Former Vietnamese communist nurse who once baptized sick child will be baptized at Easter

(OSV News) -- Dau Kieu Giang, who baptized a child when she was an atheist and Communist Party member, is now getting ready to be baptized herself during this Easter Vigil in a parish in Vietnam's Quang Tri province.

Giang, 43, first stumbled upon Catholicism in 2021 while heading a 14-member team providing nursing care to COVID-19 patients at a public hospital in Quang Binh province.

The patients under Giang's care included a 5-year-old boy fighting a critical situation in an isolation block, separated from loved ones.

"One day, the mother, a Catholic, begged me to baptize her critically ill son," she recalled.

Lucia Vu Thanh Nhan, the mother, also explained how to do it -- pour holy water on his forehead, mark it with a sign of the cross and say, "In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, I baptize you."

A true communist at the time, Giang flatly refused to do it. "I thought it was just superstition," she told UCA News, an independent Catholic news service covering East, South and Southeast Asia.

"But my heart sank watching the little boy struggle to breathe. I imagined him dreaming about his mother sitting beside him, comforting him. So, I decided to go with the mother's request, hoping to give the child some peace."

Just as she poured water and made a sign of the cross on the boy's forehead, her supervisor caught her red-handed.

Church canon law says when an ordinary minister of baptism is absent, "a catechist or another person designated for this function by the local ordinary, or in a case of necessity any person with the right intention, confers baptism licitly."

However, the hospital management "accused me of using my position to spread superstition at work. They refused to accept my explanation that I did it to comfort the child and his parents," Gaind said.

After the COVID-19 pandemic died down in 2022, officials transferred her to a remote dispensary near the Laos border, which she says was a punishment disguised as a reassignment.

The new job was challenging as it involved riding her motorbike over 60 miles of steep, treacherous mountain roads to reach her workplace. She also suffered several bouts of malaria.

"After some months, I just couldn't keep up. I had no choice but to quit," she said.

After quitting her nurse's job, she worked at a guesthouse laundry service in Dong Ha. But after two months without getting paid, she had to walk away.

Giang, whose parents had fought in the war against U.S.-backed South Vietnam, also cut ties with the Communist Party in 2023. She has three siblings.

Then, at a wedding, she ran into the family of the boy she had baptized.

"Seeing how tough things were for me, they helped me set up a small cosmetics shop to make a living," she said.

Nhan, who runs a business in Laos, said she was determined to return the favor for what Giang had done for her son.

"She went through so much -- humiliation, hardship, and even losing her job -- all because she helped baptize my child, who made it through the pandemic thanks to her," she added.

Before the pandemic, the boy and his parents lived in Laos, where Christians faced several social and governmental restrictions. They could not baptize him as an infant, the family said without specifying any reason.

Nhan and Giang soon became friends. Nhan began to explain the Catholic faith and the differences between Catholicism and other Christian groups and guided her through online religious resources and Catholic films.

"I decided to embrace this faith and began attending catechism classes," Giang said.

Nhan said her family "will be by her side on this journey."

"God works in mysterious ways -- he used this event to help Giang experience faith and find her way to the church," she added.

In December 2024, Gaing joined the five-month course led by local religious sisters. She studies Catholic teachings, morality and salvation history alongside four other catechumens.

Sister Teresa Ho Thi Vinh said Giang "knows many prayers and has a real thirst for reading the Bible."

She also pointed out that Giang "is full of joy, takes part in prayer sessions and Eucharistic adoration at the church and has a knack for working with others to help those in need."

Giang chose Nhan as godmother for her baptism during Jubilee Year's Easter Vigil at Cam Lo Parish Church.

Giang said the generosity of Catholics, who welcomed her with open arms and supported her both financially and spiritually, has "touched her."

"They teach me that lending a hand to someone in need is like helping God himself," she said.

"I have experienced that faith is the presence of God in my heart. He guides me to practice kindness and forgiveness and live in peace," she noted.

"I feel like God is walking beside me. It is my best decision -- to live out my faith in my own way," she said.

"I believe that if God has led me to his church, He will find a way to draw my family closer to him too," she added with confidence.