Last week’s horrific images and accounts of America’s military retreat from Afghanistan raised many comparisons with the Fall of Saigon in the 1970s during the Vietnam War. My wife was less than a year old when her parents fled Vietnam.
The unthinkable had happened. America had lost the war and was pulling out quickly. The embassy had been evacuated and expats scrambled to secure the last remaining flights from an airport under siege.
Vietnamese nationals, however, were left behind, including my father-in-law who had risked his life serving in battle alongside U.S. troops. Video footage since released has shown hordes of people held back by frightened soldiers as they pressed against the embassy gates and barbed-war fences. Some clung desperately to the skids of departing helicopters before plunging into the ocean.
As the Americans departed, the Viet Cong began an immediate takeover. Banks and businesses were seized. Families fled with only the money they had in their homes or with tiny bars of gold sewn into their garments. Some ran through the jungle at night and slept during the day. Others bribed boats to take them as far south as possible. Tens of thousands flocked to the southern tip of Vietnam like rats escaping a sinking ship. Overloaded fishing boats then ferried them out into the open sea where many capsized because of the excessive weight and the turbulent waves. Pirates patrolled these exit points as well, stealing what was left of their wealth and committing unspeakable acts against women.
My wife and her family managed to make it onto one of these boats but were stopped by pirates and chased by Communists. They were detained for a time on a supposedly neutral island and made a miraculous escape. They finally arrived at a makeshift refugee camp in Malaysia, where my wife was a sickly baby from lacking sufficient milk. She also stopped breathing at one time and was presumed dead until an acupuncturist stuck a needle into her head. After over a year’s wait, she and her parents won the lottery to come to America and start their life anew.
This past year, as I’ve interviewed friends on the Every Peoples Podcast, I’ve realized that everyone has a story that’s not always been told. We all remember moments of tremendous joy, but also difficult suffering. My wife and I can now look back on the Vietnam refugee crisis through the lens that our God was always in control (Eph 1:11).
In God’s providence as well, the Afghan church is now believed to be the second fastest-growing in the world (Matt 16:18). Our God writes the greater story which encapsulates all of our lives (Rom 8:28-30). Yet at the same time, we have compassion on those who face unknown trauma (Rom 12:15). We then point them to our God who comforts the afflicted and seek to minister in ways that are healing (Matt 5:4). History often rhymes and sometimes even repeats itself. But we trust in the God who is the Author of history and tells a greater story than any of us can comprehend in the moment (John 16:33). Man may forget, but God does not.
My prayer is for the Afghan church to remain faithful, to find comfort in the presence of God, and to continue reaching many souls for Christ (2 Cor 1:3-5). Forty years from now, may we hear their stories as a testimony to God’s greatness and glory as revealed through the prophet Isaiah:
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa 55:8-11).