Reverend Doctor Minh Van Lam was born into a Buddhist family in 1939 in Bac Lieu Province, South Vietnam. His mother said family and friends thought he would live until three years after his birth.
After he accepted the Lord Jesus Christ in 1947, when he was eight years old, he asked God to let him live until he was eighteen years old so that he could work and make money for his mother, and then he would die. But God performed miracles, allowing him to continue living. These are some highlights from his early career:
- He graduated from the National School of Pedagogy in Saigon in 1959.
- He graduated from the English Language School of the Defense Language Institute in Lackland Air Force Base to become a teacher of the English language in 1968.
- He was a public elementary school principal and high school teacher in Soc Trang, South Vietnam, as well as the Armed Forces Language School instructor of the South Vietnam Army in Saigon.
He holds a bachelor of arts in biblical studies from the Washington Bible College in Lanham, Maryland, a master of divinity from the Capital Bible Seminary in Lanham, Maryland, and a doctor of ministry from the Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Virginia.
He has been a mission pastor of Grand Ave Baptist Church in Fort Smith, Arkansas; Vietnamese Hope Baptist Church in Alexandria, Virginia; Vietnamese United Baptist Church in Austin, Texas; First Baptist Church of Pensacola, Florida; Vietnamese Gospel Baptist Church in Orlando, Florida; and Vietnamese Gospel Baptist Church of Alexandria, Virginia (from 1987 to 1995 and 2010 to the present). He was an adjunct professor of the Boyce Bible College of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Extension and the John Leland Center for Theological Studies in Arlington, Virginia, and was vice president of the Vietnamese Baptist Theological School in Dallas, Texas. He has been a speaker at Vietnamese National Church conferences in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia, as well as a speaker for the Alpha and Omega Program at Vietnam Public Radio in Washington, DC. His sermons may be found online at www.vietgospel.org, www.vietchristian.com, and www.tinlanhhyvong.com.
