December 5, 2025 • 34 mins
A farm boy from British Columbia hears a call, steps onto a Vietnamese tarmac, and discovers a faith that refuses to be managed by war, ideology or fear. In this episode we dive into conversation with seasoned missionary and advocate, Reg Reimer, whose life bridges Bible school hallways, evacuation flights from Saigon, and quiet rooms where persecuted pastors whisper strategies for survival.
Reg unpacks why mission still matters—less as a Western export and more as a global partnership forged in prayer and shared risk. He reflects on paternalism’s legacy, the early push for indigenous leadership, and what changed when Vietnamese believers asked God to alleviate their fear. The result was remarkable: after a near-silent decade under communist rule, the church grew fourteenfold, and through miraculous signs and wonders, entire coastal communities turned to Jesus.
Reimer also shares the necessity for the “two wings” of mission—proclaim salvation and resist human suffering—and looks ahead to a future where the global South leads, the West serves alongside, and all peoples send and go. If you’ve wondered how to discern a call, navigate politics without losing your soul, or serve across cultures with integrity, this conversation offers hard-won counsel and hope.
If you'd like to learn more from Reg Reimer you can purchase his book and find him through social media.
And please don't forget to share this episode and join the conversation on YouTube!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Brian Stiller (00:10):
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, Brian Stiller.
Now and then one meets someoneoutside of the ordinary,
courageous, maybe even reckless,and pushing the boundaries.
Reg Reimer is one of those.
Raised on a Canadian Mennonitefarm, educated in a conservative
(00:32):
church community, he and hisbride Donna headed out for a
part of the world that was aboutto blow up.
Vietnam in the 1960s and 70swas not for the faint of heart.
Mastering the language andlearning early the nuances of
Vietnamese culture, Reg nowengaged with an archaic and in
(00:55):
retrospect a paternalisticWestern mission force walked the
dangerous roads of civilstrikes, overhung by an American
army set on subduing itspeople.
All of this at a time whenChristian missions are finding
that its Western domination justwasn't flying as national and
indigenous leaders were steppingup to lead.
(01:17):
Wise and outspoken.
Just the kind of person I loveto listen to.
And the person with experiencethat rising generations can be
beneficiaries of in his life andjourney.
And to you, please know howmuch I welcome you as part of
(01:37):
this conversation.
And as you listen, would youconsider sharing this episode
with a friend?
And if you haven't, please hitthe subscribe button and join
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
Now to my guest, Reg Reimer,seasoned Journeyman of Faith.
Reg Reimer (02:02):
It's wonderful to be here, Brian.
Brian Stiller (02:08):
Your ministry, your exploits, remarkable.
And I want to get to that, butuh just before we do, as we get
into On the Cruel Edges of theWorld, your new book.
How does a Mennonite boy fromthe farm in British Columbia end
up in Vietnam in the middle ofthe disaster of uh that war and
(02:33):
that country?
Reg Reimer (02:35):
Brian, I I came to uh firm faith myself my last
year in high school.
And uh at that point, uh I Iwanted two things.
I wanted to uh study about myfaith, and I wanted to get away
from home.
So uh I enrolled in uh a Biblecollege in Nebraska, head
(02:58):
shanked from Chilliwack toOmaha, and uh enrolled in this
um uh uh Bible college.
Um each fall, the Bible collegeheld a full-throated missions
promotion week.
I was there for the very uhfirst one, and they had the they
(03:18):
brought in powerful missionspeakers.
One of them was Dr.
Arthur Glasser, missionarystatesman, who later became my
major mentor at Fuller.
But Dr.
Glasser preached a powerfulmessage, and he ended up with
quoting John Mott, leader of theuh student Christian movement
at the beginning of the lastcentury.
(03:39):
John Mott said, show why youshould not obey the last command
of Jesus Christ.
And uh I could not, and uh, Ireceived a call to mission that
uh set the course for the restof my life.
I avoided other distractionsand headed this direction.
(03:59):
So uh there uh at the Biblecollege I met uh Donna.
She was also uh called tomission.
And uh after finishing oureducation in Nebraska, we were
required to go to uh Nyat, NewYork.
Uh we had joined the ChristianMissionary Alliance uh to be our
(04:22):
sending agency.
And uh there for a year ingraduate school, I prepared to
go to Indonesia, actually thefar um eastern part of Indonesia
to work with Stone Age tribalpeople.
Uh but just before we finishedour course, I got a call from
the mission director, and hesaid uh there's been a communist
(04:46):
coup in Indonesia, and there'sa vicious suppression of it, and
Indonesia is not giving anyvisas to foreigners for the
foreseeable future.
Would you go to Vietnam?
Well, we uh had a newborn girland a toddler boy.
Um, we asked for 24 hours toconsider it, pray about it, and
(05:10):
next day we said, yes, we'll go.
So there we went.
Brian Stiller (05:15):
Reg, you ended up in Vietnam, and of course, in
my generation, when I sayVietnam, I remember the
Vietnamese war, not France, butAmerica involved.
And the picture that comes tomind is the helicopter over top
of that building in Saigon, asVietnamese are rushing to the
(05:37):
top of the building to try andclimb the ladder to get up into
this last helicopter, lastAmerican helicopter, was just
before the Vietcom took over.
That was your world, wasn't it?
Reg Reimer (05:52):
Yes, it was.
Um I actually uh was evacuatedfrom Vietnam on the last Royal
Canadian Air Force plane thatcame to Vietnam to pick up the
Charge de Fer.
Brian Stiller (06:04):
Reg, what was it about the Vietnamese people,
their culture, their style thatcaptured your attention?
You became, as I recall, a uhvery fluent in in the language
to the degree that people wereamazed that uh you you spoke
(06:27):
like one of them.
What was it about that worldthat captured your attention?
Reg Reimer (06:32):
Well, I've I found the Vietnamese um people and
culture to be both uhinscrutable and seductive.
