My Life with God in and out of the Church

This excerpt of chapter 12 reveals my reflections on God's Providence
 while I provided relief assistance to countless refugees as reported in my book   
  

  In mid-February 1968, out of the blue, a voice over the phone called me, not from heaven but from Washington, DC. The US Agency for International Development (USAID), where I had sent my resume in October, informed me that recent battles in Vietnam had driven a near million refugees from their homes. USAID was hiring people to provide these refugees with clothing, shelter and food. Did I want to help? Without hesitation, I answered, "Yes."

           On May 16,  I boarded a plane and headed for Vietnam. In Hong Kong, we transferred airlines because US planes flying over Vietnam were prime targets for the communist gunners. Two hours later I landed safely in Saigon on May 18. Vietnamese soldiers swarmed the airport to protect the passengers and runways from communist saboteurs. On route to the Oscar Hotel, which would be my home for the next six months, I noticed the barbed wire barricades and soldiers around all government buildings. A solitary soldier guarded our hotel lobby.

          That evening, my first in Vietnam, noise sounding like fireworks startled me. Curious I climbed to the roof for a look-see. The entire city of Saigon surrounded me: the red brick Catholic church on my right; an outlet of the mighty Mekong river on my left; bars, where GI’s sought solace, in front of me; and the cacophonous cries of nervous animals in the zoo behind me. On the streets, the noisy sputtering of cyclos sounded like the rat-a-tat of machine guns. Flares lit up no-man’s-land across the river. Suddenly shells swished overhead, streaking towards their targets. Caution quickly quelled my curiosity and sent me scurrying to my room...

          In other US wars, soldiers fought battles on open fields and desert sands but not so in the Vietnam War. There our forces engaged the enemy where he was: in and around villages and towns. Those fierce fights killed and wounded not only combatants but also civilians. Between 1965 and 1975, the battles claimed the lives of 247,600 civilians and caused injuries, like loss of limb, to some 900,000 other victims. In addition, millions had to leave their livelihood and homes.

          In tears and near despair, the survivors rushed to the nearest refugee camp set up and secured by the South Vietnamese government with US support. There the displaced persons received shelter and blankets, water and food, medical care and protection. These camps were not sumptuous resorts but empty government buildings or US army tents. Overcrowded, they provided zero privacy and quiet. It seemed that the crying of children and the moaning of mothers never ceased. In these noisy and cramped camps, refugees remained: the lucky ones for only weeks; the less fortunate, for months; and the desperate, for years. All yearned to return home.

           Their dreams became reality only after the South Vietnamese and US forces drove away the communist terrorists. Then the refugees hurried back home to rebuild their lives. They received metal roofing sheets, rice seed, and food for six months. Soon they resumed a near normal life.

          Not so, thousands of in-camp refugees whose native villages remained under communist control. These people had to resettle on new land, sometimes within walking distance of their rice fields, but often hundreds of miles away. For these exiles, the South Vietnamese Government, always with US funds, cleared land, dug wells, and built homes creating new hamlets in secure areas. Thousands of refugees cleared out of dreary and crowded camps to begin a new life on open fields under God’s glorious sky.

          I visited many such resettlement sites because, as chief of USAID’s refugee division, I had to know firsthand the condition and needs of Vietnam’s refugees. Today, I still remember one such visit in 1972 to the newly created hamlet of Suoi Nghe in Phuoc Tuy Province. Earlier in March 1967, all Vietnamese farmers living near the 17th  parallel, which separated North and South Vietnam, were moved ten miles south to Cam-Lo village. All efforts to transform this area into a viable habitat failed. The arid soil produced no food and the isolated location provided no jobs. Helpless and hopeless the refugees languished in misery. Five years years later, in January 1972, American planes transported 851 refugee families of Cam-Lo to Suoi Nghe, some 500 miles south. With renewed energy and hope, the refugees built homes and surrounded them with gardens. During my October 1972 visit there, refugee Mr. Tran showed me his red-skinned sweet potatoes, long cucumbers dangling from vines, yellow sweet corn, papaya and banana trees dripping with fruit.

