SOME CHURCH OF CHRIST HEROES

A great story of tender loving care comes out of Weatherford, Texas, where Mac and Peggy LeDoux work with the Springtown Road Church of Christ. God has worked in their lives so marvelously that they are soon to find themselves in an adventure that they could not as much as imagine a few years ago: becoming a missionary family in the heart of Saigon, South Vietnam. But that is the way our heavenly Father works, surprising us with exciting changes in our lives, once we yield our lives to him. Paul put it this way: “By his power he is able to do far more than we ever dare to ask or imagine” (Eph. 3: 20).

It is not unusual for our people to go to foreign cities to serve the Lord, for we now have hundreds of missionaries scattered throughout the nations of the world, and surely there is an interesting story behind each one’s decision to make such a commitment. But it is doubtful that we have any missionary story as dramatic and thrilling as that of Mac and Peggy LeDoux, for it is a story concerning student pilots from Vietnam, one born of concern and nurtured by tender loving care.

Mac and Peggy were Louisiana bred, and it was there that they met and married. Their earlier experiences in the Church of Christ were mostly with the premillennial wing, through in recent years their ministry has reached beyond party lines to include our larger brotherhood. It is a touching story itself of how Mac explained his background to the leaders of the Weatherford congregation, including his convictions relative to the premillennial reign of our Lord, and how they resolved to work together for the souls of men despite such differences of interpretation of prophecy.

Mac is a man of many talents, and for this reason has not had to be dependent upon the church for his livelihood. A high school music teacher for several years, he served congregations as he could along the way, in teaching as well as singing. He is surely one of the sweetest singers among our people. He is also an aviator, piloting helicopters as well as fixed-wing planes. It was as a helicopter pilot that the stage was set for the drama that has changed his life in recent years. Employed as a civilian instructor of student pilots from South Vietnam at Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells, near Fort Worth and Weatherford, Mac offered his services to congregations in those two cities, and after a time became minister of the Springtown Road Church of Christ in Weatherford.

Loving Jesus as he does, Mac could not help but share him with his Buddhist-oriented Vietnamese students, whom he found to be as intelligent and courageous as American pilots. And once these young men came to the LeDoux home they were all but mesmerized by Peggy’s loving goodness, and they came by the dozens. For two years there was a home ministry at the LeDoux’s that probably exceeded any single project in the entire history of oriental missions, and there it was deep in the heart of Texas. Peggy would sometimes feed and bed as many as 30 of these boys over a weekend, and all along they would sing “heart songs” about Jesus and study the Bible together. Mac’s most effective device was to get four to six of these fellows around the table and teach them slowly and painstakingly the great truths of the word of God. Though they knew English, they had communication problems that most foreigners have, and then there was the Buddhist background to deal with. Mac could take nothing for granted. Biblical terms that we consider simple he had to explain with great care.

About eight other families joined the LeDoux’s in this love ministry, each family taking several of the pilots for weekends and sharing the Lord with them. A special class was arranged for them at the congregation, with some 400 of these fellows sharing in the experience during the two year period. About 40 of them were immersed into Jesus, with scores of others deeply touched by the gospel that they took back to Vietnam with them.

In all this Peggy and Mac, as well as the others involved, were careful not to put any pressure on these men to accept Christ. A ware of what reprisals this might bring once they were back home, the Christians at Springtown Road waited until the Vietnamese insisted on being immersed in the Lord. They just kept loving them and teaching them, leaving their response to take care of itself, which it did.

Equally as remarkable as this ministry is the follow-up work with these young pilots. From Camp Wolters the men went on to Hunter Army Air Base in Georgia. Contacts were continued through numerous trips to Georgia, phone calls, tape recordings and letters, with the LeDoux phone bill usually running around 50.00 a month. And so it continued once the men were back in Vietnam as trained pilots in the Vietnamese Air Force, where all expect to die while still young. Tapes from various ones reveal that they are talking about Jesus, praying and singing the heart songs even while on flying missions. A few have already died or been imprisoned. Several are teaching others, including their families, about the Christ.

The tenderest part of the story is the love that the LeDoux’s and these young fliers have for each other. The boys share their problems with the LeDoux’s when they can with no one else, and the LeDoux’s show a concern for them that would be expected only of parents. They weep and laugh together, study and pray together, plan and hope together. And all this made the more touching by the fact that the pilots return to their home with the expectation to die soon.

With the recent closing of Camp Wolters the Weatherford ministry ended except for those back in Vietnam who were influenced by it. Not satisfied to limit himself to correspondence with these new babes in Christ, along with many others in whose heart the gospel seed had been planted, Mac spent a month last fall in Saigon, further ministering to these pilots and their families in some cases. Letters from Vietnamese officers in this country with him, Mac was given red carpet treatment by the South Vietnamese Air Force. He was allowed to fly in their planes to the various bases, visiting with his friends. After all, he was one of the Americans who had trained them. He even flew with his men on some “search and destroy” missions in both helicopters and jet bombers. Not being able to accept every invitation, he had to turn down one of his students in order to fly with another who had asked him first. On that very mission the pilot who didn’t have Mac at his side was shot down by the Vietcong. He managed to escape, but Mac tells the story with gratitude that he wasn’t along, for he might not have been able to have walked away from it all so easily.

But this is only the beginning of a story that might well prove to be one of the few beautiful chapters to be written about the Vietnam conflict. The LeDoux’s are going to Vietnam as permanent missionaries for Jesus, using the hundreds of contacts they have through these fliers as the basis of their ministry. They plan to rent a house in Saigon large enough to accommodate their family of 5, and also to serve as a kind of halfway house for their pilot friends, all of whom often pass through Saigon if they do not already live there. They are well along in their study of the Vietnamese language.

Their home congregation is sponsoring the effort, but they are calling on others to help. Counting travel and living expenses, plus operating costs, which calls for an airplane for Mac’s use, will run about 20,000 a year,’ which is less than what one of the bombs costs that we keep dropping over there. Their young friends are uneasy about their plans to become missionaries in the country, fearful that Vietcong spies in Saigon will kill them, supposing they are C. I. A. agents with all the traffic going through their home. But this is where trust comes in, something the LeDoux’s have been doing a long time, a trust they want to teach their new Christian friends in Vietnam.

Mac and Peggy have counted the cost and they realize the cultural shock all this will be, both for themselves and their children. There will be few conveniences, the schools are poor, and they will be in danger. But they want to be there when the war ends and help in the rebuilding of a nation whose people they have grown to love. They sail in July to a new home and a new destiny, one born when a flying instructor in Texas saw more in his students than prospective officers in the South Vietnamese Air Force. It is a beautiful testimonial to what love can do, and one more reason why we should not suppose that our churches care only for themselves and their own programs. This too is the “institutional church” where there are still heroes of the faith.

Ouida and I recently visited with the LeDoux’s. I told Mac that I wanted to tell the story in these columns and invite our readers, who may be looking for a place to give some of their means, to lend a hand to this effort. What is needed is sustained help over many months, so much each month can be counted on, or single contributions for the travel and airplane fund. Checks should be made to Springtown Road Church of Christ, and the address is 1302 N. Main, Weatherford, Texas, and marked “LeDoux fund.” In praying about it you might want to pronounce the French name to the Lord correctly, so it is La-doo, with slight accent on the doo. — the Editor