Meeting James Bond

Laotian church 3
Originally uploaded by eandjtrygg.

“Do you speak Thai or Lao?”

“Neither,” I said. “I know some Spanish, but that doesn’t help much here.”

Crystal Nachampassack was understandably confused as to why a white guy would sit through an entire church service in a language he didn’t understand.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, while Jeanie and her longtime friend Karen were worshipping in the English-language service in the auditorium, I was covering the Laotian- and Thai-language service in the fellowship hall at the South MacArthur Church of Christ in Irving, Texas.

It wasn’t the first time I worshipped with Christians in a language that was foreign to me. There always are similarities. Several of the hymns were translations of songs I know in English — including “Our God, He Is Alive” (better known to many of us as the legendary “728b”).

But the songs I really enjoyed hearing weren’t familiar to me at all. They were distinctly Asian, and the congregation seemed to sing them with more volume and emotion.

There were about 95 people in the service. A few were from Thailand, but most came to the United States from Laos, a landlocked country in Southeast Asia that became communist 30 years ago this week.

Getting here wasn’t easy. Many were put in education camps by the government. Life was hard.

Crystal swam across the Mekong River to reach the border of Thailand in the early 1980s. She was pregnant with one child and carried another on her back. Today she’s a financial adviser in the Dallas area and spends her free time helping her fellow Laotians who settled in north Texas. She held her granddaughter in her lap through the whole worship service.

I talked to a few other members of the church, including a Laotian man who came to the United States from a refugee camp in Thailand in 1979.

I asked him to spell his name — slowly. I figured it would be something like Nachampassack. He gladly obliged.

“First name: J-A-M-E-S. Last name: B-O-N-D”

“Wait a minute. You’re name is James Bond?”

“Yes.”

He changed his name when he came to the States. He wanted something short and easy to remember.

“So you picked James Bond?”

“Yes.”

I asked him if he was a fan of the films and got another “yes.”

Bond was introduced to Christianity here and said that the faith appealed to him because “it teaches us the way, how to live.” He would love to return to Laos some day, but in the meantime he’s doing what he can to spread the light to the community of Laotians living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Thousands of miles from the land where they were born, they have found a faith, raised families and rebuilt their lives.

They’ve never forgotten their homeland, but they’ve carved out new homes in a new land. They love the Lord and they show by helping each other and reaching out to their communities.

Those things don’t require translation.