We follow a book




MCC service worker Chris Kimmel in Vietnam in 1966 with youth and their chicken raising project at the Hue Lay Leadership Training Center (MCC photo)










For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me. (Matt. 25:35)


Luke Martin is a former Eastern Mennonite Missions worker in Vietnam. He has worked tirelessly as an advocate for the Mennonite churches in Vietnam in recent years. Several weeks ago, I met Luke at a gathering on the MCC campus in Akron PA of agencies and people who work in Vietnam.

Luke told this story which will appear in a future book he is writing. His story relies on A Full and Rewarding Life: A Memoir, by Paul Leatherman and I am relying on Luke as I tell this story to you:


In 1966 MCC began administering Vietnam Christian Service (VNCS), a joint program with Church World Service and Lutheran World Relief.  VNCS was providing services to thousands of internal refugees in central Vietnam. While personnel at Quang Ngai were pleased to be able to assist these refugees, they resisted being considered part of the American “pacification” program which in 1967 was placed directly under the military command of General Westmoreland.   Doug Hostetter at Tam Ky also caught the ire of an American colonel at Tam Ky who thought he was giving assistance to people in country villages not supporting the government, and asked that he be transferred.


Since service agencies had to partially rely on American military logistical support because of the insecurity of the country, VNCS director Paul Leatherman and representatives of three other voluntary agencies requested a meeting with U.S. Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker to protest the pressures they felt to become part of the “American team.” They insisted that they needed freedom to determine their own programs with Vietnamese authorities and to assign their personnel.  They also wanted the Embassy to restore their priority status on American planes which had been recently downgraded. 


On September 14, 1967 they met Ambassador Bunker at the Embassy.  The Ambassador told them that voluntary agency personnel did not have the right to oppose U.S. or Vietnamese government policies, and that no aid could be given to the Viet Cong.


Paul Leatherman told the Ambassador that “there would be a strong backlash in the United States if it was learned that this change of priority status effectively shut down the work of the voluntary agencies."  Ambassador Bunker responded that he had heard that VNCS operated several hospitals and wondered if this was true. After Leatherman described the medical program, the Ambassador asked, “Are you treating any Viet Cong (VC) in your hospitals?” Leatherman told him that they did not ask patients for their ID cards.  If people were sick and needed hospital care they were admitted.  If wounded persons appeared at the hospital the doctors repaired their wounds.


The Ambassador went on to ask about the feeding programs in the refugee camps. Leatherman told him about the extensive feeding program for children in these camps.  Again the Ambassador asked, “Are you feeding children of the VC?” Again, Leatherman responded that they did not check ID cards of the persons in the feeding program.  If children were hungry and starving, they were fed. Ambassador Bunker, by this time quite aggravated, responded, “You know the VC are the enemy.  If you are feeding the VC and treating them in your hospitals, this is treason and you know the penalty for treason.”

Leatherman reports that the Spirit gave him these words to speak: “Mr. Ambassador, VNCS is here doing the work of the church.  We follow a book that you may or may not be familiar with.  It commands us to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, and to clothe the naked.  I know what the penalty is if we do not do that for whatever reason.”


Within a half-hour after the meeting Leatherman received a call from the Ambassador’s assistant who told him he should quickly return to straighten out his “problem” with the Ambassador.  Leatherman said he had no problem with the Ambassador and if Bunker had a problem, he should call him!  Leatherman met the Ambassador on several later occasions, but this encounter was never mentioned again.

I thank God for the faithful witness for peace of Mennonite Christians during the challenging era of the Vietnam War. In the gathering in Akron, Luke Martin also recounted that EMM and MCC mission workers together issued several letters to their home constituencies in North America stating their concerns about the war.

My prayer is that the church today will continue in this tradition of providing a bold witness for peacemaking as followers of Jesus Christ.


Ron Byler is executive director for Mennonite Central Committee U.S.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They welcomed us

Image
One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25) She was addicted to drugs for 20 years. She was in prison and her family broke apart. Her child was in an orphanage and her husband died. Because of her substance abuse, she eventually lost her one arm below her elbow. She saw no way out. She had hit the very bottom. When she came to know God, Natalia says everything changed. She found she had a deep desire to help people like herself and she discovered that her life experiences helped her understand others. “I remember what God did in my life and I have hope that God can touch other peoples’ lives and give them new life, too,” Natalia tells me. In Nikopol, Ukraine, she and Olga and Valodya, both of whom have similar stories to tell of their own, began New Life Charitable Fund a half dozen years ago to help people in prison, or who have drug or alcohol addictions, are HIV positive, homeless or for some other reason need a helping hand. Ukraine has
Read more

God multiplies our efforts

Image
Sister Zita at the La Posada shelter with baby Emmanuel and members of our border learning tour. Photo courtesy of Janae Rempel The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. – I Kings 17:14 Ana Hinojosa remembers growing up on the Texas-Mexico border near Brownsville in the late 80s. Her family’s house was a mile from the border wall and she remembers the extended family gatherings in her back yard. Ana, an MCC immigration staff person, says border patrol agents would rest in the shade of the trees near the front of her house and, in the same day, it would be possible for a family from Mexico to knock on her front door to ask for food or directions. Her family turned no one away. Life on the border can look quite different today. When we enter the Catholic Charities respite center in McAllen, Texas, it is startling to see the contrast from the serenity of the neighborhood outside to the chaos inside. Cesar Matta tells us that, today, the cente
Read more

A river of love

Image
For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. – Matthew 25:40 “We are happy you are here to see this with your own eyes,” the leader of the Islamic Charities organization in Deir Attieh, Syria tells us, a group of MCC people visiting partner organizations in Syria. “We can’t express enough our heartfelt thanks to you.” Islamic Charities works with 3,000 at risk families affected by the war in the region and relies heavily on the work of volunteers. MCC provides food boxes to Islamic Charities as part of our humanitarian assistance in Syria. When I visit five families who received these food boxes, I recall the heartfelt thanks but feel mostly heart broken.    We visit two families living in a partially constructed apartment complex that stalled when the war began. The first family lives in a small two-room apartment, the mother and her five children and the woman’s father. Her husband is serving in the army. The second family includes seven
Read more