Vietnam has a history goingback about 5,000 years, so it's
as it's as old as Israelpractically, and of course
developed a highly sophisticatedculture, a language that is
(06:56):
very hard for Westerners tolearn, but I applied myself to
the language and tried tounderstand, made Vietnamese
friends that tried to understandhow to relate to Vietnamese.
One of the finest days of mylife was when a Vietnamese
friend of mine said, you knowwhat, Reg, you have actually you
(07:18):
speak Vietnamese quite well,and you have made some inroads
into understanding our culture.
Um that was a huge complimentfor me, even though I know I
wasn't very deep into it.
Brian Stiller (07:31):
Reg, I guess the big question is
generation, does missions stillmatter?
Does it still make sense?
Reg Reimer (07:41):
It certainly does.
Ever since I began mymissionary career about six
decades ago now, we were askingthe same question.
Things were changing sorapidly, even back then.
And we were saying, you know,is it still necessary to have
missionaries?
We have a national church isplanted and growing and it is
sending its own missionaries tocertain tribal people in the
(08:05):
country.
Yes, there is a place formission.
First of all, you know, thereis there is a church universal.
And uh mission is an expressionof that.
You might even say that missionwas an early expression of
globalism.
The body is interdependent, andthough things have changed
(08:28):
rapidly and are changing, andwe're always asking the
question, you know, what shouldbe the role of foreign
missionaries?
There still is a need.
There are frontiers, there arestill about 7,000 so-called
unreached people groups wherethe Church Universal needs to
partner together to take thegospel there.
(08:50):
Missions and the integration ofthe of the worldwide church is
a beautiful expression of thekingdom of God.
If ever we needed something inour divine world, the church in
mission is a beautiful model.
Brian Stiller (09:06):
Reg, reading your book on the cruel edge of the
world, it seemed to me that themission agency that you were a
part of espoused a kind ofpaternalism.
Was is that true?
And does paternalism still markthe nature of missions as you
(09:27):
know it today?
Reg Reimer (09:28):
I would say that when we began our mission work
in Vietnam, we were kind of atthe tail end of the colonial
era.
There were still some vestigesof colonialism in the way I
think our mission operated andthe way we dealt with nationals
(09:49):
and and so on.
But that changed during mymissionary uh career.
Brian Stiller (09:56):
Uh I I guess was the church paternalistic?
Was it so dominated by the Westthat the indigenous nature of
the church was overrun by thispaternalistic West?
Reg Reimer (10:11):
We were at the end of the colonial period.
But our pioneer missionaries inVietnam were very enlightened.
They arrived in Vietnam aboutthe time that Roland Allen was
preaching the three-selfsupport, self-governance, and
self-propagation, and so on.
(10:33):
And very early, our missionestablished an independent
Vietnamese church that we workedwith.
So I did not find a lot ofpaternalism in our situation in
Vietnam.
Brian Stiller (10:48):
People have misconceptions about missions,
about the nature of missions.
Have you met, have youencountered those misconceptions
in your ministry?
Reg Reimer (10:59):
I think so.
A lot of people still have veryprimitive understanding of
missions.
They think of a white manpreaching to dark-skinned people
under a tree somewhere.
But my own life and ministry, Ithink, is an illustration of
something else.
Many friends and supportersthat have read my memoir are
(11:23):
quite surprised that my missionvocation required me to be an
evangelist, a church planter,development worker, a field
director, a uh chief executive,an advocate for the persecuted,
and that required me to learnsome spy craft.
People were surprised that Ihad uh had to have skills in so
(11:47):
many areas.
Brian Stiller (11:48):
So when you arrived in Vietnam, when you and
Donna arrived in Vietnam, didyour experience match your
expectations?
Reg Reimer (11:56):
Uh no, it did not.
We were formerly prepared to bemissionaries and so on, and we
found that helpful.
But thrown into a war in whichthe main protagonists, the
Americans, you know, werethought to be Christian, uh was
(12:18):
a very difficult, very difficultsituation.
And in many ways, we were notprepared for that.
We had to we had to make ourour own way.
There was no problem with ouradjustment, with you know,
living and so on.
That wasn't a problem.
But working in a war, as wewere uh raised lots of questions
(12:42):
and uh tensions within me andeven within our mission
community.
Brian Stiller (12:48):
But given that your denomination was
American-based, would there beconflict between being loyal to
your mission agency that wasAmerican-based and yet not being
pro-American?
Reg Reimer (13:00):
The um majority feeling of the mission community
during the Vietnam War was thatthe Americans were holding back
the forces of communism, whichwas allowing for the preaching
of the gospel.
So this was the predominantfeeling of the mission
community, not only our ownmission, but other missions that
(13:23):
were there.
And something in me said thiswas this had other dimensions,
this had other problems that weweren't really dealing with.
Brian Stiller (13:34):
Reg, in reading your book, I get the feeling
that you were kind of out ofline with the missionary, the
denominational missionary linethat was that was dominant at
the time.
Reg Reimer (13:46):
Uh yes.
I I began to question the war.
I went when I first went, Iaccepted what the the majority
mission missionaries were werefeeling that you know we were
holding back communism and thiswas allowing for the preaching
of the gospel.
But I I slowly came to anotherview.
(14:08):
Uh I ended up believing thatthe Vietnam War was lost the
moment the first Marine set footon the beach in Danang back in
1965.
This was a war for nationalindependence, and there was no
way all the might of the U.S.
(14:29):
and technology and everythingwas going to stop the Vietnamese
people from protecting theirland and establishing their own
country.
Brian Stiller (14:39):
And is that part of why the Vietnam church
emerged with such strength afterthe after the war and even
under the harsh rule of acommunist uh uh government?
Reg Reimer (14:54):
Of course, we were very concerned.
I remember flying out ofVietnam on that last Royal
Canadian Air Force Hercules,wondering what in the world was
going to happen to my friendsand the church as well as to the
to the whole country.
