Ngoc Thanh Dang Nguyen

Having spent nearly every Sunday morning of her life with her church family, it was only appropriate that Nguyen Dang Ngoc Thanh would wait until after services let out on Sunday, July 14, 2024, to go Home and be with her Lord and Savior.

She passed away mere weeks before her 70th birthday, at her mother’s former home in Charlotte.

She was born Dang Thi Ngoc Thanh, Thanh to those who knew her, on August 6, 1954 in Hoi An, Vietnam, the second child and oldest daughter of Loc and Van Dang, who both arrived in this country in 1975 along with Thanh’s brothers: Hong, Long, Phu, Tai, and her sister, also named, Thanh.

Thanh would arrive in the United States five years later, in 1980, with her husband, Nguyen Quy Hung, and their two sons: Thienan and Thientu. They would later become parents to two more sons and one daughter: Luke, Tuongvi, and John.

After residing in Boise, ID, Cleveland, OH, and Norfolk, VA, the family arrived in the Queen City in 1985, a place Thanh would call home for the rest of her life. In 1987, she enrolled at Central Piedmont Community College and two years later earned her associate’s degree in Applied Science in Electronics, Engineering, and Technology. While taking classes at Central Piedmont, she also worked as a Peer Counselor/ Tutor, advising and assisting her fellow classmates with their coursework, and doing so in a language, English, that she was still learning and had not yet mastered (though she would in time).

After graduation, she spent over a decade working full-time jobs at various engineering firms as an AutoCAD drafter and designer before changing the trajectory of her family’s future by branching out as a successful entrepreneur, owning and operating Super Nails, a nail salon located on East Independence Blvd, which she shrewdly sold years before the shopping center the salon was housed in was demolished. She used the proceeds from the sale to purchase T-Nails in South Charlotte, which helped finance the college educations of her five children, providing them with considerably brighter futures than what she was afforded.

Between being the world’s best mom to her five kids, going to school and working full-time, Thanh somehow managed to find the time to devote countless hours to being a pastor’s wife, where her Christ-like servant’s heart radiated warmly, putting at ease the concerns of many with assurances that God works for the good of those who love Him. She helped numerous Vietnamese immigrants and refugees start a new life in the United States, a country she loved, by serving as a translator, instructor, and advocate. She also provided financial assistance to friends and family members who stayed behind in Vietnam, allowing them access to much-needed healthcare or the means to continue their education. She did all this work readily and joyfully because it was an outpouring of her deep and abiding Christian faith.

She lived out this sincere faith through unconditional love and unyielding grace, which she not only showered on those she held dearest, but also to those whom she knew would never respond in kind, writing the words of her Savior on her heart: “do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” In short, she was a beacon of light and a blessing to all who knew her.

She is greatly missed by those whose lives she touched and would want the hole left in their hearts to be filled with the same type of love and grace that was personified by her Savior, whom she tried to emulate every day of her life.

She was preceded in death by her parents, Loc and Van Dang, and her infant sister, Anh Tuyet.

She is survived by her husband of 49 years, Nguyen Quy Hung, her five children: Thienan and his wife Ashley, Thientu, Luke, Tuongvi, John and his wife Joanna, and her four grandchildren: Mai, Jyn, Joseph, and Everly.

While we are overwhelmed with grief and heartbroken that Thanh was taken from us decades too soon, we do not mourn as those who have no hope. Because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross to satisfy the wrath of God and the subsequent gift of salvation to all who ask, we eagerly look forward to the day when we are reunited with Thanh in the new heaven and new earth, where God Himself will wipe away every tear and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.

Services to celebrate Thanh’s life will begin the evening of Friday, August 2, 2024, in the chapel at McEwen Funeral Service-Pineville, 10500 Park Road, Charlotte, NC with her burial to be conducted on Saturday, August 3rd at Crown Memorial Park in Pineville.

For more details, please email [email protected]