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GREENSBORO — The pastor of the United Montagnard Christian Church in America lifts his hand in worship toward the webcam in the back room, where he has been preaching to the folks back home.

They have so few preachers in Vietnam — because of persecution — that Christians must gather around to hear sermons by pastors such as Y’Hin Nie who have fled to the U.S.

Visible via the camera attached to Nie’s computer screen is a group of seven people huddled close, shortly before midnight in their own time zone. From a small room, they listen to Nie read from a Bible translated into Vietnamese and Montagnard dialects. Nie’s church in northeast Greensboro has provided the laptop and camera.

“The hard thing is to be a Christian. ... They get beaten,” said Yhyai Mlo, a Vietnamese-born immigrant and church member, who briefly watches Nie from outside the room at the Greensboro church.

Nie likes preaching from Psalm 23, which he is relating this day to their struggle. It is about noon local time, and Nie tells them with fervor, in their dialect, the Lord prepares a table for them while they are in the prison of their enemy.

“Because they are in Vietnam and the enemy is all around them,” Nie explains in English after the 10-minute sermon ends.

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During a congressional hearing in Washington on human rights and religious freedom in Vietnam in late March, witnesses, including Nie, told legislators of recent persecution. Nie is representing Montagnard Christians, who found faith through American missionaries.

He spoke of the imprisoning, “harassing, arresting, and beating to death evangelical Christians.” Churches have been destroyed and neighbors are paid to look for Christians and to beat them when they leave houses of prayer, said Nie, joined by a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

“We must come to the aid of those who are our friends and allies in their time of terror and suffering,” he said at the hearing.

Nie was among those who fled to the jungles after the United States withdrew from Vietnam in the early 1970s. The Montagnards, tribal people from the Central Highlands, were loyal allies to the Americans. After the Americans left, Montagnard soldiers took cover in remote jungle outposts near Cambodia. They continued to fight Communist Vietnam until the 1992 cease-fire, 17 years after the war ended.

Nie was among the second group of refugees that the U.S. State Department resettled in Greensboro, Charlotte and Raleigh in 1986 and 1992. Most of those resettled came to North Carolina. About 10,000, the largest population outside of Vietnam, call the state home, according to the Montagnard Dega Association.

Those who remain in Vietnam must worship following government rules that critics say are set up to appease the watching international community.

Government-sanctioned pastors are trained in the history and social life of Vietnam. Sermons must be submitted for approval.

“People must trust and worship the party first, and people must follow the government rules, and Christians must not place God above all,” Nie said. “We can’t preach that. The persecuted, they come in the middle of the night to hear and then they sneak back into their homes.”

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This production bridging Christians in the U.S. and Vietnam emanates from Nie’s small aging church with donated pews and festive lighting hung throughout the sanctuary.

“I think he’s the first one,” said Vien Siu, immigration director for the Montagnard Human Rights Organization in Raleigh. “The other one does a radio broadcast (by sending taped sermons to a station in) the Philippines that they can hear.”

Inside his office, Nie has hooked up bright lights to improve the video quality of the Skype connection he has with this group. Skype allows users to make video phone calls over the Internet.

Most of the Montagnards who hear him do not have this more sophisticated means of communicating. For them, the calls are put on speaker phone or the person answering the telephone relays the words.

“It’s a lot of money for the long distance phone calls,” said H’Tuyet Rahlan with the Center for New North Carolinians, who interprets for the congregational nurse at Nie’s church. “It’s always his passion.”

Nie also calls Montagnards resettled in Canada, Australia and Sweden who do not have access to preaching in their language.

During a typical month, the church, which is part of the Evangelical Christian Church Asia, spends upwards of $1,000, and before Skype, nearly $2,000 monthly on communicating, Nie said.

Atop Nie’s desk is a picture of the late Jerry Falwell awarding Nie a master’s degree in theology from Liberty University. Nie, who is working on his doctorate there, has a decidedly evangelical approach.

With the help of the younger members of his congregation, he also produces and ships home the sermons on DVD.

During this day’s call to Vietnam, those who have gathered read in unison in their dialect the verses of Psalm 23.

A few seconds of static nearly drowned out a prayer.

When asked why he is there, one young man leaned forward. “Because we want to learn about God really preached from the Bible,” according to Nie, who translated.

Sometimes hundreds gather to hear the sermons. Sometimes as few as two or three.

The church has raised enough money to buy three laptops at $600 each so the Gospel can be spread. As money is raised, Nie will send more.

“We are lingering on the love of God and Jesus Christ,” Nie said of upcoming sermons. “Growing in faith is next.”

Other Christians still try going into the country as missionaries, but they usually cannot stay long before they run into government resistance or suffer unexplained calamities, Nie said. While pressing the international community for help, he presses on with this ministry.

“I can go through the telephone all the time, Skype all the time.”

Contact Nancy McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com