Chung family. - Where the wind leads: a refugee familys miraculous story of loss, rescue, and redemption

PRAISE FOR WHERE THE WIND LEADS

Desperation. Overwhelming odds. Heroic rescue. This story has all the elements of great fiction. But it is not fiction; it is real life. The account of Dr. Chung and his family will inspire you to believe in second chances and miracles and the God who gives them both.

MAX LUCADO
New York Times BEST-SELLING AUTHOR

I love true stories, and Dr. Chungs is the best Ive read in a long time. Its packed full of family drama, plus really engaging recent world history, and it is woven from beginning to end with the consistent theme of Gods sovereign mercy. This kind of real-life rescue story makes reality television pale by comparison!

LISA HARPER
AUTHOR AND WOMEN OF FAITH SPEAKER

Where the Wind Leads is an incredible adventure story of loss and survival, rescue and resilience. Once I started to read it, I simply could not put it down. Its a fascinating account of family life in warring Vietnam, but even more so its an amazing tale of how Gods grace can bring an individual, and a family, from certain death to flourishing life.

LEIGHTON FORD
PRESIDENT, LEIGHTON FORD MINISTRIES

Where the Wind Leads is a remarkable story of determination, dedication, resilience, and ultimate success. It is truly inspiring!

SANDY SANDERS
MAYOR, CITY OF FORT SMITH, ARKANSAS

Where the Wind Leads

2014 Vinh Chung

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Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by W Publishing, an imprint of Thomas Nelson.

Published in association with the literary agency of Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.
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Quotations in chapter 37 are reprinted with permission of the American Legion Magazine, June 2013. www.legion.org.

The photograph of Clifford Pier is believed to have been taken in the early 1960s or late 1950s and is from Memories of Singapore, http://www.singas.co.uk.

Map Design: Kelsey Downs. All maps used are public domain.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are from the English Standard Version. 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are from Holy Bible, New Living Translation. 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

978-0-529-10554-7 (IE)

ISBN 978-0-8499-2295-4 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chung, Vinh, 1975

Where the wind leads : a refugee familys miraculous story of loss, rescue, and redemption / Vinh Chung with Tim Downs.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-8499-4756-8 (hard cover)

1. Chung, Vinh, 1975Family. 2. Chung family. 3. ChineseUnited States. 4. Chinese Americans. 5. ChineseVietnam. I. Downs, Tim. II. Title.

CT274.C496C58 2014

920.0092951dc23

2013039729

14 15 16 17 18 RRD 7 6 5 4 3 2

For my mother and father:
Thank you for your courage and sacrifice.

CONTENTS

by Richard Stearns

A FEW YEARS AGO A YOUNG DERMATOLOGIC SURGEON contacted me with something important to say. Over the phone that day, Vinh Chung told me one of the most amazing stories I had ever heard. This story is so precious to me because, as the president of World Vision US, I work to change the lives, literally, of millions of children every day. But I rarely hear the rest of the story thirty years later. The story of Vinh Chung is what I hope and pray for every vulnerable child.

The story you are about to read is the one I was told. It is the thrilling account of Vinh Chung and his familys harrowing journey from Vietnam to the South China Sea to the Deep South in Arkansas and eventually to the halls of Harvard. It is the story of a family who faced political persecution, who were forced to leave behind everything they had and take incredible risks to start a new life. Vinhs family, miraculously, began their new life from scratch, relying on their resilience and determination, learning a new language and starting new jobs. And then Vinh and his brothers and sisters achieved far more than most families ever dream for their children. Youll also see that Vinh and his family couldnt have made this journey alone. All along the way good people, and many good Christians, intervened with a helping hand.

In 1979, as the new communist regime in Vietnam consolidated its power, families fled by boat in search of a new home. Yet when the lives of hundreds of thousands of these boat people hung in the balance, most of the world decided to look away. Governments, politicians, and citizens wanted to forget the tragedy in the South China Sea.

But World Visions president, Stan Mooneyham, believed he must do something. He believed that God hadnt turned His face from those who were suffering. So Mooneyham wouldnt allow the world to turn away. When he couldnt get others to help, he set out onto the open seas himself. Mooneyham believed that God didnt create any throwaway childrenthat we cannot look away when people are suffering.

As you read and when youve finished reading this book, I hope youll reflect on the bigger picture. We live in a world where hundreds of millions of children like Vinh Chung have been driven from their homes in the last two decades.

Even now, at this moment, children are being driven from their homes in places like Syria, Central African Republic, and the Philippines. Today there are twenty million children living in refugee camps, tent cities, and other temporary shelters. And they are not throwaways either.

A few months ago I sat with refugee children from Syria. They had fled their country, forced to leave by the fighting in their cities. Their homes destroyed, their parents killed, they left simply for the chance to stay alive. Now their future hangs in the balance. Will they have the opportunity to grow up healthy and go to school and live ordinary lives?

Vinhs is the story of onethe incredible potential locked inside one refugee child. But its also the story of every child in the world who is poor, forgotten, and abused, a refugee. Its a story that shows there is no such thing as a throwaway child.

Thirty years ago Stan Mooneyham did something outrageous because he believed that every child is precious and that God has created each of them with potential and gifts and talents. Among our staff at World Vision today, Mooneyhams resolve still resonates as an example of the lengths we must go to make good on our belief that every child is precious. What he didto be frankwas reckless. Yet because Mooneyham wouldnt ignore these children, neither could the politicians who wanted to look the other way.

Mooneyham was only one link in a whole chain of actions that saved Vinhs life, the lives of his family, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others. It required a number of individuals, often strangers, who decided to do something, including the little Lutheran church in Arkansas that chose to adopt a large family of refugees from Vietnam.

Today, when we read in a newspaper about a famine or we watch as diplomats argue about how to resolve an international crisis, it is easy to think that such troubles are too difficult to fix. It is easy to feel helpless in the midst of a complex catastrophe. But the remarkable story told in this book is proof that we can turn the tide. We can shift the worlds attention to those who are suffering. We may not be in charge of a global charity, but we can write letters to members of Congress; we can raise awareness online and in social media; we can donate to worthy causes.