Quietly, He Helps Refugees To Adapt

When Van Lam and her mother, Xuan, came to Spokane from Vietnam in 1991, they didn’t know the phone company’s offer to give them a 1-800 number would be so expensive.

But later, with family members calling from Vietnam after a relative’s death, their phone bill for one month was more than $1,000.

It was a simple misunderstanding, rooted in language and cultural barriers.

Luckily, with the help of Valley resident Lowell Brocklehurst, they caught the error.

Brocklehurst counts his role as the family’s sponsor as nothing more than something anyone would do to show newcomers the American ropes.

That role includes taking the Lams to the grocery store and the doctor, helping them with paperwork, giving advice on how to buy a car and offering an ear for listening.

“Oh, I don’t think it’s anything that big,” said the retired manager for Columbia Lighting.

But for the Lams, having someone to help them with concerns in a strange, new world was like having a compass on a wilderness trip.

“Before I came here, I knew nothing about America,” said Xuan, who used to work in a small town’s market in southern Vietnam and who spoke hardly any English.

Now, she’s perusing the aisles of Costco and eating pizza while her daughter attends school full-time at Spokane Falls Community College.

“Lowell is really helping us,” said 26-year-old Van. “One thing I like about him is that he tells me to keep going to school, that I will have a good future if I get an education.”

The Lams are the third family from Vietnam that Brocklehurst has sponsored through his church, Spokane Valley United Methodist.

Brocklehurst said he speaks no Vietnamese, other than a few words he’s learned from the families, and he had no real interest in the country before getting involved.

He just wanted to learn about a new culture.

The first Vietnamese family Brocklehurst sponsored arrived in 1989 and has since moved away. The second group of people came in 1991.

The Lams are the only ones he keeps contact with.

“Typically on a sponsorship you’re done in a year,” says the 68-year old retiree. “With my case, it’s developed into an acquaintance with them.”

It’s more than an acquaintance, it’s friendship.

There was the time that the Lams used a barbecue grill in their apartment during last winter’s ice storm, not expecting to be smoked out like bees. Brocklehurst calmly explained the danger of the situation.

There was the time Van needed advice when looking to buy a new car.

And he was there to listen when Van was searching for her American father who served in the Vietnam War.

But Brocklehurst humbly dismisses his role as nothing more than a Christian act.

“He quietly goes about doing his business and takes care of it if there’s a need,” said Bob Swehla, who attends church with Brocklehurst and worked on the church’s refugee committee which found families to sponsor. “He doesn’t toot his own horn at all.”

What’s been more important to Brocklehurst are the things he’s learned from the families.

Stereotypes have been broken.

“I used to think that (people from Asia) were only hard-working, good students,” he said. “They’re just people, too.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo