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“They are the ones who evangelize me”: How the faith of Vietnam’s poor families sustains a priest
In the mountains of Pác Nặm, Father Peter Doãn shares meals with families who make their living through farming and raising livestock, travels between scattered villages, and seeks small chapels for twelve communities. He tells Press Crux how these encounters have also transformed his own faith.
INTERVIEW | CHURCH IN VIETNAM
Ana Paula Morales (Poli)
10/30/20269 min read
Father Phêrô Nguyễn Quang Doãn celebrates Mass in Pác Nặm, Vietnam. Photo: courtesy of the priest.
VIETNAM — Father Phêrô Nguyễn Quang Doãn makes his way up to villages in the mountains of northeastern Vietnam carrying some pork, vegetables, and instant noodles. He knows that many of the families he visits barely have enough to eat, so he usually brings something to share before sitting down to talk with them. “I would bring some pork, vegetables, and instant noodles to their homes so we could talk, get to know one another, and eat together,” he tells Press Crux. “I knew they were poor and had nothing to eat, so I brought something to share.” What began as a simple way to reach out to the people of Pác Nặm, a mountainous region where communities are separated by long journeys and many families survive through farming and raising livestock, ultimately brought a profound change to his own life as a priest.
Known as Father Peter Doãn, he arrived at the mission convinced that he should bring the Gospel to people living in poverty and isolation. Yet after sharing in the families’ daily lives, listening to their struggles, and discovering how they live their faith, he acknowledges that he, too, has been transformed. “After these months of living with them, I feel that they are the ones who evangelize me through their living faith and sincere simplicity,” he says. Amid material hardship, the priest has found a community that welcomes him as a member of the family and reminds him, through everyday gestures, of the meaning of his vocation.
Pác Nặm, a region of Vietnam shaped by poverty
To understand Father Peter’s story, one must look to northern Vietnam, in a Southeast Asian country that, despite its economic growth in recent decades, continues to face deep inequalities between its cities and rural mountain communities. Pác Nặm lies within the former province of Bắc Kạn, which was administratively incorporated into Thái Nguyên in July 2025, according to the provincial government. The region is home to families from several ethnic groups, including the Hmong, Dao, Tày, Sán Chỉ, and Nùng, as well as the Kinh, the country’s ethnic majority.
Vietnamese media have documented poverty in Pác Nặm for years. In a report published on January 11, 2012, by Báo Tin tức, a news outlet of the Vietnam News Agency, Bắc Kạn was described as the country’s poorest province and Pác Nặm as its most impoverished district, with more than 40% of households living in poverty. Although these historical figures cannot establish whether the area still holds that position in national rankings, they illustrate the structural difficulties that have shaped residents’ lives for generations.
Father Peter knows those difficulties firsthand. “Their livelihoods depend mainly on growing corn and rice and raising animals,” he explains. He describes high, rocky, dry terrain exposed to harsh weather, where opportunities to earn an income are limited and families depend on their own labor to survive. Yet when he speaks about his neighbors, he does not focus solely on what they lack. “They are very simple, sincere, warm, and friendly people,” he says.
These inequalities also affect education and access to basic services. According to a UNICEF report published in December 2025, based on 2024 data, nearly one in three children from Vietnam’s ethnic minorities lives in multidimensional poverty, which involves deprivation in areas such as education, health, housing, sanitation, or access to information. The indicator covers the country’s ethnic minorities as a whole, rather than Pác Nặm alone, but helps explain the inequalities within which missionaries work.
In the villages he visits, the priest encounters people who cannot read or write, as well as families whose first language is not Vietnamese. Distance also makes participation in religious life difficult. When parishioners manage to travel to the parish for Mass, he tries to provide food and help them return home. “I prepare a meal for them and give them money for gas for the trip back,” he says.
A young priest who came to the mountains to stay
Phêrô Nguyễn Quang Doãn belongs to the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, whose members, known as Redemptorists, are especially dedicated to proclaiming the Gospel among the poor and abandoned. He was ordained a priest on July 1, 2022, and began his mission in Pác Nặm less than a year later.
His missionary vocation, however, had taken root long before. He recalls hearing a song as a child during the feast of the Vietnamese martyrs that told of the self-giving of those who had laid down their lives for Christ. Its words awakened a desire that would remain with him for years. “It moved me deeply. From that moment on, I wanted to be a missionary,” he recalls. In Redemptorist spirituality, he found an answer to that calling: to devote his life to proclaiming the Gospel among those experiencing the greatest poverty and abandonment.
The priest remembers with particular emotion the morning of March 15, 2023, when he arrived in Pác Nặm. At the time, he found only six Catholic families who had moved there from the lowlands. There was no church of their own or parish structure like the one that exists today. One of those families would later move elsewhere, but he still cherishes the memory of those first encounters.
His first need was to find somewhere to live and gather the faithful. He eventually rented a small house of about 60 square meters, or roughly 645 square feet, that served both as his home and as a place to celebrate the Eucharist. “I will never forget that morning when I arrived at this mission,” he says. “At that moment, I thought silently: I offer God my whole heart and this mission of his.”