Church is actually for nearly adecade kind of went underground
(15:16):
and went silent.
And then about five or sixyears into the communist period,
a prayer movement began amongthe church, and some pastors and
leaders were led to pray thatthe Lord would take away their
fear of communism.
(15:36):
And the Lord answered that,answered that prayer, and about
10 years into the communistperiod, the church began to grow
markedly.
Uh so there were only 160,000evangelicals when I left Vietnam
in 1975.
And today there are 2.1million.
(16:00):
That's an increase of about 14times in the last, well, it's 50
years now.
And I think that that wasremarkable, remarkable growth.
Brian Stiller (16:12):
So, Reg, you have a very small Christian
community in Vietnam in 75, asyou say.
You have a communist dictatorthat uh that rules Christianity
as being illegitimate, or if notillegitimate, at least
off-center.
And yet the underground churchexplodes.
(16:33):
What is there about the gospeland the activity of the church
in that time that uh that givesit such strength and in time
allows it to grow to the numbersyou've just identified?
Reg Reimer (16:50):
When the Lord answered the prayer of some
Vietnamese leaders andChristians uh to take away their
fear, the Lord, the Lord reallydid that.
And the the church becamechurches became became really
the only refuge for Christianpeople where they could find
(17:11):
support and comfort and helpwhen they needed it.
If they observed what was goingon around them, they
experienced pressure andpersecution, but that seemed to
in fact um increase theattractiveness of churches in in
(17:32):
Vietnam.
And many people joinedchurches.
One of the things that happenedwas the Lord exhibited his
power in uh in many situations.
The Lord expresses his power insituations where the gospel is
first preached, miracles andexorcisms and so on take place,
(17:55):
and also where the church isunder terrible pressure and
persecution.
There miracles take place, Godshows his power, and people are
attracted to that, and alsostrongly attracted to the
communities in which thishappens.
Brian Stiller (18:14):
Can you tell some stories of of how the gospel
was transformative while youwere there?
Reg Reimer (18:20):
Let me tell you one that goes back quite a bit.
I was doing my research for mymaster's dissertation at Fuller
on the topic of what were thedynamics that caused the
Vietnamese churches to grow inthe first place.
And in my studies, I read abouta small people movement to
(18:43):
Christ that took place in someremote fishing villages on the
coast in central Vietnam.
And the story was that a youngwoman who was blind from birth
received her sight.
And this miracle was a driverthat brought hundreds of fishing
people to Christ.
(19:03):
And a number of churches wereestablished there.
Now, uh, part of my research, Iwanted to confirm this for
myself.
So during my field research formy dissertation, I traveled to
the area which at that point waslargely communist-controlled,
and it was also very near wherethe infamous Milah Massacre took
(19:28):
place.
And I went and I found the homeof Mrs.
Who, who was the uh person thathad received her site.
I met family there and visited,and I asked if I could see Mrs.
Who.
And uh they didn't respond andkept insisting, and they said,
(19:49):
We don't think you want to seeher.
And I said, Well, why not?
They said, Well, because she'sdying.
I said, excuse me, that's allthe more reason I want to see
her.
So they took me to the backdoor of the Thatch house fronted
on the ocean, and there theypointed me to a figure lying in
(20:10):
the sand under some tall palmtrees.
I made my way slowly to thebody with shriveled body of a
very old woman with only a sackcovering part of her.
And uh suddenly my questionabout sight didn't seem
(20:33):
appropriate.
So I went to her and I got downon my knees and I crawled
toward her and I said to her,Mrs.
Who, do you know the Lord?
And uh there was no answer.
I asked it a second time, Mrs.
Who, do you know the Lord?
(20:53):
There was no answer.
So I crawled right up to her,put my mouth close to her ear,
and I said, Mrs.
Who, do you know the Lord?
And her tiny tongue came out ofher mouth and she licked her
parched lips, and her eyesflickered, and she whispered,
(21:21):
which being translated means,the Lord gave me light for my
eyes.
I realized I was on holyground.
I made the sign of the cross onher, prayed for her, and uh
retreated.
The Lord having answered bothmy questions through her five
(21:43):
words.
That's just one example of theLord's power and how the Lord
used it also to bring many otherpeople uh to himself.
Brian Stiller (21:56):
Reg, you have been an advocate for those in
Vietnam who are persecuted fortheir faith.
Under the communist regime,what is the freedom of religion
like in Vietnam?
And what are the kinds ofissues that they face as it
relates to living out their lifeas Christians?
Reg Reimer (22:17):
The attitude and practice of the government
toward religion and Christiansin particular, Vietnam has about
two million evangelicals andabout eight million Catholics,
has changed over the years,especially in regard to
Protestants.
The government was veryconcerned to see Christianity
growing so rapidly, especiallyin the 1990s.
(22:42):
Um my research, uh, acquisitionof documents and papers and so
on showed that the government'spolicy was, they used the word
eradication, eradication ofChristianity, especially among
the minority peoples in Vietnam.
That has changed over the yearsnow to containment.
(23:05):
The government still works hardto prevent the gospel from
going to areas where it has notyet been preached.
And there are still fairlyisolated examples of serious
persecution where new people andnew communities are becoming
Christians.
(23:25):
My call to advocacy came duringmy very first trip to Communist
Vietnam in 1980.
That's 45 years ago now.
I joined a first Western tourgroup to Vietnam.
None of us were tourists onthis group, and I managed to
(23:46):
break away from the tour groupon a Sunday to meet at a church.
And out of that, straight outof a John Laqueray novel, I
arranged a secret meeting withtop church leaders, and they
poured out their hearts aboutthe terrible persecution that
was going on in those days.
And I asked the senior pastorwho was actually my Vietnamese
(24:09):
godfather, I said, What do youwant me to do?
And he said, raise our voice inthe outside world.
That set me on the course foradvocacy for the last 45 years.
And it's changed a lot.
