From Persecution to Passion

Vocational Bible College has welcomed a bunch of new students this year. So what sorts of people have started training in 2024?

Julie Tran was born into a Buddhist home in Sydney, but it was actually through her mother that she came to know Christ.

“Her work colleague invited her to church one day,” Julie explains, “and she just felt so much grace from God that she was one of the people that raised their hands up when the pastor was preaching at the end of the sermon, asking who would like to accept Christ as their Saviour.”

Julie’s mum came home and told her all about Jesus. At the time, she’d had a lot of questions about the meaning of life—and she felt like what the pastor was saying about Jesus answered a lot of them.

“All of this happened during a time when my dad was overseas to visit his parents in Vietnam,” Julie says. “He was away for that whole month while we were learning about Christ. So when he came back from his trip, my mum shared the gospel—and it was very unfortunate. He said, ‘No.’”

What followed was years of persecution for Julie and her mother.

“It was quite traumatic for me, because I was transitioning from year six to year seven,” Julie shares. “So I was trying to find my feet in high school life, let alone coming home and experiencing the persecution that we had to suffer for following Christ.”

Julie was forbidden from praying. Her Bible was taken away from her by her father and her sister. They wouldn’t let her speak to any Christians. And even worse—they wouldn’t let her speak to her own mother.

 “They were just afraid that she would talk about Jesus to me,” Julie explains. “And so our relationships have been quite hard right from that time until now. It has been 30 years now. All I can do is just pray for my dad and my sister to come to know Christ.”

Julie can’t speak highly enough of her mother’s example to her.

“I just remembered my mum's words about trusting in the Lord,” she says. “She told me I could cry out to the Lord inside my heart. They don't know that you are praying to the Lord. And so I did.”

Julie is grateful to God for the way He sustained her through those difficult high school years. Earlier this year, she attended SWEATCON, a Bible training conference in South-West Sydney.

“I never really got that foundation of learning about the Bible until this year when I had the opportunity to go to SWEATCON,” Julie explains. “It was so rewarding. God spoke to me through the speakers, through the workshops, through the songs. I felt so convicted, so compelled by God's love. And therefore, when SWEATCON finished, I had the blues.”

Julie’s strand group leader during the conference was Andrew Beddoe. When Julie asked him how she could learn more about the Bible, he directed her to a suitable course at VBC—and she started training in the first training block this year.

“It has been so good,” Julie says. “I get so super excited every single time when we meet online. We have all these brothers and sisters in Christ from around the world. It's amazing how God has just brought all of us together.”

Julie can’t stop raving about her training experience so far.

“Everything has been just so amazing,” she says. “I found the online classes to be very helpful as it gets recorded, so I can revise anything I may have missed in my notes the first time round. The portal is user-friendly. The trainers are wonderful and knowledgeable.”

Julie has found when she’s at Bible study and attending Sunday services, she now understands the content on a deeper level in a biblical context.

“I'm learning and applying it,” Julie shares. “It's just been so rewarding. I'm absolutely loving it. One of my sisters at church said to me, ‘I can see how it's changing you and transforming you.’ So I keep thriving to learn more and more.”

For more information about training through VBC, head here.