Residents began wondering who this man was who had come to live among them. Some had never heard of Catholicism and were curious to meet him. They wanted to know why he did not have a wife and what he was doing in such a remote region. He began answering those questions through simple conversations, visits to homes, and encounters at the local market, which takes place every five days and brings together people from different villages.
There, he would greet those coming down from the mountains to buy food, invite them to his home, and ask permission to visit their families. Gradually, he became acquainted with communities spread across a radius of approximately 60 kilometers, or 37 miles. “This made it easier for me to approach them in a friendly way and earn their trust, with the closeness of a member of their family,” he explains. Over time, he began hearing a phrase he still remembers fondly: “Father Doãn is our father, and his home is our home.”
“Evangelization must begin heart to heart”
His closeness to the families did not remove the difficulties posed by cultural and linguistic differences. Pác Nặm is home to communities with their own languages and traditions, and some residents cannot read or write even in their native language. For Father Peter, proclaiming the Gospel also means learning to communicate in ways people can understand, while respecting their culture and customs.
The priest has begun learning the languages of the communities he serves. “I now celebrate Mass in their language,” he explains. “I already understand a little, enough to talk with them.” Although he acknowledges that he still has much to learn, he sees speaking with families in their own language as an expression of respect and closeness.
This experience has helped him understand that evangelization cannot be limited to passing on religious knowledge. Before teaching, he says, one must get to know people, listen to them, and share their concerns. “Evangelization must begin heart to heart,” he says. He insists that he cannot approach families from a position of superiority simply because he has received more academic or religious education. Instead, he finds that the simple faith of those living in the mountains has much to teach him.
The mission has grown significantly since those first encounters. According to the figures Father Peter provided to Press Crux, 243 baptisms took place at his mission between 2024 and October 2026. He clarified that the approximate figure of 500 people mentioned in other accounts also includes communities elsewhere and does not refer exclusively to Pác Nặm.
One of the most significant recent events took place on August 25, 2026, when Bishop Giuse Đỗ Quang Khang of Bắc Ninh presided over the celebration of the sacraments of Christian initiation for 105 people from different ethnic communities in Pác Nặm, according to the diocese. During that visit, the bishop also blessed an image of the Virgin Mary dressed in traditional Hmong clothing, a gesture that brought the depiction of the Mother of God closer to the cultural identity of the region’s families.
Pác Nặm became a parish in October 2025, and its main church was inaugurated in early 2026, according to information published by the Diocese of Bắc Ninh. That growth, however, has not resolved all the needs of the communities scattered throughout the mountains.
Twelve communities are still waiting for a chapel
Today, Pác Nặm parish has just one main church. The other twelve communities served by Father Peter, spread across different villages, still have no chapels of their own. To celebrate Mass, the priest must travel to parishioners’ homes, where a family makes space available so neighbors can gather and participate in the Eucharist.
The distances between villages, transportation difficulties, and limited financial resources make building small chapels one of the mission’s greatest challenges. Families have expressed a wish that moves the priest deeply: “We are not afraid of poverty; we only wish to have small chapels where we can pray and celebrate Mass in our villages.”
Father Peter acknowledges that material needs are numerous. In addition to providing spiritual support, he tries to encourage initiatives that improve living conditions, such as raising livestock, building or repairing homes, and developing other ways for families to support themselves. Available resources, however, are insufficient to fund the places of prayer the twelve communities need.
“My greatest dream for the future is to build chapels so they can pray, and to accompany them,” the priest says. His goal is not simply to put up buildings, but to enable families to gather for the Eucharist without traveling long distances along mountain roads or always depending on a private home.
The needs he describes — food, transportation, housing, livelihoods, and gathering places — show how closely pastoral care is connected to families’ everyday lives. For readers encountering his story from other parts of the world, including Latin America, these difficulties may feel familiar: parents working to feed their children, communities needing better housing, and people finding in faith a source of hope amid adversity.
A faith that also transforms the missionary
After several years living among the families of Pác Nặm, Father Peter acknowledges that his missionary experience has been different from what he imagined as a child dreaming of proclaiming the Gospel. He arrived thinking about what he could offer the communities, but today he emphasizes everything he has received from them.
Visits to villages, shared meals, conversations at the market, and celebrations in private homes have enabled him to discover a faith that, he explains, is expressed through the simplicity of the people. “After these months of living with them, I feel that they are the ones who evangelize me through their living faith and sincere simplicity,” he says.
At the end of his testimony to Press Crux, the priest expresses a wish that goes beyond his mission’s material needs: that others might get to know the families he accompanies and gain a closer understanding of their lives. “I hope that one day you can come to my region to visit the poor brothers and sisters with whom I live,” he writes.
Before saying goodbye, he adds one more request: “Please pray a lot for me.”
It is the request of the same priest who began his mission among six Catholic families, who now serves twelve communities without chapels, and who continues traveling through Vietnam’s mountains carrying food to share. In those villages, where so many families have little to offer materially, Father Peter says he has found something that sustains his own vocation: a living faith that, in his words, evangelizes him too.
Parishioners of Pác Nặm parish, in the mountains of northeastern Vietnam. Photo: courtesy of Father Phêrô Nguyễn Quang Doãn.
Parishioners of Pác Nặm parish, in the mountains of northeastern Vietnam. Photo: courtesy of Father Phêrô Nguyễn Quang Doãn.
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