The situation is better nowthan it was, but the communist
(24:29):
state still has majorinstitutions whose job is to
quote manage a religion.
So all Christians alwaysrealize somebody is looking over
their shoulder.
So what can you do?
Brian Stiller (24:43):
What can be done?
What are you doing?
You and Donna, you're in yourmid-80s and you're going back to
Vietnam again this year.
What is there that can be doneby others with respect to
freedom of religion andpersecution that you see
continuing in places likeVietnam and other countries?
Reg Reimer (25:05):
In the beginning, I was one of the only advocates
for persecuted Christians inVietnam.
And so I was the one that wassupplying information to
Christian advocacy organizationslike Open Doors, Voice of the
Martyr, and so on, and also togovernments, State Department,
(25:27):
Ministries of Foreign Affairs,and also to journalists in
well-known newspapers, New YorkTimes and Wall Street Journal,
and so on.
Nowadays, the Christians inVietnam themselves have access
to these outside organizationsand can and do report religious
liberty abuses.
(25:47):
I still work exposing therelatively few worst cases of
persecution, where Christiansthat become people that become
Christians in new areas arepressured by clan and by local
government all the way to beingdriven from their homes with
(26:11):
only the clothes on their backs.
That still happens in somecases in Vietnam.
And I still raise those issuesworldwide in press releases and
so on.
Things have changed a lot.
The Vietnamese churches arelearning to live with the
government, to engage with thegovernment, and based on
(26:34):
personal relationships of churchleaders and government leaders,
things thankfully haveimproved.
Brian Stiller (26:42):
Reg, let me cycle back into your life as a
missionary in the latter part ofthe 20th century and ask what
were the lessons you learnedabout cross-cultural missions?
You're coming from the Westernworld, and there's a certain
kind of cultural arrogance thatcomes with that.
(27:02):
What did the Vietnamese peopleteach you about what missions
might best look like?
Reg Reimer (27:09):
Oh, I'm greatly indebted to Vietnamese people,
Vietnamese friends, Vietnamesechurch leaders.
I fortunately developed a closerelationship with a number of
them and were the to the pointwhere they were, they felt very
free to talk to me about some ofthese hard issues.
(27:31):
So I benefited from gentlelectures and encouragement on
how to carry on, how to be themost helpful, how to be a true
partner, um, in many, many, inmany, many ways.
Brian Stiller (27:47):
What would be your takeaway for Western
missions, especially, or formissions from countries where
Christianity is a more of adominant faith?
What are your takeaways fromyour own experience as to how
missions might best be done andwhat missions might mean as it
relates to the call of Christand the mandate from the
(28:10):
scriptures itself?
Reg Reimer (28:12):
Well, uh, the missionary call, the missionary
mandate remains with us.
And my admiration for thosethat have answered the
missionary call through thecenturies continues to grow as I
study about them.
And, you know, while it'ssomewhat popular, popular
(28:34):
culture, even in church culture,to kind of minimize,
misunderstand, and even minimizethe missionary call, the
missionary role, my admirationfor my colleagues and my
forebearers just continues toincrease as they have found ways
to carry the message of JesusChrist salvation.
(28:57):
And also the second wing of thegospel.
I was raised in the evangelismprimacy ideology in my mission,
but I soon discovered in theVietnam War and in other
situations in which I've I'veworked, that the second wing of
(29:17):
the gospel is Jesus' fierceopposition to human suffering.
You know, look at what he did.
And I remember when John Stottpreached it the first Luzon on
the John 2021, as the Father hassent me, so send I you.
(29:39):
So these two wings of thegospel are necessary.
And I think EvangelicalMissions has really discovered
the second wing and iswonderfully involved in Jesus'
mission of opposing humansuffering.
Brian Stiller (29:57):
Reg, over the last few decades.
The growth of the churchglobally has been in what we
call the global south, which isAfrica, Latin America, and Asia.
But the numbers that explodedin Vietnam, what do you see as
the future of missions?
Is uh is it the West to therest of the world, or is it now
(30:20):
the cycling of people from anycountry to any country?
Reg Reimer (30:26):
You're asking, is there is there still a role for
Westerners to play in theChristian world mission?
Um yes, there is.
Okay, so we have the uh thetheology, the theory of the
unity of the body of Christ as atheological truth.
(30:48):
But it's also an existentialreality.
And uh this is where I see thewhole church, churches from
every part of the world uhcoming together in order to
carry on the Christian worldmission in in new and effective
(31:08):
ways.
Um the roles the roles arechanging.
We Western missionaries, partlybecause of our success through
a couple of centuries, have hada part in raising up churches
which are now carrying on theChristian world mission.
And I think our role is stillto be part of it, though it is
(31:31):
changing, and we have many newallies and resources in which to
do it.
Brian Stiller (31:37):
Reg, you and I have traveled throughout Vietnam
considerably, and reading yourbook on the cruel edge of the
world, I'm reminded of how yourlife has been invested in that
part of the world and theirlives invested in yours.
Now you're coming to thetwilight of ministry and life.
(32:00):
Uh, if a young Reg Reimer outof Abbotsford, BC came to you
after a service and asked, Whatshould I do?
How should I approach this callof mission?
What would you say to a youngerReg Reimer?
Reg Reimer (32:17):
I would say, first of all, go for it.
If you're open to God's call,he has He has something He has
something significant for you todo.
I would say nurse and nourishthat call.
Um get out there and exploreand see what can be done,
(32:38):
contact mission organizations,even travel the world a bit and
look up missionaries andChristian organizations that are
scattered all over the plains,big ones, small ones, doing
wonderful kingdom things.
And then I think you will findyour own calling and your own
(33:02):
niche in God's mission.
Brian Stiller (33:05):
Reg Reimer, thanks for joining me on
Evangelical 360 today.
Reg Reimer (33:10):
It's been a pleasure, Brian.
Thank you for your friendshipand thank you for your ministry
in my life through the years.
Brian Stiller (33:18):
Thanks, Reg, for joining me today.
