Known for his passion and work with ethnic outreach efforts in the Southern Baptist Convention, Minh Ha Nguyen, 57, died in a drowning accident in North Carolina on Monday (July 15).
Nguyen served with the International Mission Board for nearly a quarter of a century. See his video testimony recently released by IMB here.
“Minh Ha was an incredibly gifted colleague who served for 24 years in key roles with the IMB to support our work and workers around the world,” IMB President Paul Chitwood said in a statement. “He helped shape our stewardship strategies and our efforts to evangelize the largest cities in the world but also served our SBC family in ethnic ministry in the U.S. We rejoice in his eternal reward even as we grieve with his family, with hope.”
In addition to his work with IMB as director of gift care and data stewardship for the Ministry Advancement Team, Nguyen served as president of the SBC’s Ethnic Research Network’s Core Team that presented a report to BaptistResearch.com during the Convention’s Annual Meeting in Indianapolis in June. He also created and led a group called Radius Global Cities Network that researches how the Church can best reach cities around the world.
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Nguyen’s story
Having been born in Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam War, Nguyen and his family became refugees fleeing communist rule. In his testimony, Nguyen recounts “sounds of bomb explosions at night and smells and sights of women and children’s bodies burned during the daylight were the common experiences around us.”
As Nguyen and his family fled Vietnam, they boarded an overcrowded boat and headed anywhere but there. They were thirsty and starving and were being hunted by authorities, but they made it through. Reflecting on that time, he shared how he saw God at work.
“I see there was the hand of God protecting us from the flying bullets of our assailants, lifting the boat so it would not sink to the depth of the ocean during the storms and opening the ear of the Malaysian governor so he would hear the desperate cries of the children and women and intervene on our behalf,” he said.
‘Near-death experiences’
“God allowed me to go through these near-death experiences so that my life may have a meaning
that matters for eternity,” Nguyen said. “And so that, to borrow from Paul again, ‘Christ may be formed in me’ (Galatians 4:19). The meaning of my life is not to be found in the abstract, but rather in concrete and ordinary circumstances and stations of life itself.”
Nguyen will be remembered by friends and family as a leader within the SBC, one who overcame great adversity and saw the good work of Jesus Christ through to the end of his life.
“In my 12,000-mile journey from Vietnam to Malaysia, Switzerland, and then to the United States, I had found many places to call home and had made many meaningful relationships,” he said. “But more importantly, I have found a migrant Savior. His callings to follow him gave meaning and purpose to my life on the move. I am so glad to be a part of the global migrant church.”
