ARIZONA REPUBLIC, Friday October 3, 1980

Refugee Family From Laos Is Reunited

By Jerry Hickey, Republic Staff

Ling Kon Tsan waited expectantly in the airport terminal, her face reflecting both hope and -months of uncertainty.  Nearby, stood her husband, Chu Nam, and five of their children.  They pressed together as TWA flight 220 passengers began entering the terminal .at Sky Harbor International Airport.  Suddenly, a smiling couple emerged from a 'cluster of passengers.

It was like a scene from a movie with a happy ending.  Ling Kou, 41, was embracing the young woman, Lan Yeng, her 24-year-old daughter, and Chu Nam and the children were huddling around the couple joyfully.  Lan Yeng and her husband, A Ban Yeng, 28,had been separated from the rest of the family since February.  Now, they were reunited.

All nine family members had been in a refugee camp in Thailand until February, when Chu Nam, Ling Kou and the five children came to Phoenix with funds provided by Church World Service.  The Yengs apparently became separated from the family because of red tape that involved confusion about their identification papers.  The nine originally left Laos to escape the communists, and in 1976 they arrived at Nong Khai, a refugee camp in northeast Thailand.  After the Tsan family left the camp, there was a fire in a section of the camp where the Yengs lived, and the couple lost everything.

With the Tsans at the terminal to welcome the Yengs were 15 members of Orangewood Presbyterian Church, 7321 N. 10th St.  The church worked with the Church World Service to have the Yengs brought here.  It helped the Tsans find housing and raised money to assist them with payments for food, rent and utilities.  Church members said that two months after the Tsans arrived, they were self-supporting.

Chu Nam, 43, had been a welder in Laos.  He and his oldest son, Say Djau, 19, work as cooks at the Taiwan Restaurant, 4800 N. Seventh Ave.  Yeng is an electrician by trade.  He and his wife will live with the Tsans.  The Tf3ans moved into a four-bedroom home at 915 W.  Mariposa so the nine family members could live together.

The Tsans' second eldest son, Say Phat, 17, is a sophomore at Central High School.  The other children are daughter, Nhinh Mui, 15, a sixth- grader and a son, Quan Phi, 12, a fifth-grader, both students at Grandview Elementary School, and another son, Thinh Sang, 9, a third-grader at Solano Elementary School.