Renewing Hope Amid Desperation

When Communist Pathet Lao Forces liberated Laos in 1975, Professor Pheng and three tenured colleagues were dismissed from their university teaching positions and sent to work on a communal farm. Soon his coworkers were arrested and sent to a remote northern province for re-education. Pheng knew then that he was next. So, on a moonless night, he pushed the pirogue carrying his wife and five daughters off the Lao shore toward Thailand. In the hot, crowded Thai refugee camp, Pheng heard about God’s love and accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. The night before he left camp to emigrate to Canada, he brought his wife to the Kaetzel’s home to say good-bye. With moist eyes, he said, “Missionary, if we’d never had to leave Laos, we’d never have met Jesus.”

After Laos was liberated by the Communists, Ollie and Winnie Kaetzel, (missionaries with The Christian and Missionary Alliance) followed the Lao people from their mountain rice fields to the hot crowded refugee camps on the Thai border, and on to immigration in the USA, ministering God's love and training Christian leaders all the way.