Nguyen Hong Quang, leader of the unregistered Vietnam Evangelical Mennonite Church (formerly referred to as the Mennonite Church in Vietnam), was severely beaten on his way to worship Sunday evening, Jan. 18, 2015.
A few minutes after leaving his home in northwest Ho Chi Min City (Saigon) with another pastor, Huynh Thuc Khai, each on his own motorcycle, they were accosted by two strangers who knocked Khai from his motorcycle. Pastor Quang, who was following, stopped to assist the younger pastor. The two strangers signaled five other men, who assaulted Quang with clubs and bricks. Before he lost consciousness, Quang recognized two of them as men who often lounged by the gate of the home adjacent to his.
Passersby tried to stop the attack but were threatened by the fleeing assailants. A husband and wife, members of the church, took Quang to the nearest general hospital. Family members later had him transferred to the Saigon Hoan My International Hospital.
On Monday morning doctors at the hospital reported that Quang suffered a fractured nose and serious internal injuries. Khai suffered brush burns only.
Friends of Pastor Quang invite prayer for him.
Pastor Quang was sentenced to prison in 2004 but was granted amnesty the following year. He is no stranger to personal attacks. In late 2010 he was beaten when evicted from his home as part of an urban renewal project. Quang then moved to Ben Cat town north of Ho Chi Minh City, where the church had established a worship and training center and he coordinated the church’s leadership education program.
Beginning in September 2014, authorities tried to close the unauthorized training program and harassed those who came to the church center. Plain-clothed attackers repeatedly threw stones and garbage at the building without interference from security police. Eventually the building itself was broken into and trashed, and members were forbidden to enter. In December, church leaders temporarily terminated all activities at the center, and Quang and his family moved into a son’s home.
Another Mennonite body in Vietnam, Vietnam Mennonite Church (VMC), has legal status and an officially authorized theological training program. Twelve students recently graduated from the first five-year Bachelor of Theology program.
Mennonite Church Canada relates to the Vietnam Evangelical Mennonite Church through the resource worker, Nhien Pham.
—Posted Jan. 23, 2015
After an attack on Jan. 18, 2015, Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang suffered a fractured nose and serious internal injuries. (Photo courtesy of Mennonite Church Canada)
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