Of the many hours we have spenttogether in ministry today,
your passion and insights nevercease to amaze me.
This has been a good moment, asI had expected.
And I know those who joined uswere also informed and
challenged.
And my thanks to you for beingpart of the conversation today.
(33:39):
Be sure to subscribe toEvangelical360 and share this
episode wherever you watch orlisten to this podcast.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guests, be sure to
check the show notes for linksand info.
And if you haven't alreadyreceived my free ebook and
newsletter, please go toBrianstiller.com.
(33:59):
Thanks again.
Until next time.
Hello and welcome to Evangelical 360.
I'm your host, Brian Stiller.
Now and then one meets someoneoutside of the ordinary,
courageous, maybe even reckless,and pushing the boundaries.
Reg Reimer is one of those.
Raised on a Canadian Mennonitefarm, educated in a conservative
(00:32):
church community, he and hisbride Donna headed out for a
part of the world that was aboutto blow up.
Vietnam in the 1960s and 70swas not for the faint of heart.
Mastering the language andlearning early the nuances of
Vietnamese culture, Reg nowengaged with an archaic and in
(00:55):
retrospect a paternalisticWestern mission force walked the
dangerous roads of civilstrikes, overhung by an American
army set on subduing itspeople.
All of this at a time whenChristian missions are finding
that its Western domination justwasn't flying as national and
indigenous leaders were steppingup to lead.
(01:17):
Wise and outspoken.
Just the kind of person I loveto listen to.
And the person with experiencethat rising generations can be
beneficiaries of in his life andjourney.
And to you, please know howmuch I welcome you as part of
(01:37):
this conversation.
And as you listen, would youconsider sharing this episode
with a friend?
And if you haven't, please hitthe subscribe button and join
the conversation on YouTube inthe comments below.
Now to my guest, Reg Reimer,seasoned Journeyman of Faith.
Reg Reimer (02:02):
It's wonderful to be here, Brian.
Brian Stiller (02:08):
Your ministry, your exploits, remarkable.
And I want to get to that, butuh just before we do, as we get
into On the Cruel Edges of theWorld, your new book.
How does a Mennonite boy fromthe farm in British Columbia end
up in Vietnam in the middle ofthe disaster of uh that war and
(02:33):
that country?
Reg Reimer (02:35):
Brian, I I came to uh firm faith myself my last
year in high school.
And uh at that point, uh I Iwanted two things.
I wanted to uh study about myfaith, and I wanted to get away
from home.
So uh I enrolled in uh a Biblecollege in Nebraska, head
(02:58):
shanked from Chilliwack toOmaha, and uh enrolled in this
um uh uh Bible college.
Um each fall, the Bible collegeheld a full-throated missions
promotion week.
I was there for the very uhfirst one, and they had the they
(03:18):
brought in powerful missionspeakers.
One of them was Dr.
Arthur Glasser, missionarystatesman, who later became my
major mentor at Fuller.
But Dr.
Glasser preached a powerfulmessage, and he ended up with
quoting John Mott, leader of theuh student Christian movement
at the beginning of the lastcentury.
(03:39):
John Mott said, show why youshould not obey the last command
of Jesus Christ.
And uh I could not, and uh, Ireceived a call to mission that
uh set the course for the restof my life.
I avoided other distractionsand headed this direction.
(03:59):
So uh there uh at the Biblecollege I met uh Donna.
She was also uh called tomission.
And uh after finishing oureducation in Nebraska, we were
required to go to uh Nyat, NewYork.
Uh we had joined the ChristianMissionary Alliance uh to be our
(04:22):
sending agency.
And uh there for a year ingraduate school, I prepared to
go to Indonesia, actually thefar um eastern part of Indonesia
to work with Stone Age tribalpeople.
Uh but just before we finishedour course, I got a call from
the mission director, and hesaid uh there's been a communist
(04:46):
coup in Indonesia, and there'sa vicious suppression of it, and
Indonesia is not giving anyvisas to foreigners for the
foreseeable future.
Would you go to Vietnam?
Well, we uh had a newborn girland a toddler boy.
Um, we asked for 24 hours toconsider it, pray about it, and
(05:10):
next day we said, yes, we'll go.
So there we went.
Brian Stiller (05:15):
Reg, you ended up in Vietnam, and of course, in
my generation, when I sayVietnam, I remember the
Vietnamese war, not France, butAmerica involved.
And the picture that comes tomind is the helicopter over top
of that building in Saigon, asVietnamese are rushing to the
(05:37):
top of the building to try andclimb the ladder to get up into
this last helicopter, lastAmerican helicopter, was just
before the Vietcom took over.
That was your world, wasn't it?
Reg Reimer (05:52):
Yes, it was.
Um I actually uh was evacuatedfrom Vietnam on the last Royal
Canadian Air Force plane thatcame to Vietnam to pick up the
Charge de Fer.
Brian Stiller (06:04):
Reg, what was it about the Vietnamese people,
their culture, their style thatcaptured your attention?
You became, as I recall, a uhvery fluent in in the language
to the degree that people wereamazed that uh you you spoke
(06:27):
like one of them.
What was it about that worldthat captured your attention?
Reg Reimer (06:32):
Well, I've I found the Vietnamese um people and
culture to be both uhinscrutable and seductive.
Vietnam has a history goingback about 5,000 years, so it's
as it's as old as Israelpractically, and of course
developed a highly sophisticatedculture, a language that is
(06:56):
very hard for Westerners tolearn, but I applied myself to
the language and tried tounderstand, made Vietnamese
friends that tried to understandhow to relate to Vietnamese.
One of the finest days of mylife was when a Vietnamese
friend of mine said, you knowwhat, Reg, you have actually you
(07:18):
speak Vietnamese quite well,and you have made some inroads
into understanding our culture.
Um that was a huge complimentfor me, even though I know I
wasn't very deep into it.
