A Son of A Refugee’s Gratitude for Christians in America’s Mid-West

 

These days as some of us pray for Afghanistan and wanting to find out more news of what’s going on there on the ground it can be frustrating with how little we know, and what we do know is distressing.

Its also been a time that I’ve seen some reflect back the last 20 years since 9/11.

For me it led me to think also about my own family’s history as the events in Afghanistan have been compared to the fall of Saigon.  I thought I share this, in gratitude to God, and the kindness of American Christians in America’s Mid-West.  By the way this post isn’t political partisan politics, nor a support for interventionist political policy, but simply stories of the human experience, and thoughts about with God and also his work through Christians in America.

My mom’s side of the family had family members that were involved militarily with America’s secret War in South East Asia against the Communists while the Vietnam War was raging on.  Some of you readers know a lot of  history and would know that the American fight against Communism wasn’t just in Vietnam but also it involved secretly fighting in neighboring countries.

My mom’s own home were even destroyed, the result of American aerial bombing.  My mom tells me they never counted it against America, as they understood it was war; and also the Communists were really evil.

After the war, the Communists had people “disappear.”  When one of my mom’s sister’s husband “disappeared” because he was an effective anti-Communist military leader, that was the last straw and my mom’s side of the family decided to escape from her home country as refugees.

If you know anything Asian families my parents generation didn’t really talk a lot in details of their struggles, sufferings and sadness.  I know intellectually the journey was difficult as they fled and also as refugees from what my mom shared.  And I can’t imagine what it was like for my mom and her family to have lived through the Vietnam War.

One of the most brutal story that my mom did share in bits and pieces is when they were still on the road escaping the communists.  Communist forces saw them escaping and open fired.  My mom at this portion of the journey was in a bus and everyone ran out.  She was holding one of my cousin, who was very young at that time.  Everyone was running fast for the sake of their lives when communist soldiers approached.  Here was a chaotic scene with gun fire and fire and people panicking and running away.  People around her told her to give up the child so my mom run faster and not have the liability of the child and then both would be killed by the Communists.  My mom said that some man even offer to carry the child so she can run faster; but my mom wasn’t going to let that child go.  At one point she was running to a ditch of some kind as the communists were shooting and she barely made it in and people were grabbing her to save her just in the nick of time.

When I was young as a kid I heard this story in bits and pieces.  I don’t know why I never thought much about it; I guess when you are a poor kid growing up in a Southern California run-down apartment next to the projects of government housing, a kid like that living with other refugees of the Vietnam War (Vietnamese, Cambodians, Hmongs, Laotians, etc), you think that was normal.

Strangely though I said earlier that my mom didn’t talk much about the details of the war and the running away from the Communists and the difficulties of living in a refugee camp in another neighboring country she did have a lot to say about her early years in America.

The people who sponsored her and her family to the US were Christians from this one particular Christian church.  Matter of fact it was the church that helped them to adjust to America.  They showed charity, kindness and open their lives to my mom’s family and other refugees.  

I suppose at this moment I should back up and say my mom is still not a Christian; even writing this I am praying to God that one day she be saved by her trusting in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior.  My siblings and my dad could attest that my mom is adamantly against Christianity.  Matter of fact on Tuesday afternoon I was talking to her and I thought I take the opportunity to share the Gospel over the phone and her resistance against Christianity is quite strong.

After many life’s difficulties my mom is quite embittered.

I think her happiest point in her life were the early years in America before she was married living and getting to know those Church folks in some Mid-West, middle America church.  Folks who were farmers and hard working.  Folks who were yes patriotic but compassionate and gracious and understanding (and willing to be understanding).  My mom tells us how hard working they were, and how even the women were so strong!  She tells me often how she would be working in a place picking up chicken eggs and the heavy cart she had to push around but the American women could go so fast since they were bigger than her.  She tells me of a young couple in the church that were so warm and friendly they played pranks on one another; and even throw a snow ball at her to her shock!  She would tell me about farmers would have extra harvests and delivered goods to them.  How they wanted to help and dress simply, and the pastor was poor, working two jobs, one as a school bus driver and the second was the ministry.  She would tell me how the pastors kids dress simply and always wore hand me downs and they did all this because of their commitment to God.

Even writing those lines makes me tear up.  

We are living in a time where people can demonize rural conservative Christians who live in the mid-West or the South and are white supremacists and ignorant and backwards and xenophobic.  I think these kinds of caricatures can exists among some; but I don’t think it can be described of every Christians in that way, nor the majority, to be frank.  I think there are Christians in the mid-west and the South that goes against the “Narrative” that some elites want to paint.

My mom remain hardened against Christianity;   Honestly she’s not all thrilled about my choice of being in pastoral ministry.  But if I bring up those Mid-West American Christians who sponsored her family to the US: Wow she speaks glowingly and highly of them.

A few years ago because of the wonder of the internet my younger sisters decided to find out where this town was and also contact the church.  Through Google map we found the town, the high school she went to…and the church!

My youngest decided to shoot them an email to tell them the backstory and also wondering if anyone still remember.  The response came back and they said it was a long time ago.  My mom always felt guilty for not being able to keep in touch with them and wonder if they would accept her.  I don’t think she understands the Gospel and Christian grace!  A big part of her I think don’t know how to express gratitude for so much kindness and grace from these Christians that she can never pay back.  Plus I think she thinks it might be awkward since no one in her family became Christians; but that’s no longer true when I got saved as a believer in 1999 and all sisters also came to Christ.  I would like to think that the Church’s prayers for my mom’s family to know Christ came to fruition in the second generation, though they saw no fruit at the time, and some might not know the results of their prayers and ministry until they go or went to heaven.

These few days have been very hard for many veterans of the wars in the Middle East.  I have thought about why I joined the military when I was younger…and a big part of that was the reality that I have this immense gratitude towards a country that took in strange and foreign people like my mom’s family; a family that by skin and color and facial feature can be deem as an enemy but were instead seen as people who are precious, made in the image of God.  A country that has given me and one of my other sister an opportunity to serve the US and with honor, and between the two of us in dozens and dozens of countries and in many oceans and seas.  A country that gave me education and economic opportunities beyond anything I would have been able to imagine if I live somewhere else; and more importantly in His sovereignty an opportunity to come to Christ.

In the days to come I have no doubt that people will debate about bringing in people from Afghanistan.  In days to come I worry about Americans and Afghan allies being able to escape to the US.  In the days to come I worry for the men and women in uniform at the airport and flying in the skies of Afghanistan.  Still more I worry so much for the people left behind and the Christians in Afghanistan.  I’m praying so much that God would do His incredible work of saving sinners and even those not yet born, because of the circumstances that is now happening.  And just like those Mid-West Christians who took my mom and perhaps thought they saw no fruit nor conversion of these refugees they loved and supported, I pray we be salt and light and love and preach the Gospel and confront sin and point to Jesus as Savior, even when we don’t know what He’s presently doing or even if it seems humanly speaking everything we do is in vain.  Because it isn’t.  If there’s something we should learn in the last few days and since 2020, preaching Christ crucified so that people might be saved is the only thing worth fighting for; countries and politicians and military and experts and talking heads will disappoint; but the Gospel and its work will not, even though we might see the fruit of it later in heaven.   Don’t underestimate what God is able to do through ordinary Christians’ love, prayer, and Gospel sharing.