Vietnamese immigrant uses martial arts to point people to Jesus

By George Henson, The Baptist Standard

DALLAS—Johnny Le helps his martial arts students not only learn how to care for their bodies better, but also care for their spirits by introducing them to Jesus Christ.

Hanh Le demonstrates some tai chi moves.

Le grew up in Vietnam as a Buddhist and a student of tai chi and kung fu. He became a Christian in a North Vietnamese prisoner of war camp.

While Le recognized he was taken prisoner because he had been fighting against the North Vietnamese, he met another prisoner of war who was a Christian pastor, not a combatant.

Many died in the P.O.W. camp, either from beatings or disease, and all Le’s ribs were broken at one time or another from being struck by rifle butts. Le was angry all the time, but he noticed the Christian was not.

Body and soul

Johnny Le gives a Tai Chi demonstration at Arapaho Road Baptist Church in Garland.

“He told me, ‘My body, my soul belongs to God,’” Le recalled.

The guards often beat the man Le grew to think of as his pastor. During the seven years he was imprisoned, the minister taught Le the Bible even though there was no copy of Scripture in the camp.

“He had it in his head. He had in his heart,” Le said. After one particularly brutal beating, the man knew he was going to die and told Le and the others who had become Christ-followers Le was the new camp pastor.

Le arrived in Dallas July 4, 1987. Since that time, he has experienced many trials, but God has helped him through them all, he said.

With the idea of serving the God who had been so faithful to him, Le thought about opening a tai chi and kung fu center as an evangelistic outreach about 15 years ago.

“A lot of the younger people and a lot of the older people, they are sick and they never know God,” Le said. “I want to be a missionary and talk about God with them, so they can trust in God.”

Attempts to serve

His first effort never gained any traction. About three years ago, he opened a martial arts center that was a financial success, but Le’s dream of being a ministry still floundered.

“I was making money, but my heart is not like that. My heart is to grow someone and talk to them about God,” he said.

“But when I take their money, when I talk about God, they say: ‘No, master. I have come here to learn and spar. I am coming here to learn about tai chi. I am coming here to learn kung fu. I am not coming here to learn about Jesus.’”

So, he shut the doors of the center. Still, he felt called to use tai chi and kung fu to reach people for Christ.

Read the full article by George Henson of the Baptist Standard.