Brian Stiller (07:31):
Reg, I guess the big question is
generation, does missions stillmatter?
Does it still make sense?
Reg Reimer (07:41):
It certainly does.
Ever since I began mymissionary career about six
decades ago now, we were askingthe same question.
Things were changing sorapidly, even back then.
And we were saying, you know,is it still necessary to have
missionaries?
We have a national church isplanted and growing and it is
sending its own missionaries tocertain tribal people in the
(08:05):
country.
Yes, there is a place formission.
First of all, you know, thereis there is a church universal.
And uh mission is an expressionof that.
You might even say that missionwas an early expression of
globalism.
The body is interdependent, andthough things have changed
(08:28):
rapidly and are changing, andwe're always asking the
question, you know, what shouldbe the role of foreign
missionaries?
There still is a need.
There are frontiers, there arestill about 7,000 so-called
unreached people groups wherethe Church Universal needs to
partner together to take thegospel there.
(08:50):
Missions and the integration ofthe of the worldwide church is
a beautiful expression of thekingdom of God.
If ever we needed something inour divine world, the church in
mission is a beautiful model.
Brian Stiller (09:06):
Reg, reading your book on the cruel edge of the
world, it seemed to me that themission agency that you were a
part of espoused a kind ofpaternalism.
Was is that true?
And does paternalism still markthe nature of missions as you
(09:27):
know it today?
Reg Reimer (09:28):
I would say that when we began our mission work
in Vietnam, we were kind of atthe tail end of the colonial
era.
There were still some vestigesof colonialism in the way I
think our mission operated andthe way we dealt with nationals
(09:49):
and and so on.
But that changed during mymissionary uh career.
Brian Stiller (09:56):
Uh I I guess was the church paternalistic?
Was it so dominated by the Westthat the indigenous nature of
the church was overrun by thispaternalistic West?
Reg Reimer (10:11):
We were at the end of the colonial period.
But our pioneer missionaries inVietnam were very enlightened.
They arrived in Vietnam aboutthe time that Roland Allen was
preaching the three-selfsupport, self-governance, and
self-propagation, and so on.
(10:33):
And very early, our missionestablished an independent
Vietnamese church that we workedwith.
So I did not find a lot ofpaternalism in our situation in
Vietnam.
Brian Stiller (10:48):
People have misconceptions about missions,
about the nature of missions.
Have you met, have youencountered those misconceptions
in your ministry?
Reg Reimer (10:59):
I think so.
A lot of people still have veryprimitive understanding of
missions.
They think of a white manpreaching to dark-skinned people
under a tree somewhere.
But my own life and ministry, Ithink, is an illustration of
something else.
Many friends and supportersthat have read my memoir are
(11:23):
quite surprised that my missionvocation required me to be an
evangelist, a church planter,development worker, a field
director, a uh chief executive,an advocate for the persecuted,
and that required me to learnsome spy craft.
People were surprised that Ihad uh had to have skills in so
(11:47):
many areas.
Brian Stiller (11:48):
So when you arrived in Vietnam, when you and
Donna arrived in Vietnam, didyour experience match your
expectations?
Reg Reimer (11:56):
Uh no, it did not.
We were formerly prepared to bemissionaries and so on, and we
found that helpful.
But thrown into a war in whichthe main protagonists, the
Americans, you know, werethought to be Christian, uh was
(12:18):
a very difficult, very difficultsituation.
And in many ways, we were notprepared for that.
We had to we had to make ourour own way.
There was no problem with ouradjustment, with you know,
living and so on.
That wasn't a problem.
But working in a war, as wewere uh raised lots of questions
(12:42):
and uh tensions within me andeven within our mission
community.
Brian Stiller (12:48):
But given that your denomination was
American-based, would there beconflict between being loyal to
your mission agency that wasAmerican-based and yet not being
pro-American?
Reg Reimer (13:00):
The um majority feeling of the mission community
during the Vietnam War was thatthe Americans were holding back
the forces of communism, whichwas allowing for the preaching
of the gospel.
So this was the predominantfeeling of the mission
community, not only our ownmission, but other missions that
(13:23):
were there.
And something in me said thiswas this had other dimensions,
this had other problems that weweren't really dealing with.
Brian Stiller (13:34):
Reg, in reading your book, I get the feeling
that you were kind of out ofline with the missionary, the
denominational missionary linethat was that was dominant at
the time.
Reg Reimer (13:46):
Uh yes.
I I began to question the war.
I went when I first went, Iaccepted what the the majority
mission missionaries were werefeeling that you know we were
holding back communism and thiswas allowing for the preaching
of the gospel.
But I I slowly came to anotherview.
(14:08):
Uh I ended up believing thatthe Vietnam War was lost the
moment the first Marine set footon the beach in Danang back in
1965.
This was a war for nationalindependence, and there was no
way all the might of the U.S.
(14:29):
and technology and everythingwas going to stop the Vietnamese
people from protecting theirland and establishing their own
country.
Brian Stiller (14:39):
And is that part of why the Vietnam church
emerged with such strength afterthe after the war and even
under the harsh rule of acommunist uh uh government?
Reg Reimer (14:54):
Of course, we were very concerned.
I remember flying out ofVietnam on that last Royal
Canadian Air Force Hercules,wondering what in the world was
going to happen to my friendsand the church as well as to the
to the whole country.
Church is actually for nearly adecade kind of went underground
(15:16):
and went silent.
And then about five or sixyears into the communist period,
a prayer movement began amongthe church, and some pastors and
leaders were led to pray thatthe Lord would take away their
fear of communism.
(15:36):
And the Lord answered that,answered that prayer, and about
10 years into the communistperiod, the church began to grow
markedly.
Uh so there were only 160,000evangelicals when I left Vietnam
in 1975.
And today there are 2.1million.
(16:00):
That's an increase of about 14times in the last, well, it's 50
years now.
And I think that that wasremarkable, remarkable growth.
