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Hmong Refugees Received in First for Anglican Communion

Episcopal News Service. November 21, 2005 [112105-01]

Joe Bjordal, Manager of news and information for the Diocese of Minnesota

[Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota] When 175 Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia, formerly Roman Catholic Christians, were officially received into the Episcopal Church November 3 at St. Mark's Cathedral in Minneapolis, their congregation became the first of its kind in the Anglican Communion.

Holy Apostles is the only predominantly Hmong congregation in the Anglican Communion, according to the Rev. Dr. Winfred Vergara, missioner for Asian American Ministries of the Episcopal Church.

Vergara, whose office has provided both financial and leadership resources to Holy Apostles in recent months, was the preacher at the historic confirmation and reception service.

He told the congregation that if the church is to survive and flourish in the 21st century, "we must be a reflection of the world of many colors, faces and cultures. As on the day of Pentecost, we must become a church of many languages, tribes and nations. Tonight, in this service of reception and confirmation, the Episcopal Church of Holy Apostles in the Diocese of Minnesota has become such a reflection of the beautiful, colorful world in which we find ourselves."

"You have stepped out from the comfort zones . . . and through a radical hospitality opened your doors to a new possibility, the possibility of growth, plurality and diversity," said Vergara. "Tonight the Holy Spirit is here filling us with dreams and visions of what the Episcopal Church is and can be."

Ongoing cross-cultural hospitality, ministry

There comes a point in the service of confirmation and reception when the bishop says, "the candidates for confirmation (or reception) will now be presented." When Bishop James L. Jelinek of Minnesota spoke those words in Hmong, the candidates came forward and filled the crossing and main aisle, awaiting their turn to kneel before a bishop and become an Episcopalian.

It took three bishops 40 minutes to lay hands upon, pray with and receive the new members.

Assisting Jelinek were Bishop Richard Chang of Hawaii and retired Bishop Daniel Swenson of Vermont. Jelinek invited Chang to participate because he one of two Asian bishops in the Episcopal Church, the other being Bishop David Jung-Hsin Lai of Taiwan. Swenson, a former priest in the diocese, regularly assists Jelinek.

Jelinek thought it important to have Chang participate to demonstrate what he terms a "very important distinction." He has frequently pointed out that the history of diversity in the Diocese of Minnesota "is not just about the Anglos welcoming people from other cultures.

"Rather, this has been people of different cultures embracing each other in the love of Christ and for the sake of mission," said Jelinek.

The cover of the order of service for the occasion illustrated the diocese's 148-year-old tradition of ministry shared across cultures: juxtaposed images of Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple (first bishop of Minnesota) baptizing American Indians at Fort Snelling and Sy Vang Lor, one of the new Hmong faithful at Holy Apostles in festive traditional Hmong dress.

Radical hospitality to hundreds

The current story of the Church of the Holy Apostles has recently been told throughout the church. It's the story of a small, struggling congregation that, as Jelinek remarked at the recently- concluded diocesan convention, "heard a knock on the door and opened it to find several hundred people wanting to come inside."

The 175 persons confirmed and received on November 3 are but the core membership of more than 600 adults and children who have started attending Holy Apostles.

The Rev. Bill Bulson, vicar of Holy Apostles, has led the multi- cultural hospitality effort. He has learned the Hmong language. He now presides and preaches in Hmong at the congregation's 11:00 a.m. worship service each Sunday. He is overseeing a team that is translating the Book of Common Prayer into Hmong.

Bulson has been helped in this effort by an already multi-cultural group of lay leaders, whom, he says, seemed to have been "strategically" put in place during the years of struggle. The senior warden is Liberian. The junior warden is Puerto Rican. Others are from Russia, the Philippines and Native American nations. When the opportunity came to expand the already multi-cultural family of Holy Apostles, they were ready.

The congregation is now struggling, once again, but with what Bulson and other lay leaders are calling "wonderful problems." They are out of room and need to expand.

On All Saints Sunday, Bulson baptized 30 persons, most infants and children. It was standing room only.

Reason for church

The Rev. Carolyn Schmidt, rector of the Church of the Holy Cross, Dundas, Minnesota, and an American Indian, attended the service and wrote these words in her parish newsletter the following day:

"The new people do not bring a vast wealth in money. They bring all of the challenges of a new immigrant people. They really are a challenge for the congregation and for our diocese. But this challenge is the reason we have parishes. This is the reason we are the church. We are here to open our doors to all the challenges of the world. We are here to bring in and pray with strangers. We are here to listen to the needs of people and to minister to them, not asking if we can, but trusting."