          At that moment, Mrs. Tran, with six children in tow, emerged from the garden with a handful of marigolds for me. “Thank you for your visit,” she said. I bowed my head in gratitude and asked her, “Do you like it here?” Smiling she answered, “Compared to Cam-Lo, this is heaven. Up North, I prayed to God everyday for help. This year he answered my prayers and rescued my family from the communist demons. When we arrived here empty-handed, I continued my prayers to God. In response, he gave us housing materials and food. He also sent abundant and timely rain for my flowers and fruit. Just look at this garden!”

          Moments later, the helicopter, taking me home, raised a cloud of dust and whacked the air. The noise prevented conversation aboard but not reflection upon Mrs. Tran’s comments. Like many other Vietnamese refugees, Mrs. Tran gave God credit for the entire refugee relief. She believed that God intervened directly to provide assistance, be it with rice or rain. Such God-fearing refugees, like the Hebrews in the Bible, attributed their rescue from misery and their subsequent survival to Divine Providence.

          Like Noah’s wife in the ark, Mrs. Tran believed that God produced rain when and where he wished. The Bible reports that God started the deluge simply by “opening the windows of heaven.” Mrs. Tran knew nothing about the many enormous forces of nature that produce and deliver rain. She never heard of air mass, fronts and low-pressure areas. Such knowledge, however, would not have affected her faith in Divine Providence. God manages the rain-making forces of nature as easily as opening the windows of heaven. Either way Mrs. Tran’s marigolds got rain thanks to God.

           As for delivering rain, so for providing assistance to Vietnamese refugees, the process was enormous and complex. From 1968 to April 1975, (my years in Vietnam) the governments of South Vietnam and the United States provided assistance to 7,702,800 refugees. That relief effort cost the American people 100 million dollars each year. It involved estimating the number of refugees, their needs and the cost of relief assistance to them. It required that the US Congress appropriate the funds. Then followed the purchase of relief supplies in the US, their shipment to Vietnam, and their distribution to every refugee camp and resettlement site. This delivery required military escort to remove land mines and ward off ambushes along the way. The entire process involved thousands of Vietnamese and American workers, including me, a mere cog in the huge machinery of refugee relief.

          This complex operation remained unknown to Mrs. Tran as was the invisible process of rain-making. She only saw the relief worker handing out rice and the gray cloud dropping rain. Without more information about the relief operation and the rain, Mrs. Tran and others accepted the simple religious explanation that both blessings came from God. Behind the relief worker and the cloud, the Divine Shepherd took care of his faithful flock.

          The success of Suoi Nghe also depended on the hard work of many relief workers, notably the new chief of the resettlement of refugees, Doctor Phan Quang Dan. He personally planned and directed the resettlement in Suoi Nghe. When the refugees arrived in January 1972, they found a new water supply, electricity, a dispensary, and home sites. They received metal sheets for roofing, a six month supply of rice as well as farm tools and funds to build their homes. Doctor Dan saw to it that the refugees received all necessary food, medical care and supplies on time. Doctor Dan made Suoi Nghe succeed.

          In contrast with Suoi Nghe, some resettlement sites, those established before Dan took over refugee assistance, were not havens of prosperity and peace. Here the refugees had little or no fertile soil to grow rice. Moreover they had no job opportunities to earn a livelihood and they often received dirty rice and poor medical care. At one of these miserable sites, Mrs. Le bitterly complained to me about the officials who ignored and neglected the refugees.

          For years Mrs. Le had seen no signs of divine intervention and eventually lost faith in God’s Providence. In Suoi Nghe, however, Mrs. Tran had received many blessings and believed more than ever that God took care of his children. During my priestly ministry and for sometime after leaving the Church, I too believed that God intervened in human lives. But after witnessing the misery of a million refugees, I began to doubt Divine Providence. I would seek a definitive answer under the stars, my peepholes into heaven. Hopefully through them, I would see whether God passively observes what happens on earth or whether he actively intervenes in the normal course of events to influence their outcome.

