Self-Reliance, Self-less Service and Cultural Values

While driving with a team of humanitarian-oriented veterans on an NGO mission in the late 1980s thru the more remote "grey roads" or non-roads of Dong Nai province, we stopped to allow some service to the vehicles. One of these was a classic black Citroen limo vintage about 1939. When new it probably would have been fit to ferry a queen, as this restored version is reputed to have done. But our version was closer overall to the pre-restoration version!

That the vehicle ran at all was remarkable, but I was perhaps most surprised when on opening the hood, I saw a Coke can prominently attached to a critical part of the engine. On further investigation it became clear that rather than importing auto parts from Coke, the mechanics had improvised using the bottom half of a Coke can to make a new distributor cap for a vehicle that was long since relegated to the junk yard in most other countries. This was to me the quintessential evidence of initiative and resilience. 

Of late, I have become aware of yet further examples of this cultural narrative among members of the Church. Since Vietnamese is still a minor language for Church translation purposes, the range of materials available is still relatively limited when compared with say Japanese or even Swedish. So in typical "can-do" manner, members have stepped forward to translate materials they desire to use in their own units or callings. One example was the excellent Self-Reliance materials which were largely translated into Vietnamese and formatted almost exactly as the English version, for use in one of the branches in Ho Chi Minh City soon after they appeared in English. When later, the Area Self-Reliance coordinator asked about whether Vietnam should be moved into the mainstream of that program, he was pleasantly shocked to discover the level of "readiness" of the people and the materials. No irony here!

But in the sequence of initiative, self-reliance and translation, I am most impressed by the self-less service epitomized in a current project spearheaded by Kim Hoa Duncan, and ably assisted to completion by Sisters Mai Anh, and Bao Ngoc. A project which will not benefit them personally in much of a significant way is the creation of an audio version of the Doctrine and Covenants, a volume of scripture to Latter-day Saints, which will be the focus of Come Follow Me gospel study in 2021. Although perhaps not of the quality (or sanction) that will link it to the official Gospel Library, it will nevertheless open a useful resource to many members whose reading skills or visual acuity are below those that would allow them to access the scriptures in other media. Look for a link to the audiofiles to be released via branch Facebook pages by mid-December 2020. And I have good reason to believe that it will be better than the Coke can in filling its function and helping others to Come Unto Christ. These noble volunteers have epitomized the meaning of #LightTheWorld through service beyond self.

Memorials and “Final” chapters

What we hope most to have accomplished in the few months we have lived, loved and wandered among the peoples of Vietnam is to have embodied in some way the example and teachings of Jesus Christ. Looking backwards as we now can on the paths we have taken in this journey, and more especially on the lives of the people we have met, loved and served, we see so many interesting stories, and so much of the sorrows, sadness and struggles of life, mixed wonderfully with moments of joy, happiness and fulfillment. As in Vietnamese cuisine, the sweet, spicy, salty, hot and savory, together with flavors and sensations not well described in English, come together to make a marvelous fusion of experiences that intensify and reinforce the feeling of satisfaction and fulness. So is life as a servant of God on a mission to bless his children. There are many flavors, textures and sensations that enrich us.

But unlike a meal which comes to a pleasing climax and resolves with a little “mouth decoration” as desserts here are termed, in a mission with real people and real lives, the course is often not finished and fulfilled by just one person. We are forced to put aside many books seemingly in mid-sentence, still hanging on what verb will dominate the remainder of the story and which object will be the consummation of the phrase. We know there are yet many chapters still to be written, twists and turns in plot and theme before the grand story is revealed and the Author’s mind and will are revealed.

We first met Brother Sharp two years ago on one of our first visits to the Mekong. We stayed in the village hotel, with it’s hard bed and the geckos prowling the walls for any insects that ventured in. We met him and his daughter at the head of the dirt path that lead in a kilometer or so to their home on the edge of the rice paddies. Flat and green, yet soured by a dry season that meant salt intrusion, those fields seemed in some ways a metaphor for their lives. He and members of his family had joined the church while living in Cambodia and had felt unity with the saints they met. They weren’t looking for “the true church” per se, but enjoyed the fellowship and accepted the doctrines. But when they moved back to Vietnam to resume work as the opportunities improved, they were far from the pleasures of that fellowship, and the dry ground invited other influences into their lives that soured the crop a bit.

So while they welcomed our visit, they had a different perspective on their spiritual needs at that time, and their affiliation with the larger international church didn’t seem essential to what they sought day to day. They prayed, they sang, they gathered together from time to time, security forces willing, and that was enough.

Our path took us back to their province 18 months later. Sudden losses had entered the family when a son-in-law had passed away suddenly, as though hit by lightening, and their daughter was now struggling to keep that arm of the  family going. As we shared their sorrows and thought about the blessings of being able to bear up the burdens placed on us, we invited them to consider whether temple worship might not offer them strength and comfort. Again we were warmly welcomed as friends, but understanding and hunger for the full plate of gospel blessings was still not evident. I had thought it unlikely following that visit that we would see them again. But circumstances can change.

While planning our trip for the Mission Branch conference this past weekend, word arrived that Brother Sharp had himself passed away and would be buried the following day. We couldn’t make the five hour trip for that, but determined to include a visit there in advance of the branch conference.

The last kilometer of the trip to the blue and white house was now paved in concrete, but the sun was still hot and much  of the path very exposed. The rice was again planted, now just showing sprouts for the first rainy season crop, the paddy partially flooded already from the first week of rain. We found the house, where now were two graves, one still in the final stages of construction, and the other completed but not fully adorned as a more prosperous setting might have required.

As we hugged, and held hands, shared faith and offered comfort a renewed sense of unity and a deeper desire seemed to arise in the hearts of not just the widow or her children, but also in the hearts and minds of their many friends to whom Bro Sharp had been the group minister, ex officio and pro tempore. “Will you come and bring us into the fold, we who have been cast out, and forbidden from meeting” by those in authority or of greater means, was the plea both spoken and implicit as we talked.

I had not ever dedicated a grave before, not in English, much less Vietnamese, but the blessing of comfort and hope from the ministering of authorized servants with priesthood keys, seemed clearly to have brought us there for that purpose, and through the accomplishment of that end, the beginning of a new chapter.

I have wondered how the spirit led early missionaries to Benbow farm where so many were waiting to receive the gospel and who became a vital infusion of strength and faith into the developing church. And I have wondered how missionaries found my ancestors living and working the farmland many, many miles from Stockholm or Uppsala. It is less a mystery to me now, as I see how farmboys from tiny villages in Nghe An become missionaries and then branch presidents, how the children of officers and magnates from distant towns and counties receive the gospel and rise up to bless their fellows and families as Zion is established. And I can see how the congregations of the faithful, through their prayers and entreaties, also bring the servants of God to their doors to minister, and comfort, and teach. It is only the beginning of course, and the many chapters and sequels yet to be written will no doubt be even more engaging and marvelous, but it is a tide of gathering, of refining, of building, that will not be turned back. And it will metaphorically turn the intrusion of salt that sterilizes the land into a salting of the earth that redeems and seasons the abundant harvest.

Wheat fields ready for harvest Simtuna, Sweden- Quê ngoại của tôi