Thirty years ago, Cam Hoi Thi Phùng was in a refugee camp with her husband, Chiêu Van Tran. They were Vietnamese refugees who had come to Malaysia by boat. For more than a year they waited. Then Mary and Matthew Dale sponsored them to come to the United States. Cam Hoi and Chiêu then settled in Boise, Idaho, where their sponsors lived.

They were Buddhists from Vietnam and unfamiliar with life in the United States. Although their family had all been Buddhist, at the time there was no Buddhist temple in Idaho for them to worship in familiar surroundings. Instead they attended church—a Christian church—with their sponsors every Sunday. But they did not understand the talk and prayers in this unfamiliar worship setting. "We didn't understand much," Cam Hoi confessed.

The years passed, and they both found jobs with the largest employer in Boise. During that time their lives began to take on a little more American flavor. Like other immigrants before them, they felt comfortable with their own language—Vietnamese—but adapted in many other areas. That required English, of course, but Vietnamese was their language of comfort.

When they discovered Peace in Jesus Lutheran Church, they found the gospel in Vietnamese. The congregation was established as an outreach to the Vietnamese population in Boise, and services were conducted in Vietnamese. After attending and becoming more comfortable, they became friends with Dan Kramer, pastor at Peace in Jesus. He asked if he could come to their home and conduct a Bible study with them. They agreed.

Kramer had developed a Bible study course designed especially to communicate the truths of the Bible to folks from Vietnam. The title of the course is "After the Rain, the Sun Shines Again" (a famous Vietnamese proverb). The entire course teaches the basic doctrines of the Bible by using proverbs as beginning points. Cam Hoi, Chiêu, and their family began to hear and understand the gospel of Jesus in their "heart language." Over time a change also began to take place in their hearts.

Today they still prefer to speak in Vietnamese, and our interview shifted from English to Vietnamese with Kramer translating for me. My first question was, What changed from their Buddhist background to what they had learned from the Bible? Cam Hoi said, "Before I would pray to Buddha, but there would be no answer. Since I have faith in Jesus, God answers my prayers."