Escape From Vietnam

I don’t know what July 4, 1776 felt like, but I think I had a taste of it over thirty years ago on July 4, 1975. I was part of a welcoming committee for refugees at the Minneapolis airport. The steps that led to our being there still amaze me.

In 1973 I met Jacob Hatanpaa from Schroeder, Minnesota near Lake Superior. At a church gathering in Grand Rapids, Minnesota he shared his story. Jacob spent two years in prison 1954-1956. In 1958 he married his wife Barbara and they began a family. Although always working and providing financially for his family, Jacob was a very heavy drinker and his family suffered because of it. Then in 1968 in desperation he cried out to God just hoping there might be a God. He experienced immediate relief but that in time faded. Later, while contemplating suicide, the Lord visited him. Jacob began reading the New Testament and soon accepted Jesus as his Savior and Lord. Then Jesus baptized him with the Holy Spirit. Jacob’s life and the life of his family were dramatically improved.

In the early seventies Jacob was increasingly concerned about the plight of Vietnamese children that he saw on the nightly news. One night Jacob and his employer were watching the news together. It showed Vietnamese families with children fleeing their homes because of the war. He employer said sarcastically, “I wonder where all the Christians are who could help
these people? Oh yeah, they’re probably busy making money.” Jacob was convicted that he was one of those Christians who was supposed to help. The Lord seemed to be saying, “Those Vietnamese children are the children that your daughter Rosie has been seeing in her dreams.” His teenage daughter Rosie had told him of having a reoccurring dream (Job 33:14-17) of Asian children seated around the family dinner table having a meal with them. (Luke 14:12-14). God planted a vision in Jacob’s heart, a vision of opening his homeand the homes of other Christians to Vietnamese families fleeing the war (Matt. 25: 31-36). He and Barbara prayed and fasted as the Lord began to make the vision a reality. Jacob, as led by the Holy
Spirit, began sharing this vision with others.

One response to his sharing was the donation of a large lodge building. He merely had to take it down, move it to his property and reconstruct. It was a large task but God provided all the resources and help. Now many Vietnamese could stay with them.

At one church a listener told Jacob that he would never get to Vietnam and that in order to get government approval he would have to obtain a state license to run an orphanage. On hearing this a teenager exclaimed, “Praise the Lord! Now I know what my vision means.” She explained that during Jacob’s talk she had a vision of a white dove flying through the sky with a short strip of red ribbon in its beak.” That’s the Holy Spirit cutting through the red tape!” Overcoming many obstacles Jacob was able to get to Vietnam the summer of 1974.

Many things happened there. He met Nguyen (pronounced “Win) Yuan on a bus. Tuan who understood some English started talking with Jake. In time Jacob led Tuan to the Lord. Tuans wife later shared that she had had a dream in which an angel appeared and told her to tell her husband to get on a particular bus on a particular day. He did. Tuan played a significant role in helping Jacob gather and hold together a group of Vietnamese who wanted to flee to the United States. After three months of making important contacts Jacob returned to the United States.

The autumn of 1974 to March 1975 the South Vietnamese army began to collapse under the invasion of the Communist North army. Jacob came to our church in St. Paul, Minnesota. He met with our prayer group leaders, about ten men. Receiving prayer and financial support, on April 4, 1975 Jacob flew to California. While there he stayed at the church of a godly friend of mine, John David Schofield, now Bishop of San Joaquin. A parishioner there gave Jacob a Bible printed in the Chinese language. The cover on it had a picture of the Communist logo, the sickle and the hammer. On Sunday morning April 6 at our church in St. Paul, the appointed scriptures were read: Isaiah 43:1-8 “But now, thus says Yahweh, who created you, Jacob, who formed you Israel. Do not be afraid, for I have called you by your name, you are mine. Should you pass through the sea I will be with you; or through rivers they will not swallow you up. Should you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched and the flames will not burn you. For I am Yahweh your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…Because you are precious in my eyes, because you are honored and I love you, I give men in exchange for you. I will bring back your offspring from the east, and gather you from the west. To the North I will say, ‘Give them up’ and to the South, ’Do not hold them.’ Bring back my sons from far away, my daughters from the ends of the earth, all those who bear my name, whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, whom I have made.”(New Jerusalem translation)

