Before dismissal, some young people petitioned that I be back for another topic, like "Pre-teens and Teens Falling in Love." I didn’t promise, but I did say that if possible, I would be back by July 1986.

***

By the beginning of May 1986, Brother Pierre called me up to ALDER and let me know that he had been invited by CSI (Christian Solidarity International) to make a two-week tour of talks at different parishes in Zurich area on "the Life of Faith in Vietnam after the events of 1975". The lecture was in French and there were at least two translators from French into local languages in Switzerland. Brother Pierre suggested that I take his place because I had lived in Vietnam under the communist system for many years, and in addition, I had experienced about life in the so-called re-education camp. I agreed with one condition that Brother Pierre correct and proofread my French writings.

Mr. Hauftman admonished me to rest one more day at the hotel, and to review the writings I had sent him a few weeks earlier. He said, "Your writings contain lots of lively details. However, I suggest that you skip certain paragraphs where I have put a mark. I think that it would be better that you condensed your talk within fifteen minutes (plus fifteen minutes for translation), then we will spend more times for questions/answers for about twenty minutes (plus twenty minutes for translation). It means that total time for a session would be from sixty minutes to ninety minutes."

Next evening, Mr. Hauftman drove me to a parish. There were about forty middle-aged and ten old men and women gathered into a large room. The presence of some middle-aged bearing more or less professional cameras made me think it was a "press conference" rather than a "sharing about life of faith". I confessed that it was my first "press conference" of this kind. Since Mr. Hauftman had said earlier that "some local journalists would attend the talk and publish it in their bulletins or newspapers," I did prepare my mind for it. I still felt uneasy, firstly because I had to confront an audience totally stranger to me, secondly because the audience had to understand me through a translated language which was not itself my native language. Moreover, the topic of the speech was rather sensitive: "Life of Faith under a communist atheist government."

Beginning the questions/anawers session, a young man said, "On dit que les soldats du Sud-Vietnam sont laâches!" (People said that South Vietnam soldiers were coward.) I didn’t know the real meaning of the word (vocabulary) that young Switzerland man used to describe South Vietnam soldiers, but Mr. Hauftman translated it as laâche in French and it made me mad and angry. However, I did not explode in anger. Rather I tried to retain my composure, then said, "Non! C’est absoluement faux. La preuve c’est qu’il y en a qui combattent jusqu’aø la dernieøre minute, malgreù l’ordre de laisser tomber les armes du soi-disant preùsident Duong Van Minh, et qui se sont suicideùs plutoât que de capituler." (No! Absolutely not! The proof was there were many soldiers who continued to fight until the last minute despite the order of the so-called president Duong Van Minh to give up, and some resigned to suicide rather than to capitulate.) A few seconds later, I asked, "From whom did you hear that ‘one said’?" That young man replied, "We watched television and we saw that South Vietnam soldiers dropped their arms and run away to evade... even years before the events of 1975..." I cut short, "Excuse me! You believe in the partial propaganda rather than the person who had lived and witnessed such tragic circumstances in the battle for freedom and democracy?" Silence.

I felt bitterly sad for my South Vietnam country in general, for its heroic armies in particular. And I realized how the partial propaganda from the communist party and its allies has been that perilous. On the road back to hotel, Mr. Hauftman expressed his comprehension and sympathized with my earlier upset behavior. He said, "You might know it, in Western countries, especially in Europe, people are antipathetic to American Administration, especially its armies in Vietnam. That’s why, European mass media used to propagate bad or negative news about Vietnam war. Moreover, the communist party and/or its allies, i.e. socialist party, etc., help the communist party of North Vietnam. It’s for this reason that Swiss people are more or less misguided on the topic you just talked about." I learned from this sharing in preparing more seriously the "press conference" I was to give during two weeks, thinking ahead about possible questions that the audience could get out from my talk.

Every evening, Mr. Hauftman or Ms. Ellen in turns drove me to several parishes or activity centers from different organizations in Zurich area. The average of people participating at the talk was about seventy. After each session, there was "money collection." One time, before leaving, a lady in her 50’s dropped quickly and neatly a bill into my hands, then whispered, "It’s for you! Do not give it to CSI, keep it for yourself! They are rich enough!"

