VIETNAMESE REFUGEES

WHEREAS the issue of Vietnamese refugee settlement concerns everybody and involves the witness of God's Word to all,

WE RESOLVE that each LSM group contact 'the churches in' their area who are sponsoring Vietnamese refugees and help them in any way possible; and

BE IT RESOLVED that the National Council of LSM set up communication networks with LIRS during the year, communicating information to the. local groups and helping establish local programs; and

BE IT RESOLVED that LSM members will remember' the LIRS and the Vietnamese refugees in their prayers through, out the year.

 ACTION TAKEN: Action on the national level was not taken.

Groups with initiative may have worked closely with

sponsors of Vietnamese families in their communities.

The work of settling refugees is not over, yet. The following is an article reprinted form the Pacific Southwest Lutheran, July, 1976:

Sponsors Sought For New Refugees

At a recent meeting the standing committee of the Lutheran Council's department of Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) took action urging that additional refugees be authorized to be paroled into the United States in order to effect family reunions and to alleviate the situation of refuges from Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, numbering more than 70,000 in the camps in Thailand alone. All voluntary resettlement agencies expressed the same concern to Congress and proper officials of the US Government.

The US Attorney General has authorized an additional 11,000 refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos to' come to this country. They will be mostly coming from the refugee camps in Thailand; some from countries where

they are stranded, such as Malaysia, the Philippines, etc., and a few from other countries, on humanitarians grounds, for family reunification purposes.

A year ago when the origin^al wave of refugees from Indochina entered the Untied States, Lutherans were among the first to volunteer their services and resources to help these refugees find homes, jobs and friends in their new land. Lutheran congregations mobilized-in many cases overnight - to resettle 16,000 refugees'. from Cambodia and Vietnam, add 650 from Laos.

LIRS believes that the compassion and strength of the Lutheran congregations are on-going. It is making a nation-wide appeal to congregations to assist in re-settling the Lutheran proportionate share, in all

probability 2000 persons.