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BY SUZANNE HAUGH
Staff Writer
CHAMBLEE--1998 was the Year of the Tiger and in the Chinese and Vietnamese
culture it is a bad year for a child to be born, according to Sister Christine
Truong My Hanh, RGS, program director of Good Shepherd Services which ministers
to the Vietnamese community in metro Atlanta.
Sister Christine remembers one woman who came to her for advice when she
found out she was to give birth that year. The woman asked Sister Christine if
she should have an abortion or keep the baby.
“‘Why ask me?’” she told the woman. “Because you
are here, I think you want to keep the baby.”
The woman nodded yes and before long Sister Christine, who was born in the
Year of the Tiger in 1947, had made a phone call to St. Ann’s Church in
Marietta. Parishioners there supplied the woman with blankets and money for
baby supplies.
“There are so many little ways to help people keep their babies,”
said Sister Christine, whose petite frame masks her almost larger-than-life
history of ministering to the most down and out.
Those in the Vietnamese refugee community face many challenges like this one
as they carve out new lives in the United States. There are other problems,
such as the breakdown in many families which has led to increased gang activity
among the young, alcoholism and addiction among many males and overwhelming
stress for working mothers who try to make ends meet. There is also the
isolation that many elderly Vietnamese encounter because they often don’t
speak English and possibly have yet to heal from the psychological wounds
suffered under the communist dictatorship which drove them from their homeland.
Sister Christine hopes to find “more hands and more hearts” to
help in her ministry to the Vietnamese by making herself available to speak to
churches and civic groups interested in Good Shepherd Services.
Good Shepherd Sisters, like Sister Christine, work with the marginalized in
society. The order, which St. Mary Eurphasia started in France in 1835, has a
history of over 150 years in the United States. The Chamblee center in a
residential neighborhood off Buford Highway has served the diverse needs of the
area’s Vietnamese, most of whom are not Christian, since its humble
beginning in Sister Christine’s two-room apartment in 1993.
The programs that started with and continue under Sister Christine now run
out of two homes and a garage which have been converted into offices and
classrooms. Among the staff of seven, who ministered to over 4,000 clients last
year, four are outreach workers who serve as translators when needed or who
check up on clients in their residences.
Volunteers also aid in the center’s programs, which include individual
counseling, parenting and English as a Second Language classes, helping young
Vietnamese children with their schoolwork and providing the elderly with
meaningful work through a community garden.
The volunteers also teach a five-week summer school session to children from
the Vietnamese community, under the direction of Sister Marilyn Kahl, RGS.
“We’re able to do as much as our resources allow us to do,”
said CEO Nancy Stanton, who draws inspiration from the refugees’
“tremendous courage and willingness to change, and how they see
opportunities and appreciate opportunities.”
A former executive director of Girl Scouts in Northeast Georgia, Stanton
finds her new position in social services “challenging” and works to
meet the needs of the center’s clients. Currently their needs include a
copier with sorting capabilities, a plain paper fax, a display case for their
clients’ handiwork and a vehicle for volunteer Dawn Vu, who has come from
her home in Orlando, Fla., to work at the center for a year.
Volunteers are also needed for the children’s after-school program,
which runs from 3-6 on weekdays, and for ESL classes. Stanton said that there
is more flexibility in the after-school program, which tutors elementary
through high school students, since volunteers can come weekly or a couple
times a month. The ESL program requires a weekly commitment for two to three
months at a time.
Learning English is important for the refugees who live here. Stanton
commented on how tiring “the struggle to communicate is and how it can
drive you into isolation.”
Children are quicker to pick up the English language since they have more
exposure to it in public schools, she said. They are also quick to pick up
other things.
“Children grasp the (American) culture more than adults,” Stanton
said. “This is widening the gulf between generations.”
This trend jeopardizes the family unit. Sister Christine sees a cycle in
many families in which the youth do not want to learn Vietnamese but lean
toward English and American culture.
“They can’t speak in the native tongue of their families,”
she said. “They dye their hair and think society will accept them as
American. The family gets upset, the community sees them as bad kids and they
feel like they don’t belong anywhere.”
Poor communication among family members ensues and many youth join gangs.
One way Sister Christine tries to break this cycle is by offering a cultural
enrichment program where the youth learn the Vietnamese language, traditional
songs and dances and participate in Vietnamese festivals so that they retain
and respect their heritage.
“Once they can accept who they are, then they can adapt to the culture
much better,” Sister Christine said.
Good Shepherd Services expanded its ministry to the Vietnamese population
when it opened a center in Gwinnett County last March.
Brigitte Nguyen, program coordinator at the Lilburn center, said that when
the center first opened, attendance was low.
“But now people have started to come. We help one person and then they
tell another.”
The center hopes to provide youth with a positive alternative to joining
gangs. The youth now have a place to go after school since many of their
parents work. Those attending the center try to improve their language skills.
“Those (youth) who come here, their speaking is good because they are
at school most of the day talking with friends, but they need help with writing
and grammar.”
Nguyen said the center needs volunteers who have other skills such as in
art, sports, singing and cooking that they can teach the youth.
“We can’t make them study all the time,” she said.
Nguyen understands the challenges the Vietnamese face.
Sponsored by her brother, who came to the United States in 1975 when the
communists took over Vietnam, Nguyen arrived in California in 1991. She moved
to Atlanta in 1993 because of a stronger job market.
Some Vietnamese who have lived in the United States for awhile now have
trouble when speaking Vietnamese. She has the advantage of speaking both.
“I know the customs and culture which make it easier to help refugees
who come here.”
Nguyen also knows how overwhelming leaving one’s homeland can be.
“We leave a lot of memories and whatever valuables (in Vietnam) and
start everything over again.”
This ministry to the Vietnamese grew out of one of the many
“messes” Sister Christine has gotten herself into during her
lifetime. She recalls leaving behind an exclusive boarding school in France,
where her father had sent her to prepare for medical school, to work with the
poor as a Good Shepherd Sister. Newly received, she was assigned a job no one
else wanted--to rehabilitate 20 prostitutes.
She has found herself, along with eight other Religious and 167
polio-handicapped children, having to hide in a Saigon hotel in 1975 as
American soldiers began withdrawing from the city.
And Sister Christine, while working in a refugee camp on the island of Chi
Ma Wan, advocated for the start of a Vietnamese restaurant which the Salvation
Army said could not be done given the scarcity of supplies.
In instances like these, she has relied on her faith. She tells God, “I
make a mess and you pick it up.”
And between the two of them, miracles have happened. Sister Christine,
although she says she was “young and new and had the advantage of being
stupid,” mixed easily with the poor and changed the lives of the
prostitutes by “always doing something to show I cared.”
She, the other Religious and children found refuge in Kyoto, Japan, and
later helped to find foster homes for the children in the United States. And
the refugees’ restaurant was so successful that her model was used in
other refugee camps.
But Sister Christine’s focus today is not on past accomplishments but
rather on how she can better minister to the emotional, spiritual and physical
well-being of those in the Vietnamese community.
“One person can do a lot and can influence others,” she said.
Good Shepherd Outreach Services is located at 2426 Shallowford Terrace,
Chamblee 30341, telephone (770) 455-9379.
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