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About Us
The history of Immanuel First's Vietnamese
Church
and its development can be described in three words:
PLANTING -
WATERING - GROWING
1 Corinthians 3:6-7
With a missionary spirit
and love toward the lost
souls, on October 5, 2000 Immanuel First Lutheran Church began to plant
a new Vietnamese Mission. Pastor An Binh Thai, at the time a third-year
student at Concordia University Irvine, was installed by the Pacific
Southwest District of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod as a vicar for
the mission.
With prayers, Pastor Thai
began collecting the
Vietnamese addresses from the Yellow Pages phone book - over 250 in
total - in West Covina and its surroundings. Pastor Thai and his wife
Rose drove to each of these addresses to visit and distribute tracts,
and to present the new mission to the Vietnamese people. Within the
first six months of 2001, the second round of visitation was
accomplished, and a small group of two to five individuals, including
the pastor and his wife, formed the first Bible studies and prayer
meetings in the Youth Room. On July 2001, the first worship service
began. In January 2002 the regular service was moved to the sanctuary.
After graduating with an M.A. in Theology on December 1, 2002, Vicar
Thai was called by Immanuel First; ordained by the PSWD, to be an
assistant pastor assigned for the Vietnamese mission.
The Mission has grown
to a
list of 47 people now,
with 25-30 congregants worshiping on Sunday afternoon. A Sunday School
class for the adults was started by Pastor Thai. Another Sunday School
class for children and teenagers was also started, taught by the two
daughters of Pastor and Mrs. Thai, Mimosa Nguyen and Bao-Anh Duong. A
weekly home Bible study and prayer is held at a member's house in
Rosemead, CA every Wednesday.
Thanks and glories be to our Lord God Almighty who "made
it grow" (1 Corinthians 3:7).
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Planting