I mentioned previously that I had gone to the Island of Guam and worked with the Vietnamese refugees as well as meeting my husband there. This was 1975. This was a time of chaos for so many people at the end of the war in Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos). A time of waiting to see where those who had fled would be resettled. Remember, this refugee camp where the people were placed and were we worked had 48,000 displaced people. Mixed in with the families and single adults were 7 children that were identified as orphans from an orphanage in NhaTrang.....a coastal city north of Saigon.
Bryan had returned to South East Asia and to Vietnam in April, 1975. He was looking for orphaned children and was unable to find any so spent his time helping pastors and their families try to find a way to leave the country. His story is amazing and I will try to have him tell it in another one of these postings. He had flown out from the American Embassy in Saigon on the 28th of April, two days before the North Vietnamese rolled tanks into Saigon and captured the city. He was now in Guam. He had been sent back to Vietnam by a group looking for orphans to be adopted by families who were wanting children. So Bryan found out about these children as they were from a Christian orphanage..... Arrangements were made for the children to be adopted in the Chicago, Illinois area.
Due to political issues, Bryan had to leave the island suddenly and asked me to bring these children to the USA and to their families.
One afternoon I was told I had 3 hours to prepare and go into the refugee camp as a refugee and the attendant for these children. One of the children had been removed from the camp by a family prior to tightening of regulations for movement in and out of the camp became more controlled so I only had six children to take to Chicago. The ages of these children were 14 to 6 years of age. They were so young and yet knew each other so this diminished their anxiety because they spoke only Vietnamese and as I have said, my Vietnamese language was very limited. This was not going to be an easy transition to their new lives. So this afternoon the children and I were moved from the refugee camp to a holding area .
When we arrived at this area we were first taken to the barracks area to find a place to sleep. The refugee families were very smart and found places with other families. I was not as quick and so the children and I ended up in the barracks with the single people. We were not there very long so it was not a problem. Everyone slept in their clothes. The first meeting I needed to have was with the American Immigration and Naturalization Service representative to sign a form for me to be on the flight with the children to the USA. This type of meeting was to be repeated over and over for days as we processed into America. I went with all six of the children to his office.......I sat and waited for some time until he came to me and I told him what I needed......to travel as the parent for these six children until they were processed through the system and deliver them to their adoptive families in Chicago. I had a letter with the names of the receiving families and the name of the agency they were being adopted through. This man just listened and then smiled and said....."Tell you what.....You and I can go to dinner tonight and see what develops and then we can discuss your request to fly with these kids". Now I had prayed before I went to this meeting and I believe the Lord gave me my response......"Thank you for the kind offer but I cannot leave these children.......if I could then they would not need an escort to America, would they?" He laughed and said, "Touche.....good answer" and he signed the form. The first hurdle was crossed.
Following this meeting the children and I went to clean up and get ready for dinner. I had in my care 5 boys and one girl....so when we went to the showers, I sent the boys together and took the girl with me. The processing center was a part of a military base and so the showers were in a simple enclosed area with a door and walls high enough that no one could look in and a roof over the top. There was a space between the walls and the roof for light to come in. The floor was wooden slats that allowed the water to drain through and there were shower spigots spaced several feet apart around this large room. No privacy at all. We joined all the other women that were taking their showers. I remember how good it felt because Guam is very humid and the day had been quite stressful. As we were showering I noticed the women had stopped talking and were trying to cover themselves. I turned around and was stunned to see a Guamanian soldier had walked into the shower area with a chair and his gun and was sitting down for his own peep show. I was so shocked I just reacted. I walked over to him, took his gun and his arm and marched him to the door and threw him outside. I was so angry. Then I noted that I was wet and naked and quickly closed the door. The ladies all gave me a round of applause. He never returned while I was there.......
The next day we were taken to the airport and transported to Fort Chafee, Arkansas. I remember the eager anticipation of all the people on that flight. They were finally going to get to America....their final destination, they thought. When we arrived, we were picked up by bus and taken to the reception area of the camp. Each of us was photographed and given a badge with our name and picture on it. I remember having the young soldier take my photo several times until it looked acceptable on the badge. We needed to show this for meals, medical check ups and to be able to fly to the final destination. We then went to find where we would be sleeping and again I was unable to get into a barrack with families and instead was in one with all the helicopter pilots that had been able to fly their helicopters out to freedom, many of which had crashed into the sea. We each hung blankets between our beds and those of the others and this allowed us to have some sort of privacy as we slept.
The following days I took the children every place I went. I felt such a serious responsibility and was definitely out of my comfort zone. Oswald Chambers writes, "Having the reality of God’s presence is not dependent on our being in a particular circumstance or place, but is only dependent on our determination to keep the Lord before us continually. Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence....once we are grounded on the truth of the reality of God’s presence, not just a simple awareness of it, but an understanding of the reality of it. Then we will exclaim, “He has been here all the time!”" Through the next week as we lived in the camp and worked toward getting to Chicago I found that God was with us throughout all of the events of each day.
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