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| Thai-Laotian Pastor Finds Freedom |
| Release Date: 08/19/2003 |
OKLAHOMA CITY -- Freedom's stock has skyrocketed recently, but perhaps no one understands its value more than those who have struggled their way to America from the clutches of oppression.
Boon Vongsurith understands better than most. Vongsurith, a graduate of Campbellsville University, found freedom from political and religious repression thanks in part to a Kentucky Baptist family who sponsored him.
But his journey to spiritual freedom began long before he came to America.
Growing up in a poor family of seven in his native Laos, Vongsurith dreamed of an education and a better life. The odds were against him, but "God was always a step ahead of me," he's fond of noting.
Among the 650 or so Laotian-Americans in the Oklahoma City area--he knows most of them by name--Vongsurith is a community leader known for his willingness to help meet practical needs.
The pastor of Laotian-Thai Congregation of Oklahoma City, Trinity International, calls his a "birth to burial" ministry.
To those outside his congregation of about 40 active members, he is also known as a spiritual leader and often asked to pray at Asian-American community meetings, he said.
"No matter if he's dealing with a Buddhist or whomever, he's there when he's needed," said Jim Pittman, senior pastor at Trinity International. "He does everything from going to welfare offices to helping people get citizenship to counseling families."
On Oct. 27 the Asia Society of Oklahoma recognized Vongsurith as its 2001 Outstanding Asian American, an honor he initially resisted and one of which 30 years ago he wouldn't have dared dream.
Raised a Buddhist and the son of a Laotian soldier, Vongsurith would hurl rocks through the windows of the Christian Missionary Alliance church he often passed on his way into his native city of Luangrabang.
"I hated missionaries. I hated Christians. I hated churches," he said.
After temporary paralysis caused him to lose his coveted spot at a Laotian secondary school, Vongsurith said he felt hopeless and turned to booze and any drugs he could scrounge on limited resources.
Walking home one night from a bar with a friend, Vongsurith passed by the church he often scorned and was startled by three audible words: "God loves you."
Inside, a Thai preacher was giving a midnight sermon and Vongsurith and his buddy, familiar with the dialect because it was similar to theirs, were drawn in.
"It seems like yesterday to me. It was if (the preacher) was looking at me eyeball to eyeball," Vongsurith said.
After hearing the Gospel, Vongsurith realized, "(Christ) must be the God I've been searching for.
"I could not find Him, but He found me."
Over three months in the fall of 1971, Vongsurith read the entire Bible, then returned to the church one Sunday intent on becoming a Christian. En route, he encountered the friend he'd gone to the church with three months earlier and explained his intentions.
The friend also wished to become a Christian, though Vongsurith said he was skeptical.
"He told me about a dream he had of a devil chasing him. He was running away and someone from above in a white robe called out to him, 'Come.'"
That Sunday morning, Vongsurith and his friend publicly trusted Christ.
"All the loneliness and emptiness were gone. I had hope to go on living," he recalled.
But life with Vongsurith's family was tougher; his father warned him not to mention the name of Jesus in the family's presence. When Vongsurith prayed silently at meals, his younger siblings ridiculed him and took most of the available food, leaving him little to eat.
"It made me mad, but I realized as a Christian I couldn't get angry at them. I told them, 'Take what you want and whatever is leftover, I'll eat.' "
Because he was literate, he was assigned Scripture reading at his church. By 1973, through his association with the Christian Missionary Alliance, he landed an on-air radio job in the Laotian capital of Vientiane with the Far East Broadcasting Company, preaching and reading in his ethnic dialect, Low-Lao.
Meanwhile, Russian-backed leftists were emerging victorious in a struggle for control in southeast Asia. In 1975, the Communists won out, replacing the ruling government, closing churches and sending many Laotians, including Vongsurith and another Christian friend, Khamsing Norady, to crowded re-education camps.
After three weeks, they were released and told to go home to their families. But a Western missionary who fled before the Communists gained control had given Vongsurith a letter encouraging him to seek God's will and $100 if he opted to flee.
After prayer and fasting, Vongsurith--weak from several weeks of malnutrition--and Norady, chose to flee, citing Genesis 12, which records Abraham leaving without knowing his destination.
