, desperately poor, sold their only valuable possession—a wooden bed—to pay his tuition. But before the year ended, in April 1975, the communists took control of South Vietnam and closed churches and seminaries. He returned to the church and served as the pastor's assistant.
Lam was born the next year, in 1976, the only one of nine children born into a Christian family. One Sunday, the pastor held him and prayed, "Lord, use this child according to Your will." From his earliest years, his parents nurtured him in faith.
Called to Serve: Lam's Journey into Ministry
At age four or five, he felt a quiet call to be a pastor. At 14, he surrendered his life to God:
"Late afternoon, I came back from school. That was very strange to me because God moved my heart. I went to my private room, locked the door, and prayed to God, asking Him to forgive my sins. And then God showed me a lot of things, a lot of people. I prayed to the Lord very, very closely, intimately, and I spoke in tongues. From 5:30 PM, I prayed until midnight. I could not stop my prayer."
So deep was his prayer that he ignored his mother's calls for dinner. God showed him the suffering of nonbelievers in Vietnam, and he committed himself to serving the Lord there. From then on, he began to serve the Lord.
He learned to play the keyboard, and after about six months of practice, his parents bought him a Yamaha keyboard. Lam specifically fetched this small keyboard to show us, saying, "It's so small, yet so precious—and it's almost 35 years old now."
"Every Sunday, I brought his keyboard to at least five local churches to lead worship services, from 5 am to 7 pm, the services organized in my parents' house." After 1975, worship was restricted under the Communist government. Lam's family helped establish house churches and continued sharing the gospel.
Once he resolved to serve God, he asked Him to open doors and guide his path. God instructed him to study the Bible diligently and learn English, necessary for studying abroad. After high school, since studying overseas was still impossible, Lam attended university in Ho Chi Minh City, majoring in English, while also studying at a local Bible institute. In 2005, God opened the way for him to attend a seminary in Seoul, South Korea, where he earned a master's degree.
God then called him to pursue a doctorate in the U.S., a daunting prospect given the costs and visa challenges. Six months before his graduation in Korea, the vice president of Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., visited and introduced their doctoral program. Lam asked if he could apply after graduation, and she confirmed that he could, provided he met the requirements. He studied diligently, and with the support of his sponsor church—a Korean mega church—and its senior pastor, he went to Washington, D.C., enrolled in the program, and earned his doctorate in May 2011.
Though several Vietnamese churches in the U.S. (Atlanta, California, Tennessee) invited Lam to be their pastor, Lam felt no call to stay. He returned to Vietnam, keeping the promise he made at 14. Since then, he has served as a local church pastor and traveled around the country to train and equip leaders and churches.
In 2014, Lam was elected president of the Vietnam Methodist Church—founded by his oldest brother in 1990—and is now serving his third term, totaling 11 years. Five years ago, Lam helped establish the Vietnam Evangelical Alliance (VEA) with 36 denominations, and he was appointed vice general secretary. Since October last year, he has also served as VEA's Director of Education, overseeing theological training for pastors and church leaders across Vietnam.
The alliance now has 40 denominations, representing over 650,000 Christians. Three years ago, VEA became an official member of the Asian Evangelical Alliance, and the process of joining the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is underway, with WEA leadership supporting their application and aiming for official membership next year.
Lam is married with two children: a 23-year-old daughter and a 9-year-old son. The gap between them comes from his nearly nine years of studying abroad; after earning his doctorate, his wife and he prayed for another child, and God blessed them with their son in 2016.
Today, his oldest brother, the founder of the Vietnam Methodist Church, and one older sister, who pastors a local church within the denomination, both serve as pastors. In total, the family has three pastors, while the other siblings run businesses to support the ministry. One older brother lives in Nashville, Tennessee, U.S., and another in Vancouver, Canada, and the rest of the siblings remain in Vietnam.
"Sometimes we blame God, why didn't you send our Father to Singapore? But God closed that door, and God allowed our Father to come to Vietnam. Now we look back on our past, we see God has a good and the best plan for our family."