            Immediately after the Big Bang, gases and dust particles scattered far and wide and in time coalesced to form ten billion trillion stars. After a while, all gathered in various galaxies, such as our Milky Way. In this galaxy, one of its billion stars is our sun. About 4.6 billion years ago, nine planets formed and rotated around the sun. The earth settled in an orbit about 93,000,000 miles from the sun, where it would not be too hot nor too cold for organic life. The scientists agree that this mind-boggling expansion of the primeval atom and the perfect positioning of the earth’s orbit around the sun could have happened without outside help. Though God’s intervention was logically required for the creation of the primeval atom, perhaps he need not intervene again to form and position the planets and the stars. Needed or not, if God did intervene only once, hallelujah; if more often or possibly at every step, a million hallelujahs.

          Around 4.5 billion years ago, the newly formed earth looked like a round barren rock, without water and vegetation - not a single blade of grass. Then, as the earth’s center heated up, chemicals rose to the surface and formed life-giving water. About 3.6 billion years ago, the first living things appeared on earth - the one-celled bacteria. Three cheers for those brave little critters!

          About 1,100 million years ago, coral, jellyfish and worms lived in the sea. Around 410 million years ago, forests grew in swamps while fish, including sharks, swam in salt or fresh water, as they chose. Later the first reptiles and insects appeared. In 240 million years ago, turtles, crocodiles and dinosaurs enjoyed life on earth. Later the first birds joined the fun and, in 138 million years ago, red and yellow flowers decorated the earth. By 55 million years ago, horses, monkeys and whales strutted their stuff. Around 24 million years ago, apes appeared in Asia and Africa. Then at long last, about 1.8 million years ago, the first humans walked, chipped stones and hunted - not far from my stamping grounds in Uganda.

          During this wondrous evolution, did God ever have to intervene whether for every leap in life or only for major changes, as from apes to humans? Scientists believe that the primeval atom of our universe had the potential for indefinite evolution. While accepting this possibility, I still praised God for the evolution of his creation - the primeval atom. But I still wondered whether God had intervened actively in its evolution? How often? How much?

          Looking for answers, I focused momentarily on the mighty forces of nature. Watching the sun rise in the morning to sustain life on earth, I thanked God for creating whatever had produced that magnificent source of energy, warmth and light. But apparently the sun’s furnace does not require continuous stoking from God. Later in the day, when clouds dropped invigorating rain on my raspberries and roses, God need not personally turn on heaven’s sprinklers. Similarly, God may not activate and regulate the other forces of nature. He gave them the needed jump-start at the Big Bang and now they operate on their own.

          Sometimes, however, the formidable forces of nature cause widespread destruction. Is God involved in that? The Bible clearly answers yes and reports many deadly divine interventions, such as when “the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire, overthrowing those cities and all their inhabitants and what grew on the ground.” But the Bible’s most dramatic story of an angry God destroying humans and nature appears in Genesis, chapter 6 and 7. In the scribe’s very words, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth....And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘ I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created - people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air....I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life, everything that is on the earth shall die.’... As commanded by God, Noah went into the ark with his family and a male and female of every animal, bird and everything that creeps on the ground....Then the windows of the heavens were opened and the rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights....The waters rose above the mountains....All flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals and all swarming creatures....Only Noah was left and those that were with him in the ark.” That’s the story in the Bible. I believed none of it. God, as I now conceived him, would never intervene and unleash nature’s powerful forces in order to destroy humans. My God was not a Hitler, nor a Stalin but someone like Jesus of Nazareth.

