Splitting the Bamboo Curtain

By JoAnn Jolley

Assistant Editor

Latter-day Saints Sponsor Indochinese Refugees

“Before I left my country, my father’s land, my house, my animals, my friends, I said my last goodbye with tears dropping from my eyes to them. My lovely dogs looked at me very sad and knew that I was going to leave them away forever, but they couldn’t say anything to me, just lick my legs. My chickens crowed and clucked to me their last songs for goodbye forever. I said goodbye to my house where I slept. I also said goodbye to the mountain near my house where every morning I heard the songs sung by a multitude of beautiful small birds from its green trees.”

Since the Communist takeover of Southeast Asia in 1975, scenes like this have been reenacted hundreds of thousands of times by refugees streaming out of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Chou Ly, who recorded this poignant farewell to his home in the mountains of Laos, was sponsored by a Latter-day Saint family and now lives in Orem, Utah. He has accepted the gospel and serves as president of a small but growing refugee branch in that area.

Over the past few years, members throughout the Church have become increasingly involved in sponsoring Indochinese refugees. Members have opened their homes and hearts to families and individuals who have fled their native countries and must now adapt themselves to strange new lands.

Utah seems to have been particularly responsive to these refugees; well over 6,000 now reside in the state. Explains Brother Harvey Dean Brown, president of the Utah Friends of Refugees League, “We sponsored Vietnamese refugees in 1972 and 1973; they told us that Utah, among the refugees themselves, had a reputation for being a very good place to go. There seems to be a good social-humanitarian climate here.”

The Lo family are Hmongs (the “h” is silent) from the mountains of Laos, a few of the 25,000 Hmongs authorized to emigrate to America. Grant Barton and his family of Salt Lake City sponsored this family.

Refugees are usually not accustomed to modern conveniences, and Brother Barton recalls that the family’s first day in their home “was a real experience. They had to be taught how to turn on a light, how to turn on the water, how to use a stove, and how to use bathroom fixtures.

“It didn’t take them long,” says Brother Barton, “to warm up to us, and after seeing how hospitable our Latter-day Saint neighbors were, they also warmed up towards the Church.” Missionary discussions followed, and within a few months the Lo family with some of their friends and relatives were baptized. Brother Lo works as a bookbinder and is manager of the apartments where he and his family live in Salt Lake City.

But refugee sponsorship is by no means confined to Utah. “We’ve got Latter-day Saints all over the United States and many countries overseas who are intimately involved with refugee activities,” says Brother Brown.

Sister Colleen Liljenquist and her family were living in Nashville, Tennessee, when an opportunity came to sponsor members of a royal dance troupe from Laos—a group that had performed regularly in the king’s palace. As the Communists overran the country, several members of the troupe managed to stay together, swimming across the Mekong River into Thailand; others joined them later. Now about thirty members of the group, trying desperately to stay together, were to arrive in Nashville.

“We decided that we would do it big, if we were going to do it at all,” recalls Sister Liljenquist. “These people were unique, because they brought with them an important part of the culture of their country.” Altogether, more than two dozen Nashville LDS families sponsored refugees. “Some of our people were reluctant, a little bit afraid. And it is a little frightening. Our biggest problems were finding them worthwhile employment and adequate housing.”

Communication is an ever-present concern for most refugees and their sponsoring families. Some have access to the services of returned missionaries from Thailand; others must find their own resources. “One of the best things I think we did for them,” says Sister Liljenquist, “was to have a number of picnics. We seemed to be able to bridge the communication barrier by just sitting together and eating together. We would sing some of our songs, they would sing theirs.”

President B. Lloyd Poelman of the Tennessee Nashville Mission (whose family also sponsored a Laotian family) helped establish a Laotian Sunday School in the Nashville First Ward. “We had some real challenges communicating with them at first,” he reflects. “The first hour they would spend studying English; the second hour we would have, in essence, a Gospel Essentials class taught through a translator; the third hour they would join us in our regular sacrament meeting. I think we really have to commend the Saints for what they’ve done, because it’s a herculean effort.”

Now living in Idaho, the Liljenquists are still refugee-minded. “Every time I see an Asian,” says Sister Liljenquist, “I go up and say, ‘Where are you from?’ because we came to love them like brothers and sisters. I think what my children miss most about the nine years we lived in Tennessee are the Laotians. We’re going to become involved again.”