Brian Stiller (16:12):
So, Reg, you have a very small Christian
community in Vietnam in 75, asyou say.
You have a communist dictatorthat uh that rules Christianity
as being illegitimate, or if notillegitimate, at least
off-center.
And yet the underground churchexplodes.
(16:33):
What is there about the gospeland the activity of the church
in that time that uh that givesit such strength and in time
allows it to grow to the numbersyou've just identified?
Reg Reimer (16:50):
When the Lord answered the prayer of some
Vietnamese leaders andChristians uh to take away their
fear, the Lord, the Lord reallydid that.
And the the church becamechurches became became really
the only refuge for Christianpeople where they could find
(17:11):
support and comfort and helpwhen they needed it.
If they observed what was goingon around them, they
experienced pressure andpersecution, but that seemed to
in fact um increase theattractiveness of churches in in
(17:32):
Vietnam.
And many people joinedchurches.
One of the things that happenedwas the Lord exhibited his
power in uh in many situations.
The Lord expresses his power insituations where the gospel is
first preached, miracles andexorcisms and so on take place,
(17:55):
and also where the church isunder terrible pressure and
persecution.
There miracles take place, Godshows his power, and people are
attracted to that, and alsostrongly attracted to the
communities in which thishappens.
Brian Stiller (18:14):
Can you tell some stories of of how the gospel
was transformative while youwere there?
Reg Reimer (18:20):
Let me tell you one that goes back quite a bit.
I was doing my research for mymaster's dissertation at Fuller
on the topic of what were thedynamics that caused the
Vietnamese churches to grow inthe first place.
And in my studies, I read abouta small people movement to
(18:43):
Christ that took place in someremote fishing villages on the
coast in central Vietnam.
And the story was that a youngwoman who was blind from birth
received her sight.
And this miracle was a driverthat brought hundreds of fishing
people to Christ.
(19:03):
And a number of churches wereestablished there.
Now, uh, part of my research, Iwanted to confirm this for
myself.
So during my field research formy dissertation, I traveled to
the area which at that point waslargely communist-controlled,
and it was also very near wherethe infamous Milah Massacre took
(19:28):
place.
And I went and I found the homeof Mrs.
Who, who was the uh person thathad received her site.
I met family there and visited,and I asked if I could see Mrs.
Who.
And uh they didn't respond andkept insisting, and they said,
(19:49):
We don't think you want to seeher.
And I said, Well, why not?
They said, Well, because she'sdying.
I said, excuse me, that's allthe more reason I want to see
her.
So they took me to the backdoor of the Thatch house fronted
on the ocean, and there theypointed me to a figure lying in
(20:10):
the sand under some tall palmtrees.
I made my way slowly to thebody with shriveled body of a
very old woman with only a sackcovering part of her.
And uh suddenly my questionabout sight didn't seem
(20:33):
appropriate.
So I went to her and I got downon my knees and I crawled
toward her and I said to her,Mrs.
Who, do you know the Lord?
And uh there was no answer.
I asked it a second time, Mrs.
Who, do you know the Lord?
(20:53):
There was no answer.
So I crawled right up to her,put my mouth close to her ear,
and I said, Mrs.
Who, do you know the Lord?
And her tiny tongue came out ofher mouth and she licked her
parched lips, and her eyesflickered, and she whispered,
(21:21):
which being translated means,the Lord gave me light for my
eyes.
I realized I was on holyground.
I made the sign of the cross onher, prayed for her, and uh
retreated.
The Lord having answered bothmy questions through her five
(21:43):
words.
That's just one example of theLord's power and how the Lord
used it also to bring many otherpeople uh to himself.
Brian Stiller (21:56):
Reg, you have been an advocate for those in
Vietnam who are persecuted fortheir faith.
Under the communist regime,what is the freedom of religion
like in Vietnam?
And what are the kinds ofissues that they face as it
relates to living out their lifeas Christians?
Reg Reimer (22:17):
The attitude and practice of the government
toward religion and Christiansin particular, Vietnam has about
two million evangelicals andabout eight million Catholics,
has changed over the years,especially in regard to
Protestants.
The government was veryconcerned to see Christianity
growing so rapidly, especiallyin the 1990s.
(22:42):
Um my research, uh, acquisitionof documents and papers and so
on showed that the government'spolicy was, they used the word
eradication, eradication ofChristianity, especially among
the minority peoples in Vietnam.
That has changed over the yearsnow to containment.
(23:05):
The government still works hardto prevent the gospel from
going to areas where it has notyet been preached.
And there are still fairlyisolated examples of serious
persecution where new people andnew communities are becoming
Christians.
(23:25):
My call to advocacy came duringmy very first trip to Communist
Vietnam in 1980.
That's 45 years ago now.
I joined a first Western tourgroup to Vietnam.
None of us were tourists onthis group, and I managed to
(23:46):
break away from the tour groupon a Sunday to meet at a church.
And out of that, straight outof a John Laqueray novel, I
arranged a secret meeting withtop church leaders, and they
poured out their hearts aboutthe terrible persecution that
was going on in those days.
And I asked the senior pastorwho was actually my Vietnamese
(24:09):
godfather, I said, What do youwant me to do?
And he said, raise our voice inthe outside world.
That set me on the course foradvocacy for the last 45 years.
And it's changed a lot.
The situation is better nowthan it was, but the communist
(24:29):
state still has majorinstitutions whose job is to
quote manage a religion.
So all Christians alwaysrealize somebody is looking over
their shoulder.
So what can you do?
Brian Stiller (24:43):
What can be done?
What are you doing?
You and Donna, you're in yourmid-80s and you're going back to
Vietnam again this year.
What is there that can be doneby others with respect to
freedom of religion andpersecution that you see
continuing in places likeVietnam and other countries?
Reg Reimer (25:05):
In the beginning, I was one of the only advocates
for persecuted Christians inVietnam.