           While believing in God’s love, I did sometimes wonder why he did not intervene and check nature’s forces whenever they ran amok and threatened the lives of innocent people. Since God created those forces, he could control them. On August 24, in the year 79 AD, Mt. Vesuvius erupted and buried the city of Pompeii in 60 feet of lava and ashes, killing 16,000 people. God could have vented the volcano in some other way. Why didn’t he intervene then? Later in August 1931, when the swollen waters of the Huang He River leveled its levees and flooded China’s countryside, 3,700,000 people died. God could have contained the killing flood somehow; but he didn’t. Why not? Then on November 13, 1970, a furious cyclone ravaged Bangladesh and killed 300,000 people. Surely God could have saved those helpless victims; but he didn’t. Why not? Just as God allowed the forces of nature to determine their course of action during the formation of the universe and the evolution of life, so also now he lets nature operate normally even when animals, plants and humans die. Death is natural to all living things on earth.

          When people are murdered, however, not by blind forces of nature but by ego-maniacs, it’s harder to understand why God does not intervene. From the 1930s to 1953, Joseph Stalin secured his position as top dog in the Soviet Union by “purge” trials and the execution of several million people. One lightning bolt from heaven would have stopped Stalin in his bloody tracks. God did nothing. Meanwhile in Germany, another tyrant, Adolph Hitler, ordered the Holocaust of six million Jews, God’s favored people in the Bible. God saw the grayish smoke rising from the furnaces of Auschwitz. One Biblical downpour could have doused those hellish fires and drowned the satanic monster in Berlin. But God did nothing. Just as God does not spare the victims of nature’s physical forces, so God does not save the victims of mass murderers and other criminals. He allows creatures to act according to their nature which, in man, includes free choice for weal or woe.

          Apparently God did not intervene even when the victims of murderers prayed for help. In the garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus foresaw his impending arrest and crucifixion, he threw himself on the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” In an earlier account, the Bible says, “ At the east gate of the garden of Eden, God placed the cherubim and a sword flaming and turning to guard its entrance.” That same God could have positioned another cherubim and sword flaming and turning at the garden of Gethsemane and prevented Judas and an armed mob from entering. But God did not intervene. Later, soldiers flogged Jesus, crowned his head with thorns and crucified him. God watched the long agony of Jesus and never intervened.

          Thirty years later, Nero, the infamous Roman ruler, condemned the followers of Jesus to confront lions in the Colosseum. The Christians surely prayed to God, perhaps in the very words of Jesus, “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” Centuries earlier, when Daniel was thrown into the den of lions, “God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouth so that they would not hurt Daniel,”- so says the Bible. But now, to save the Christians from Nero’s lions, God did not intervene.

          Nor did God intervene many years later to save the millions facing death in Hitler’s and Stalin’s concentration camps. The God-fearing people among them must have prayed and pleaded with God for deliverance. But God did not intervene and save them. Why not?

          Before I could answer that burning question, another had already scorched my mind. If God did not intervene to save innocent people from murder even as they prayed for deliverance, why should he heed the prayers of people seeking help in the everyday events of life? People pray for everything: for sunshine on a picnic, for success in exams, for a raise in salary - even to win the lottery. They hope that God will intervene because it is so easy for God to grant a request. Why wouldn’t their heavenly Father help them?

          Could the answer be that God allows his original creation of the universe to develop and evolve on its own? Could the primeval atom have the potential for indefinite progress without further intervention from God? Very probably God did not intervene to set off stars and position their planets. Most probably God did not intervene to jump-start life on earth. Certainly God does not originate hurricanes and tornados, nor earthquakes and floods. Very probably God did not intervene to fashion billions of new species on earth, including that of humans. Moreover God does not intervene to prevent their extinction, as that of the dinosaurs. God does not intervene when animals feed on one another, like lions on gazelles. Not does God intervene when humans brutally kill one another.

