By Randall Tipple

Since I first met Father Minh, I’ve always known him to be a very busy, hard-working priest. I’ve witnessed, through the years, the pouring out of his life for the poor at the R?ch Súc community in C?n Th?. There, he was always harried with layer upon layer of activities and demands upon him with either organizing the distribution of rice, clothing or medication for the poor, visiting the elderly, sick and shut-ins, preparing for the very popular Feast of Our Lady of Fatima or busied with the overwhelming Children’s Summer Program. With his cell phone to his ear in one hand and the throttle of his motorbike in the other, he swiftly moved from one activity to the other, serving his community with his heart and youthful energy. However, after our visit to his new parish at Trà ?ch last January, I’ve noticed an interesting and quite profound change in him.

Currently serving at Trà ?ch, no longer the assistant pastor serving under Father Phanxico Xavie ?inh Tr?ng T? as at R?ch Súc, he is now the primary pastor. Father Minh has taken everything he’s learned from Father T? and is applying it to the Trà ?ch community with one noticeable change and that is his beeline focus on evangelization and his dedication and determination to build a community to better, more fully understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Not that he wasn’t doing that at R?ch Súc, but when he was assigned to the Trà ?ch community, he quickly discovered a much poorer, dwindling, somewhat neglected faith community in desperate need of revitalization.  Father Minh immediately began plowing their dry spiritual field, planting the seeds of faith and hope of the Gospel, watering them with his prayers and the prayers of the faithful until, by the Grace of God, we see the fruit of his labor. Already, in such a short period of time, we have witnessed a response to the Gospel that is almost unheard of in our world today in that there were nearly one hundred individuals baptized in the Trà ?ch Church this Easter. Father Minh exclaimed, “Thank you God for giving the smallest church in the village of Trà ?ch the opportunity to baptize nearly 100 brothers and sisters this Easter…this is a miracle for Trà ?ch… this is the sign of today’s era.”

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Now more than ever I am confident that what we do in truth, honesty and purity of heart will be met with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. I thank God every day that I had the opportunity to encounter one of the most aggressive, evangelistic priests so far in my lifetime, yet, without his obedience to the call of God and the severity of his discipleship, we would not be blessed with such a report as this.

I believe that this is the reason for Bridges of Saint Mark and the reason that we prayerfully endeavor to hear God’s voice and seek His wisdom to properly discern where we fit in the grand scheme of things. I believe we exist not only to feed the poor food that nourishes only the body but to support those who are able to feed and nourish the soul as well – not only to help our friends in Vietnam procure clean water but to support those who are able to shepherd the community to the Living Water that springs to eternal life.  

I thank God every day that I met Father Nguyen Khac Minh and that by this chance encounter we have been given this great opportunity to share in the building of the Kingdom.