On the feast of Ascension, there were about three hundred parishioners gathering for the mass. The celebrant pastor suggested that I give the homily. I profited from this occasion to urge the parishioners to praise God for freedom of religion and opportunity to practice his/her belief. I then invited all of them to stay after mass, in the hall of the parish, to be informed about "how Vietnamese Catholics and Christians and of any religion live their faith under the communist atheist government." That was the "press conference" that gathered the highest number of participants.

On an evening, after a "press conference" for a denomination whose center was about 200km from Zurich, I was invited to dinner with the pastor’s family and then overnight at his house. During dinner, we talked about the aerial raid by American Administration against president Kaddafi of Libya. The pastor asked me, "Penses-tu que preùsident Reagan ait droit d’ordonner tels raids aeùriens contre preùsident Kaddafi de Lybie?" (Do you think president Reagan had right to order such an aerial raid against president Kaddafi?) Because the question was so sudden that I felt perplexed about answering. A few seconds later, I replied, "For me, the problem is to find out the most efficient means to stop those persons who abuse their authority and powers, to stop those dictators who used any means in hurting and injuring the innocent or other persons who are not of the same idea, politically and ideologically speaking..." The pastor cut short, "C’est-aø-dire tu n’es pas d’accord avec le moyen que preùsident Reagan a utiliseù contre Kaddafi?" (It’s so to say that you do not agree with the ways president Reagan applied against Kaddafi?) I calmly answered, "Je ne suis pas d’accord avec ce que Kaddafi a fait, par example, kidnapper et garder des gens comme otages. Je ne suis pas d’accord non plus avec Reagan pour ce qu’il a fait comme s’il aurait penseù le meilleur moyen d’arreâter ce que Kaddafi avait fait." (I don’t agree with what Kaddafi had done, for example, kidnapping and keeping other persons as hostages in exchange for his own interests. I don’t agree either with the way Reagan considered the best to meet his goal.) The pastor joyfully exclaimed, "Merci, Freøre, pour n’eâtre pas violent!" (Thank you, Brother, for being non-violent!)

We stopped by in Lausane, to visit my best friend’s father, Mr. Mam, who had been sponsored to the Switzerland by his daughter two years before. We didn’t forget to stop by at the UN Building in Geneva. It was a good opportunity for each one of us to get an idea about what we had heard so many times before: The United Nations!

While waiting for a letter from the American Consulate about my visa, I had been spending a lot of time learning English for TOEFL. It was really hard! Especially the "Listening and Comprehension" part was... terrible! I had tried, anyway, doing tests after tests, repeating the same test many times. At the end of May, I felt "ready" to apply to take TOEFL at an examination center in Paris. The results were rather more disappointing than expected: only four hundred eighty points; I needed forty points more to be admitted!

I wrote to Brother Joseph Mahon, Auxiliary Visitor of the District of Baltimore, sharing my English language concern. Brother Joseph replied cordially and fraternally, and encouraged me, "Do not worry, Valery! You may come earlier to Philadelphia, taking some ESL sessions at the University of Philadelphia to improve your English."

***

By the end of June, 1986, I received from the American consulate a letter setting a rendez-vous date and hour to be interviewed about my visa request. On July 7, immediately after the interview was approved, I received the visa to the USA valid from July 7, 1986 to October 7, 1986, and the number of allowed entries was set to two. It was the first time in my life that I got the visa stamped on the travel documents.

Before handing over to me the travel documents with the visa stamped on it, the officer said, "Par ce visa, vous eâtes seulement permis d’arriver aø n’importe quel aeùroport des Etats Unis, mais eâtre admis ou non d’entrer et de rester dans le territoire des Etats Unis est encore aø eâtre deùcideù par l’officier de l’INS aø cet aeùroport." (With this visa, you are only allowed to come to any airports in the United States of America, but whether to be admitted into and allowed to stay in the territory of the United States still depends on the decision of the INS officer at the airport.) Although I didn’t fully understand the second part of what the officer had said, I held the travel documents into my hands, and once out of the front gate of the American Embassy, I stood for a long time, contemplating the visa stamped on it, and felt really satisfied and self-confident about my next adventure...

My former student, Huy Hoang and his fianceùe, Nga, had decided to celebrate their weddings on August 3, and both of them insisted that I be present to their Joyful and Happy Day. I so came to America Airlines travel agency to book the air ticket destination New York on August 5, 1986.