          If for thirteen billion years God did not intervene to cause or prevent the dramatic and cataclysmic events of the universe, why should he intervene in the everyday events of humans, even when they pray? Why should God make an exception to his universal policy and practice of non-intervention, just because humans pray? Some people believe that God never intervenes in the events of the universe. Others believe that God does intervene whether all the time or only sometimes.

          For fifty years, in a Church that swears by the Bible, I strongly believed that God intervenes in human affairs and natural events. I had attributed to divine intervention many blessings in my life. But now, after much reflection, I came to the conclusion that God does not originate or prevent natural and human disasters like hurricanes and holocausts. God does not intervene in the everyday events of human existence even when people pray for help. Perhaps God never intervenes. While not believing that God intervenes in the world, I do not deny that he does. What God is and what he can do and what he does is beyond human comprehension. I never deny what I cannot see or understand.

          In summary, I believe that dependent beings, such as everything in the universe, need an eternal independent Being at the start. I also accept the possibility that all dependent beings may depend on God for continued existence and development and action. We cannot know how totally dependent we are on God. I praise and thank God not only for his creation of the universe but for whatever else he has done or is doing for us all. I shall never forget or take for granted God’s goodness in starting and sustaining our existence - hallelujah!...

         On April 30, 1975, as I flew out of Saigon, I recalled my first flight to Vietnam in 1968. Then, my faith in God’s Providence was childlike and simplistic, based entirely on the teachings of the Church. Now my view was more complex but more mature, rational and realistic. Like a jeweler cutting diamonds, I ground my belief of divine intervention into 10 facets, just as Moses reduced God’s moral code into 10 commandments.

          1. My reason says that our universe did not emerge from nothing because what does not exist cannot make something exist. The world came from a being who never was nothing but always was. In a word, God is eternal. Moreover the wonders of the world proclaim his infinite power and intelligence.

          2. Today’s best scientists believe that our universe began as a small mass of infinite density. They calculate that the primeval atom or nodule exploded about 15 billion years ago and spewed out dust particles and gases. These eventually formed galaxies of stars like our sun with its planet earth.

          3. According to all scientists, the formation of the universe after the initial explosion could have resulted entirely from the innate potential and force of the dust and gases issuing from the original nodule.

          4. Accepting that probability, human reason does not require God’s direct intervention in the development of the universe. He need not intervene to form stars in the sky and water on earth. Nor need God intervene to form the many species of living beings on earth, including humans.

          5. The Almighty, who had intervened to create the first nodule of our world, then watched its expansion and evolution apparently without further intervention. But God, as I conceived him, could have intervened at any time for whatever reason. We shall never know if he did.

          6. There is no evidence that God intervenes when natural disasters develop and erupt, such as earthquakes and hurricanes. In my vision of God, which contradicts the Bible’s version, he never intervenes to start these disasters simply to punish humans. They happen naturally.

          7. Moreover, my God does not intervene to start or stop man-made disasters such as the Inquisition, the Holocaust and wars. Nor does he intervene to initiate or prevent the daily crimes of murder, rape and abuse.

          8. Many good things happen everyday in the universe like sunshine and rain. God could but need not intervene. If God should ever intervene in nature or in our lives, his presence and action would never be visible and tangible. God is spiritual beyond all human perception.

          9. Living things on earth are born with the ability to survive with help from the environment. With sunshine and fertile soil, the oak tree grows and lives. After suckling its mother’s milk for awhile, the lion finds food entirely on his own. God does not seem to intervene in the lives of animals and fish, butterflies and birds, flowers and trees.

          10. Why need he intervene in the lives of his most gifted creatures - us humans? I firmly believe that God lets humans survive and develop the best they can, getting help from and giving help to one another. God’s Providence is always coordinated with or is none other than humans lending a helping hand to one another.  

       As I ventured into the next chapter of my life, I believed that the creator of the world expects all creatures to rely first upon themselves and then on their environment while helping others in need. God would remain behind the scene. Just the thought that he was there spurred me on to help others during the rest of my life from 1976 to 2000.  

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