When we protect the life we have, we risk relinquishing what God really wants for us, to seize our divine destiny.”                    Erwin McManus

 1973 – South Vietnam:  After years of a bloody, unpopular war, the last of the 500,000 U.S. troops left South Vietnam. Within five years, the Vietnamese communist regime occupied Saigon, the country’s capital city, and controlled the entire nation, including the Mekong Delta where Thanh and Hoa Chung lived with their eight children. When the communists confiscated the Chung’s home and successful rice mill company, the family decided to flee their small village rather than starve or be killed.

On June 12, 1979, without knowing what country might take them or if they would even survive the trip, the Chungs, along with 93 other refugees, packed like sardines into an old 37-foot wooden fishing boat. After two days in the South China Sea the engine died, and the boat drifted with the currents. By day five, the refugees were out of food and water and were praying for help.

Although 65% of Americans opposed the decision, in May 1979, U.S. President Jimmy Carter had issued an executive order guaranteeing resettlement in the United States for any Vietnamese refugees found in the South China Sea. Immediately following the directive, Stan Mooneyham, CEO of World Vision, went into action. Because no one else would, and against the advice of several governments and his closest colleagues, he launched Operation Seasweep.

Mooneyham rented an old Honduran oil tanker for $300,000 to help rescue thousands of people fleeing Vietnam by boat. On day six, the Chung’s small boat was spotted by Mooneyham’s crew drifting 120 miles off the Vietnamese coast. They rescued the refugees, fed them, and took them to Singapore.

After the Chungs endured three months in a Malaysian refugee camp, the 100 members of Our Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fort Smith, Arkansas, agreed to sponsor the family. On October 25, 1979, with just the clothes on their backs and never having heard of Arkansas, or spoken a word of English, the Chungs boarded a Boeing 747 en route to Fort Smith.

The church provided the family with a 1,100 square foot three-bedroom house rent-free for six months and helped them apply for food stamps. Thanh found a job making $2 an hour for a fiberglass company. Three months later, he got a job building houses for $4.50 an hour and moved his family to government-subsidized apartments.

In 1983, Thanh landed a job at the Rheem Air Conditioner plant in Fort Smith, and the Chungs bought their first home, a three-bedroom, one-bath brick ranch located in a low-income government-assisted neighborhood. By then, Hoa had given birth to three more children.

In Fort Smith, the Chungs joined the Vietnamese Gospel Baptist Church. When they understood that it was God, and not fate, who had watched over and provided for them during their harrowing journey to their new home, they all became Christians. Despite the stigma of being refugees from a country that many Americans despised, the children learned English and excelled in school.

With the aid of scholarships and part-time jobs, all 15 Chung children went to college. Together they earned 22 university degrees, including five master’s and six doctorates. Today, the group consists of three doctors, two dentists, three business owners, and several engineers.

Vinh Chung, who was three years old when his parents fled Vietnam, graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, Harvard Medical School, and Emory University School of Medicine. Today, he is a dermatological surgeon in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and has received national awards for his advanced treatment of skin cancers. Vinh and his wife have four children, and he serves on the board of directors of World Vision.

More than three million refugees fled Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the 1970s. Since 1950, the leadership of Stan Mooneyham and others like him has helped World Vision transform the lives of children worldwide.

Thanh and Hoa Chung risked everything to find a new home 11,000 miles away in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Although he had been a multimillionaire business owner in South Vietnam, Thanh never earned more than $22,000 a year working at the Rheem factory. Still, he worked there for 23 years to provide a better life for his children. In January 2018, Thanh Chung died at age 81. He was survived by his wife, Hoa, 15 children, and 41 grandchildren.