And so I was the one that wassupplying information to
Christian advocacy organizationslike Open Doors, Voice of the
Martyr, and so on, and also togovernments, State Department,
(25:27):
Ministries of Foreign Affairs,and also to journalists in
well-known newspapers, New YorkTimes and Wall Street Journal,
and so on.
Nowadays, the Christians inVietnam themselves have access
to these outside organizationsand can and do report religious
liberty abuses.
(25:47):
I still work exposing therelatively few worst cases of
persecution, where Christiansthat become people that become
Christians in new areas arepressured by clan and by local
government all the way to beingdriven from their homes with
(26:11):
only the clothes on their backs.
That still happens in somecases in Vietnam.
And I still raise those issuesworldwide in press releases and
so on.
Things have changed a lot.
The Vietnamese churches arelearning to live with the
government, to engage with thegovernment, and based on
(26:34):
personal relationships of churchleaders and government leaders,
things thankfully haveimproved.
Brian Stiller (26:42):
Reg, let me cycle back into your life as a
missionary in the latter part ofthe 20th century and ask what
were the lessons you learnedabout cross-cultural missions?
You're coming from the Westernworld, and there's a certain
kind of cultural arrogance thatcomes with that.
(27:02):
What did the Vietnamese peopleteach you about what missions
might best look like?
Reg Reimer (27:09):
Oh, I'm greatly indebted to Vietnamese people,
Vietnamese friends, Vietnamesechurch leaders.
I fortunately developed a closerelationship with a number of
them and were the to the pointwhere they were, they felt very
free to talk to me about some ofthese hard issues.
(27:31):
So I benefited from gentlelectures and encouragement on
how to carry on, how to be themost helpful, how to be a true
partner, um, in many, many, inmany, many ways.
Brian Stiller (27:47):
What would be your takeaway for Western
missions, especially, or formissions from countries where
Christianity is a more of adominant faith?
What are your takeaways fromyour own experience as to how
missions might best be done andwhat missions might mean as it
relates to the call of Christand the mandate from the
(28:10):
scriptures itself?
Reg Reimer (28:12):
Well, uh, the missionary call, the missionary
mandate remains with us.
And my admiration for thosethat have answered the
missionary call through thecenturies continues to grow as I
study about them.
And, you know, while it'ssomewhat popular, popular
(28:34):
culture, even in church culture,to kind of minimize,
misunderstand, and even minimizethe missionary call, the
missionary role, my admirationfor my colleagues and my
forebearers just continues toincrease as they have found ways
to carry the message of JesusChrist salvation.
(28:57):
And also the second wing of thegospel.
I was raised in the evangelismprimacy ideology in my mission,
but I soon discovered in theVietnam War and in other
situations in which I've I'veworked, that the second wing of
(29:17):
the gospel is Jesus' fierceopposition to human suffering.
You know, look at what he did.
And I remember when John Stottpreached it the first Luzon on
the John 2021, as the Father hassent me, so send I you.
(29:39):
So these two wings of thegospel are necessary.
And I think EvangelicalMissions has really discovered
the second wing and iswonderfully involved in Jesus'
mission of opposing humansuffering.
Brian Stiller (29:57):
Reg, over the last few decades.
The growth of the churchglobally has been in what we
call the global south, which isAfrica, Latin America, and Asia.
But the numbers that explodedin Vietnam, what do you see as
the future of missions?
Is uh is it the West to therest of the world, or is it now
(30:20):
the cycling of people from anycountry to any country?
Reg Reimer (30:26):
You're asking, is there is there still a role for
Westerners to play in theChristian world mission?
Um yes, there is.
Okay, so we have the uh thetheology, the theory of the
unity of the body of Christ as atheological truth.
(30:48):
But it's also an existentialreality.
And uh this is where I see thewhole church, churches from
every part of the world uhcoming together in order to
carry on the Christian worldmission in in new and effective
(31:08):
ways.
Um the roles the roles arechanging.
We Western missionaries, partlybecause of our success through
a couple of centuries, have hada part in raising up churches
which are now carrying on theChristian world mission.
And I think our role is stillto be part of it, though it is
(31:31):
changing, and we have many newallies and resources in which to
do it.
Brian Stiller (31:37):
Reg, you and I have traveled throughout Vietnam
considerably, and reading yourbook on the cruel edge of the
world, I'm reminded of how yourlife has been invested in that
part of the world and theirlives invested in yours.
Now you're coming to thetwilight of ministry and life.
(32:00):
Uh, if a young Reg Reimer outof Abbotsford, BC came to you
after a service and asked, Whatshould I do?
How should I approach this callof mission?
What would you say to a youngerReg Reimer?
Reg Reimer (32:17):
I would say, first of all, go for it.
If you're open to God's call,he has He has something He has
something significant for you todo.
I would say nurse and nourishthat call.
Um get out there and exploreand see what can be done,
(32:38):
contact mission organizations,even travel the world a bit and
look up missionaries andChristian organizations that are
scattered all over the plains,big ones, small ones, doing
wonderful kingdom things.
And then I think you will findyour own calling and your own
(33:02):
niche in God's mission.
Brian Stiller (33:05):
Reg Reimer, thanks for joining me on
Evangelical 360 today.
Reg Reimer (33:10):
It's been a pleasure, Brian.
Thank you for your friendshipand thank you for your ministry
in my life through the years.
Brian Stiller (33:18):
Thanks, Reg, for joining me today.
Of the many hours we have spenttogether in ministry today,
your passion and insights nevercease to amaze me.
This has been a good moment, asI had expected.
And I know those who joined uswere also informed and
challenged.
And my thanks to you for beingpart of the conversation today.
(33:39):
Be sure to subscribe toEvangelical360 and share this
episode wherever you watch orlisten to this podcast.
If you'd like to learn moreabout today's guests, be sure to
check the show notes for linksand info.
And if you haven't alreadyreceived my free ebook and
newsletter, please go toBrianstiller.com.
(33:59):
Thanks again.
Until next time.
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