Ted and JaNae Winder of Salt Lake City welcomed into their home a sixty-three-year-old father with four of his ten children—ethnic Chinese who had been living in Cambodia, where they were members of the upper class. “When they came,” says Sister Winder, “the father didn’t seem really well to me; but he never said a thing.” Two weeks later he was admitted to the hospital with a serious case of active tuberculosis. “One of his concerns had been that he might be sent back. So he never complained; but he must have been terribly sick.”

The Winders hosted this family in their home for about six weeks, during which time they were able to help the family secure employment. “The Chinese are very hard workers,” explains Sister Winder, “so many employers are very happy to hire them for jobs where they don’t have to do a lot of talking; they can just show them what to do. Two of the girls are working at a sewing factory; one girl is going to work as a maid at a hotel. The father, once he is healthy enough, has been guaranteed a job at a Chinese restaurant as a cook.”

In Long Beach, California, refugees have, in effect, introduced themselves to the Church. Dennis Beckstrand, a high councilman in the Long Beach East Stake, tells the story: “The missionaries were tracking and they ran into a refugee family, about six or seven of them; they came to church by themselves the first time. By the second week, that had escalated into about thirteen and the stake president and I got together and started setting the wheels in motion to have a program for them. By the fourth week we were up to about thirty or forty; and then it jumped to seventy after the fifth or sixth week. Right now we have 350 attending. We have a complete branch organization.”

Brother Beckstrand is not aware of LDS families in the Long Beach area who are serving as sponsors; rather, all members of this new refugee branch were missionary contacts. “What happened,” he explains, “is exactly what we’re supposed to do as member missionaries. They’d come to church and we’d teach them a principle of the gospel through a translator; then we would bear testimony, ‘This is a great message. If you like it, you can invite your friends.’ The next week, attendance would double.”

“Our greatest problem is communication,” he adds. “They are such sweet people that as the elders teach them, they nod their heads—yes, yes, they understand—even if they don’t. They do understand basic principles; but many of the concepts we teach in the Church they have never experienced before. And so when it comes time for a baptismal interview, rather than being a fifteen- or twenty-minute interview, it’s an hour and a half or two hours.”

“One learns joy by sponsoring a refugee family,” reflects Christi Burnett of Granger, Utah. “On December 12, 1980, about twelve hours after we had committed ourselves to be sponsors, we stood at the Salt Lake City airport watching our refugee family walk off the plane carrying only a few belongings in their hands. The father was in his early thirties, the mother in her late twenties. They had two little boys, one five years old and the other six months.”

That evening they attended a ward Christmas party. “People at the party took a great interest in them. One lady was so touched by seeing this young refugee mother that she left the hall with tears in her eyes. The next morning this same lady and her own little family brought our refugee family pots and pans, pillows, a bedspread, and a large mirror. By Sunday a bed had been donated and clothes and shoes had been brought to our home.

“The giving and caring didn’t ever seem to stop. On Christmas Eve, people from the ward dropped by with gifts that included a hand mixer and drinking glasses. After the family had brought the glasses, our Cambodian man held one of them gently and said, ‘Real American glasses.’ Such small things brought them great joy.”

What began as a simple fellowshipping effort in Colorado has blossomed into a heartwarming missionary effort among the refugees. “About three years ago,” recalls Aldine Allen of Arvata (a suburb of Denver), “we were assigned by our bishop to be a fellowshipping family, and we decided to take on a family that had just joined the Church; they were Hmongs. We have kept in touch with this family, and about a year and a half ago we went to them and said, ‘You indicated at one time that you had some friends who might be interested in hearing about the Church.’ They gave us about fifteen families’ names, and we had a fireside (all Hmong). All but two of these families have since been baptized—in addition to many more. We now have a Hmong branch of the Church here in Denver; my husband is the branch president, and I’m the Relief Society president. We continue to have baptisms about every two weeks. They are very receptive to the gospel.”

Association with the Hmong people has reinforced Sister Allen’s scriptural insights. “Most of them are not Christian, but they know the story of Noah, and of the Tower of Babel, and of Adam and Eve. If I’d never had a testimony of the truth of Genesis before, there’s no way I could deny it now. They know those stories; they have been handed down through the generations.”

