News & stories Mennonite leader flees Vietnam, gives thanks for help SALUNGA, Pa. - After fleeing from Vietnam and hiding out for a year in Cambodia, Mennonite house church leader Truong Tri Hien visited the bimonthly board meeting of Eastern Mennonite Missions, December 2, 2005. In translated remarks, Hien thanked the mission for sending workers to his homeland in the 1960s, and for their sponsorship of his immigration to the U.S. "Some plant, some water, but God gives the increase," he quoted. Hien served as the assistant general secretary of the Vietnam Mennonite Church, a "righthand man" to Pastor Nguyen Hong Quang, general secretary of the church. He fled after Pastor Quang was arrested in June 2004, certain that he would also be detained. During his year-long hideout in Cambodia, Hien continued to provide coordination and counsel to the beleaguered Mennonite church in Vietnam via e-mail and cell phone contact, while also requesting and receiving refugee status by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Hien arrived in the U.S. as a refugee on September 27, 2005. His legal background and work in documenting and publicizing government harassment of house churches throughout Vietnam made repatriation unadvisable. As he learns English and adjusts to life in the U.S., Hien is relating to the Vietnamese Gospel Mennonite Church in Allentown, Pa. Hien's close contact to the house church movement in Vietnam and his involvement with religious freedom issues have made him a much-appreciated guest at two recent interdenominational events: a Vietnamese church conference in Houston, and the annual Vietnamese World Evangelical Fellowship in Orange County, California. Hien also testified before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus, October 26. This caucus advocated that the U.S. Department of State continue to retain Vietnam in the category of “country of particular concern” due to restrictions on religious freedom. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced in early November that the U.S. was retaining Vietnam on this list. This exposure is helping to connect Hien with the broader international human rights network as well as keeping the network abreast of present day Vietnam realities. He wants to continue to work with the Mennonite Church. Hien reported that the Mennonite church in Vietnam currently numbers around 12,000. Many of these believers are from the ethnic minority peoples in the central highlands, and many have been won to Christ by the witness of Vietnamese Christians. Given the current restrictions placed on housechurches in Vietnam, Hien said, "One to one evangelism is most effective, and when members are committed to this, the church grows.” -Jewel Showalter