It was not just the name “Jacob” which caught the attention of the prayer group members present at that service. There was a group awareness, a shared inner knowing, that this passage was anointed by the Holy Spirit for Jacob’s mission. How is it possible that a passage from the book of Isaiah written almost three thousand years ago could have a specific application in our day? We just knew that it did. We phoned Jacob in California that night and shared the passage. The next morning he flew to Saigon.

The next three weeks we made various attempts to bring Jacob and the Vietnamese back, including renting an airplane. Jacob similarly tried on his end. All attempts failed. Jacob and the Vietnamese that he and Tuan had assembled remained together in a house in Saigon. Jacob continued to assure them that God would make a way for their escape despite now hearing the
increasing sounds of battle and seeing smoke in the skies. The North Vietnamese army steadily moved closer. All phone communication was lost. On Sunday April 19, 1975 Saigon fell. With that the Holy Spirit cut through all the government red tape .Our group of Vietnamese were now officially political refugees, but were they and Jacob even alive? After our Sunday morning service the prayer group met. Deeply concerned and questioning everything, we resorted to more prayer. The appointed morning scripture gave us some comfort. James 1:22 “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” For the next
ten days we didn’t hear a word. We prayed and prayed.

Friday night May 12 one of our leaders, the late Bill Severson, phoned Jacob’s wife Barbara. Fifteen minutes earlier Jacob had phoned her from Guam to say that they all had arrived safely by boat. They had been in the final evacuation. Isaiah 43 had been amazingly prophetic. Both the North (Vietnamese who were attacking)) and the South (Vietnamese officials who had never given them official permission to leave) had given them up. They had passed through the waters and not been swallowed up. The fire of bombs and guns all around them had not scorched or burned them. God’s promise to “bring my sons from far away, my daughters from the ends of the earth” had been accomplished. Before leaving Jacob gave that Bible in Chinese to an elderly Chinese man who was in a wheelchair. Elated, the man gladly received the Bible with the Communist
logo on its cover, knowing what an atheistic Communist takeover would mean for the Christians.

The next morning the news was announced to the prayer group at a charismatic renewal conference we were holding. Joy and praise broke out. The first scripture read was Isaiah 49:5-13 which included, “I was honored in the eyes of Yahweh, my God was my strength. And now Yahweh has spoken, he who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring back Jacob to him. It is not enough for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back the survivors of Israel. I will make you the light to the nations so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

In late May Jacob returned to the United States. And fittingly on July 4, 1975, Independence Day, there at the Minneapolis airport we saw the critical part of an amazing vision fulfilled. There before our own eyes we saw a stream of laughing happy Vietnamese faces, mostly women and children, heading our way. They were led by the Vietnamese man Tuan, who was handing everyone the now worthless South Vietnamese currency. We welcomed him and some ninety plus refugees. Families from our church invited some forty five refugees to live in our homes. A few other churches took in families and a sizeable number went to live with Jacob and his family in Schroeder. It took a lot of love and work by many people to help them adjust to their new homeland, but we knew that it was God’s plan. They had heard and believed that Jesus would provide for their escape and safety. Now they would be able to worship the Lord in a free country where they could come to better know him.

A week later while reading the Bible, I was struck by verses 1-2 in Psalm 126, “When Yahweh brought Zion’s captives home, at first it seemed like a dream, then our mouths filled with laughter and our lips with a song. Even the pagans started talking about the marvels Yahweh had done for us!” Thanks be to God!

Postscript: In June 2005 we had a 30 year reunion in Minneapolis with Jacob and Barbara and some of the Vietnamese who settled in Minnesota. We are hoping to do another reunion in the future.