Gospel learning among these people is slow but steady. “Most of them, now,” says Sister Allen, “are learning to call upon us when someone is ill. We have had several instances where the priesthood administered to a sick baby, and the child was healed. They are learning to have great faith in those blessings. The same thing is true of teaching them about prayer. At first it was very difficult to convince them to have prayers; but they’re doing it now. And now that we have our branch, they bless and pass the sacrament. They are serving and growing.”

Where refugees have joined the Church in significant numbers, branches are established to serve their needs. And, says Brother Harvey Brown, “We are seeing these people taking over leadership positions. In most cases we’ve had a branch president who was a refugee and a counselor who was a returned missionary; or sometimes the returned missionary would be the branch president and his counselors would be refugees.

“The program is adjusted, too. In some places, all they’ve got is just a Sunday School along with the sacrament. It has to be adapted to the people you’re dealing with. You start with the program to meet your greatest need; then, as you get different demands, you can add to it.”

The Church has recently begun calling missionaries currently serving in the Thailand Bangkok Mission to serve the last several months of their missions in the United States where there are high concentrations of Indochinese refugees. Their language skills enable them to open the doors of gospel learning for refugees and to assist in a number of ways.

Kent Pulsipher and his wife and ten children of Sandy, Utah, “sat down as a family and decided that we ought to become sponsors. The children wanted to, and supported our decision. They even recognized the need for some to give up their rooms. And we did have to re-shuffle a bit.” The Pulsiphers sponsored a widow with three of her children and a family friend. “She escaped the night before the Viet Cong attacked their village by loading the three youngest on a log and crossing the Mekong River. (Her husband was lost earlier.) She had sent seven or eight of her other children ahead with a brother.

“We had them in our home for two months until we located an apartment for them. Then we began to help her track down the rest of her family. We located them in Minnesota; so she took her three children and joined them there.”

Stories of faith, love, and sacrifice on the part of Latter-day Saints and their refugee brothers and sisters could fill many pages. It is not an easy thing to rebuild one’s life in a new land amidst an alien culture; neither is it simple to put aside other interests to assist in that rebuilding. But Latter-day Saints who have done so can now look back and see the benefits. As Brother Kent Pulsipher reflects: “The important thing is the experience of becoming aware that some of God’s children need help, that some very serious experiences have happened to them, and then getting in there to help. It’s a very humbling thing to recognize that we have some things other people have not been given. And not to share them is tragic.

“Very definitely, I think more families ought to be more involved in this effort. It’s like everything else; you can make that personal decision, and then offer to make the sacrifices you will have to make—and then the sacrifices turn into opportunities and blessings for everyone involved.”

Brother Harvey Brown, who is a former Thailand Bangkok mission president and who has worked with hundreds of refugee families and their sponsors through government agencies, religious groups, and charitable organizations, holds deep convictions about the potential and destiny of the Indochinese people—and about the Church’s unique role in the drama:

“Generally, I think the refugees are just like every other Church convert population. There are those who are there for their own reasons; there are those who are touched by the Spirit. And, like any other group, we’ll lose some of them and we’ll keep some of them. The ones that we keep will be stronger, and grow and develop, and they’ll become leaders. And if they’re not leaders, their children will be. Even though the adults may not be able to fully understand everything, I think the next generation will. And I think this is terribly important.

“We cannot get behind the so-called bamboo curtain. But in this case, the bamboo curtain has been opened by pushing the people out. Now it’s up to us to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ into their lives so that they can take it to others of their people. The Lord has made this opportunity available to us.

“This, in turn, gives us opportunities. One is the opportunity to serve and to have humanitarian experiences in our lives, to give Christian service. At the same time, we can, if they are interested, bring the gospel into their lives.

“Any Latter-day Saint that takes a refugee family will have an experience that will mean something important to his own family. And we do need more sponsors. Everywhere.”

Families or individuals who wish to participate in a sponsorship or assistance program are encouraged to contact their local LDS Social Services office—or any voluntary resettlement agency or state refugee agency—for information.

Photography by Eldon K. Linschoten

Men of all ages attend priesthood meeting at the Vietnamese Branch, Salt Lake Stake.

Relief Society in the Vietnamese Branch, Salt Lake Stake.

Sister Marie Morgan discusses gospel principles with a Young Women’s class in the Vietnamese Branch.