Without farewells to family and friends, they arrived at the edge of the Mekong River dividing Laos and Thailand at about midnight one evening in December 1975, not knowing only yards away Communists guards stood watch.
It was unusually cold that winter in Laos, and in the pitch black night with only the clothes on their backs, $100 zipped inside Vongsurith's belt, and their New Testaments stowed in plastic bags under their chins, they entered the frigid water, quietly paddling across.
Vongsurith and his buddy each tied one hand to the other's, thinking if they succeeded or failed, they would do it together. They hoped if they drowned someone would find their Bibles and be saved, Vongsurith said.
Exhaustion almost drowned them, Vongsurith recalled. Struggling in the water 50-75 yards out, Vongsurith's friend made a splash that drew the flashlight of Communist guards. Seeing the reflection of the plastic bags in the water, the guards remarked aloud that they supposed a large fish had jumped. Once in the darkness again, they paddled on, reaching Thailand's shore 48 minutes after starting across.
Later that evening, however, they were detained by Thai soldiers and taken to a Buddhist temple to be questioned with other Laotian refugees.
The soldiers scorned them about the Bibles they carried, then asked if they brought money.
"I lied," Vongsurith admitted.
Unconvinced, one of the soldiers asked to see Vongsurith's belt. Just as he was about to remove it, a voice familiar to Vongsurith called out, "Hey, friends, when did you get here?"
It was the Thai officer in charge of the refugee center that night, whom Vongsurith knew from his work at the radio station across the river in Laos. The Far East Broadcasting Company had hired the man, also a professional singer though not a Christian, to sing Christian songs for broadcast into Thailand. Vongsurith and the man had become friends.
"The Lord was one step ahead of us," said Vongsurith, seemingly still awed by providence 26 years later.
"Don't bother them," the officer told his men. "Give them blankets, pillows and mosquito nets."
After nine months in a Thai refugee camp and through the help of American missionaries, Vongsurith heard that an American family, Thurman and Mary Witten of Vine Grove, Ky., would sponsor him in America.
He arrived in 1976 with aspirations of Bible college and $5 left from the $100 he'd received from his missionary friend.
Remarkably, between 1976 and 1980, the Wittens sponsored more than 100 southeast Asian refugees. Most would stay a month or so as the Wittens, who at the time were members of Vine Grove Church in Vine Grove, Ky., ferried them to job interviews and school and cared for their children as they worked. Often, the refugees would eat and sleep on the floor.
"They'd been in crowded refugee camps. It didn't bother them to be crammed up," Mary Witten told the Kentucky Western Recorder in 1995. The Wittens have since died.
In 1995, Vongsurith returned with other refugees to Kentucky to honor the Wittens, whom they affectionately called "Mamma" and "Pappa."
Despite no high school diploma and poor English skills, Vongsurith and three other Laotians were admitted to Campbellsville Baptist College in Campsbellville, Ky., on probationary status in 1976. By 1981, all four had graduated.
In July 1982, the former Lao Mission of Oklahoma City, Trinity called Vongsurith as pastor. He will mark 20 years as its pastor next July. Norady, whom he visited in September, owns a business in Marietta, Ga., and is active in an evangelical Laotian church there, Vongsurith said.
Since arriving in Oklahoma City, Vongsurith earned a master's degree from Southwestern Seminary and a doctor of ministry from Midwestern Seminary. The Lao-Thai Congregation used Vongsurith's doctoral thesis, a model for Laotian evangelism, as a basis for leading 38 people to Christ, he said.
"I love my Lord. I love ministering to our people. And I get paid for it," he marveled. "Who can beat that, you know?"
Vongsurith and his wife, Douang, whom he met since coming to Oklahoma, have four children. He has twice served as president of the Conference of Laotian Southern Baptists, and is education coordinator for the Laotian Conference of Churches, a group that includes more than 150 American congregations.
There are 36 Southern Baptist Laotian congregations in the United States, Vongsurith said. Of 500,000 Laotian Americans, only 15,000-20,000 are Christians, he noted.
Written by Jerry Pierce, advertising manager of the Oklahoma Baptist Messenger. |
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