Former Witchcraft Doctor Became the ‘Apostle Paul of Vietnam’
By Mark Ellis
As a teenager he left the hopelessness of Buddhism for the power of black magic, then American missionaries demonstrated the amazing power of the God they served, which made his 3,300 gods seem impotent. After receiving Christ, he entered into a new battle with communist authorities for the soul of the Vietnamese people—a battle still raging today.
“I grew up in a very strong Buddhist family,” says Pastor Tran Dinh “Paul” Ai, founder of Vision Outreach International Ministries. “I was sent to a Buddhist temple and trained to be a Buddhist monk,” he says. “My father was a very successful Chinese medical doctor, but he was bothered by politicians who tried to extort money from him.”
“He vowed if he had a son he would send him to the temple so he could be trained as a monk,” Ai says. “My name in Vietnamese means ‘Stop loving the world.’”
At age 15, after only a year of study, he became disenchanted with the “hopelessness of Buddhist doctrines.”
Seeking a more powerful religious experience, he journeyed to the dark side. “I went to study black magic and became a witchcraft doctor, serving 3,366 gods,” Ai says. “They gave me power, but they made me bow my life to their strongholds,” he says. “They also made me hate the gospel.”