37 Baptisms Cap Refugee Sponsorship
Episcopal News Service. February 2, 1984 [84015]
GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (DPS, Feb. 2) -- On Jan. 8, 42 persons, 37 of them Vietnamese "boat people", were baptized at St. Anselm's of Canterbury Episcopal Church here.
The baptism was the culmination of three years of catechesis under the leadership of Dr. Duc Xuan Nguyen, chaplain to St. Anselm's Refugee Center and a candidate for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church.
The congregation of St. Anselm's provided sponsors for the 37 Vietnamese, and in so doing marked a new dimension in the concept of refugee sponsorship.
Oldest among the new Christians is a 70-year old man who was baptized with three of his grandsons. His daughter, mother of the three boys, had been urging her father to be baptized for 20 years.
The newly baptized comprise the core of the Vietnamese congregation being formed under the leadership of Duc in conjunction with St. Anselm's and the Diocese of Los Angeles, the first such congregation in the Anglican Communion.
The service was in both English and Vietnamese. Duc has prepared a Vietnamese translation of the Book of Common Prayer's Baptismal Office, (printed facing the English language version), which is now being tested nationwide.
In his sermon the rector, the Rev. M. Fletcher Davis noted that: "1984 is a time of new beginnings for St. Anselm's" which will include the formation of the new congregation, ordination of a new priest, the expansion of the parish's existing facilities to house the new congregation, and the search for a new rector.
"The waters of baptism always recall the sacred history of the Israelites fleeing political persecution through the waters of adversity into the promised land", Davis said. "This baptism assumed enriched associations because the Vietnamese candidates have fled political persecution through the adverse waters of the South China Sea and Gulf of Thailand where members of their families perished en route to their promised land."