When retired dairy farmer Tony Vanderwal of Abbotsford, BC boards a plane for Vietnam this fall—yet again—no doubt many of his friends will tell him the same thing they’ve said many times before: “You’re crazy. Why don’t you just go to the beach or buy an RV?”
But to Tony, his work in Vietnam is worth much more than a vacation in some tropical paradise or a gas-guzzling retirement home on wheels. After working hard to establish his family and business, Tony is determined to invest whatever time he has left helping those less fortunate than himself.
“When I was a kid, I was awful poor. I only got a grade six education,” he says, and laughs. When Tony first arrived in Canada in 1951, all he and his new bride Nicki had was thirty-eight dollars. But the Lord blessed them richly over the years. “Today, to be honest, I’m well off. But who gave it to me? I always prayed like Solomon for God to give me wisdom, and God blessed me as such. So I think it’s more than responsible to use what he has given me to do his work.”
For Tony and Nicki, that work has involved everything from helping Vietnamese farmers learn better agricultural practices to, more recently, providing help for handicapped and orphaned children, who receive little or no help from the Vietnamese government. Right now, they are working in conjunction with Global Aid Network (GAiN) and the Abbotsford Rotary Club to provide school supplies for a school that will be built in Vietnam by the Lever Company.
The Vanderwals feel a particular call to help the handicapped, because, in Vietnam, they are often treated as second-class citizens. Says Tony: “When you’re handicapped, your wages are handicapped, too.”
But Tony has more in mind than simply helping to provide for people’s physical needs. He also sees his work with handicapped children as an ideal way to reach out with the gospel to their families, who are the children’s primary caregivers. As he helps minister to the children, their families are often drawn in, giving them a chance to hear the gospel as well. This is particularly important in a country like Vietnam, where 80% of the population are Buddhist. Trying to convert the older people is nigh impossible, says Tony. They’re too set in their ways. But with children, there’s still hope.
Working in a communist country that is antagonistic to Christians also presents some challenges. For one thing, Tony is constantly faced with crooked government officials looking for bribes. And when he doesn’t comply, things can get a little difficult, like when an official “lost” Tony’s visa at the airport recently, forcing Tony to pay a large sum of money to get it back. Tony also runs a risk whenever he hands out Christian literature, which he says he does “right, left, and centre.” But he’s not too worried about potential retributions.
“When they see an old guy like me, they don’t worry too much about him.”
But for the most part, Tony finds people in Vietnam are very friendly and thankful for the help, and he has no problem finding volunteers for the projects he is involved in. Some women will teach all day at their regular jobs and then teach for free in the evenings at a special school for handicapped children and orphans.
Prior to his first trip to Vietnam in 1994 (which was made at the invitation of a Vietnamese-Canadian friend) Tony was very active in his local church. He even served on the church board, where he took part in decisions to send money overseas, but he never got personally involved in missions. Since going to Vietnam, however, Tony has found tremendous fulfillment working hand-in-hand with the people he is helping. Over the past seven years, he’s been over to Vietnam twice a year, on average, and he’s not finished yet.
“You can only do so much in your life,” Tony says. Realizing this, he and Nicki have decided to focus his remaining years on Vietnam, where he knows plenty of work still needs to be done.
Comments