This fall, Brookstone added a touch of diversity to
its face with the addition of 15 Montagnard students from the nearby
Westerly Hills neighborhood.
The
Montagnards are a tribal people, the native inhabitants of the Central
Highlands of Vietnam. They were the allies of the United States
during the Vietnam War, fighting alongside US Special Forces and often
serving as interpreters and guides. Their people suffered tremendously
during the war: 85% of their villages were destroyed and 50% of their
fighting age men were killed. After the war, they continued to pay a
heavy price. Their ancestral lands were seized for state-run
enterprises and they were moved to the least desirable lands in their
mountain home. Many of their leaders were arrested, tortured, and
executed or sent to “reeducation camps.”
The
Montagnards in America are overwhelmingly a Christian people. Large
numbers responded positively to the Gospel when Christian missionaries
shared Christ with them in the early 20th century, and the
good news has spread rapidly through all the tribes since then. In
recent years, whole villages have come to Christ as Montagnard faith has
flourished under Communist persecution.
Many
Montagnards have been legally relocated to Charlotte through the
international refugee program, and they are now working hard to build
lives in their new homeland. Two of Brookstone’s teachers, Steve and
Susanne Parker, have been serving in ministry to the Montagnard
community for the past few years and last year started an afterschool
program in Westerly Hills for some of their children. These are the
students that are now attending Brookstone, and the school is already
making a difference in their lives.
The
Parkers report that some of the students felt out of place in the
public schools and were often bullied. This created a heaviness that
many students carried with them, and it sometimes created challenges
working with the students at afterschool. That has changed this year. The students come to afterschool directly from Brookstone, and there is
no longer a heaviness. Students are smiling, happy, and ready to
engage. “For some,” Susanne Parker said, “it is like the difference
between night and day.”
When
you consider that students have only been at Brookstone for a couple
weeks now, to hear these kinds of positive reports is truly
encouraging. One only wonders at what the ongoing difference will be
for these young lives, and what kind of seeds are being sown that will
make a difference for generations to come.
Contributed by: Steve Parker, middle school math and social studies teacher