BY PAULA DAY

The time was April, 1975, 10 days before the final American withdrawal from Saigon.

Huddled on the floor of a commercial cargo plane, Sister Christine Truong My Hanh, RGS, eight other women Religious and 167 polio-handicapped children were on their way to Kyoto, Japan.

The group had spent the previous 24 hours hiding in a Saigon hotel waiting for arrangements that would take them to safety. The next eight hours in a sweltering aircraft without food or water were “one hard trip,” she recalls.

Dramatic as the escape from Saigon sounds, it is only one of many memorable experiences for this daughter of a Buddhist mother and Catholic father. The 42-year-old Sister of the Good Shepherd talked quietly of her life and work with the Atlanta Vietnamese community in the Chamblee apartment she uses as an office.

“They call me ‘Father Christine,’” she said with a smile.

Madeleine My Truong Hanh was born in Hue, province of Annam, Vietnam. When she was 15 her father, Thai My Hanh, a senator in the Ngo Dinh Diem government, sent her to an exclusive school in Da Lat, Vietnam. There she was to learn French and prepare to enter medical school in France.

But she found the boarding school “so frenchy, very strict.” She told the nuns at the school she wanted to “go work with the poor mountain people.”

“Your father will be displeased,” they replied.

On summer vacation, she met two Sisters of the Good Shepherd in Vinh Long, a village in the Mekong River valley. They worked with prostitutes and pickpockets and she was impressed by the way they talked and their simple lifestyle.

“Not like grand ladies in a big building,” she said, adding with a sly smile, “The girls had taught them some swear words.”

The attraction to their ministry with the marginalized and poor focused her determination and independent spirit. Accompanied by an older aspirant because she was an underage, she made the trip to Singapore and entered the novitiate of the order.

Following Sister My Hanh’s profession, she was put in charge of formation of Vietnamese candidates in Saigon in 1973. When forced to leave the city two years later she flew to the U.S. Here she found foster homes for her charges before returning to Singapore.

Over the next 13 years Sister My Hanh directed social work programs under Caritas, the local Catholic Charities agency in Hong King, opened a pastoral center for dislocated Vietnamese and immersed herself in the plight of the “boat people” in the colony’s detention camps. She also found time to earn a master’s degree in social work from the University of Keele in England.

Sister My Hanh came to Atlanta in September, 1991, with Sister Pauline Bilbrough, RGS. The late Archbishop James P. Lyke, OFM, had informed her religious community of available ministries in the archdiocese. Sister Rosanne Toth, RGS, later joined them.

The guiding spirit of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd is one of the reconciliation with oneself, others and God. They work with those in social and emotional difficulty to achieve reconciliation through counseling and other social services.

Atlanta was to be a respite from Sister My Hanh’s hectic schedule, but the slight Vietnamese nun with an engaging smile and boundless energy could not slow down in the face of the needs she found in the burgeoning Vietnamese community here.

Although Our Lady of Vietnam Mission in Forest Park was established for the Vietnamese Catholics in Atlanta, some families newly arrived in the archdiocese located in distant areas.

Sister My Hanh has found them in the Buford Highway corridor of Doraville, in Norcross, Lawrenceville, Clarkston and Stone Mountain. Beginning with three families and making several trips each Sunday, she took them to Mass at Holy Cross Church in northeast Atlanta.

Today, Father Thanh Nguyen, MS, a parochial vicar at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Smyrna, celebrates Mass in Vietnamese once a month at Holy Cross for approximately 400 people. Each Sunday afternoon, under Sister My Hanh’s guidance, volunteers instruct 80 children in the Catholic faith using parish facilities.

On Saturdays Sister My Hanh instructs 60 Vietnamese children in the Catholic faith in the two-room apartment that doubles as her outreach office. In the afternoon and evening she conducts choir practice for young adults. She spends Tuesdays visiting Vietnamese families with Father Thanh. This month she begins a six-week marriage preparation class. Eighteen couples have registered for the instruction.

Father Ed Everitt, OP, spoke of the work of his part-time staff member.

“She is in charge of the RCIA and sacramental preparation (for the Vietnamese). She does a lot of home visiting and has been very, very helpful in our trilingual (Spanish, Vietnamese, English) liturgies and has helped develop a Vietnamese choir.” Sister My Hanh has also developed a Vietnamese consultative board in the parish.

“She’s got incredible energy,” Father Everitt said, “and is a delight to work with. Our staff enjoy working with her.”

“Father Everitt has been most welcoming,” Sister My Hanh observed. At Easter seven Vietnamese catechumens and 12 candidates were received into the Church at Holy Cross.

Every week for six months, Sister My Hanh took Communion to and shared Scripture with a community of 40 who lived in Clarkston. Gathered in an apartment, the Vietnamese had prepared a room with lit candles and flowers in reverence for the Blessed Sacrament.

“I wanted to help my people keep our faith,” she said and notes with a passing smile that the Protestant churches proselytizing in the area can offer only Scripture study. She notes proudly that she could bring the Eucharist, too. Eventually she encouraged the group to attend Mass in English at Corpus Christi Church in Stone Mountain.

As a social worker, Sister My Hanh does everything from helping the poor obtain food from the St. Martin de Porres pantry at Holy Cross and clothes from Sister Caroline Oberkirch’s outreach at Our Lady of the Assumption to getting their drivers’ licenses. She frequently is touched by the faith and integrity of those she helps.

Recently a young Vietnamese unknowingly bought a defective used car. When he could not get compensation from the salesman, a companion suggested he wreck the car and claim the insurance.

“I was so tempted to do it,” he told her. “But I remember you told me we have to live by the truth because that is what we believe.”

Her work is partially funded by two grants from DeKalb County which soon will be depleted. She admitted she needs a case manager to translate and keep records but does not have the funds to hire one so she makes do with volunteers.

Father Thanh believes the “overwhelming” needs of the Vietnamese community would be helped if weekly Mass and sacramental ministry were available and he admits Sister My Hanh is his link to the community.

“They love her and out of that love people flock to her,” the priest said. “She is a good mediator,” particularly interested in “the poor, alienated and the children.”

“She is an experienced minister, not only a social worker.”