Holy Apostles Episcopal Church in St. Paul was an aging congregation that fit the profile of an urban congregation shrinking due to economic changes, said the Rev. William Bulson, vicar. However, the emergence of the Hmong community has brought renewal.

Hmong people, who came originally from the borders of Laos and Cambodia in the region of Southeast Asia, arrived in Minnesota after the Vietnam War. Their ensuing Asian American culture is now a blend of languages and cultural traditions.

Bulson, who has led the parish since 2000, said Holy Apostles was averaging 50-55 people per Sunday, and although attendance would increase in spurts with a “multicultural feel,” there was no permanence.

 “Over time we began to get more African families [and] there were Spanish speaking families here that were longtime members,” he said. “There was also an Ojibway family that had been coming here for about six years and a few Filipino families started attending.”

Congregation reborn

Bulson said when Canon Susan Moss, metro missioner in the Diocese of Minnesota, introduced him to her longtime friend Sy Vang, Holy Apostle’s rebirth began.

“Sy Vang shared with me the difficulties her congregation was having with their replacement priest since their beloved priest, an Anglo priest who was fluent in Hmong, and had been with them for 15 years, died tragically and unexpectedly,” he said.  “A group of them [Hmong] were considering leaving this congregation.”
 
In the fall and winter of 2004, Bulson and Vang started meeting with this group. It was also during this time he said, that some Hmong families would attend Holy Apostles and a few even joined, but the “Hmong culture is like a lot of traditional cultures in that the larger group works together, decides together and acts together.”

Bulson said he reiterated that the doors of the church were open to them and began to have even more conversations with some of the Hmong leaders.

Tidal wave

In early February 2005, Bulson said the “tidal wave started.”

“More and more people had come after their elder said ‘I think I’m going to go to Holy Apostles,’” Bulson said.

By March, he said their attendance doubled and in April the elders and other leaders of the Hmongs handed him a list of 74 families totaling 527 people who will be joining Holy Apostles.

“Now we average about 150 people on Sundays and on Pentecost Sunday [May 15] we baptized four Hmong people and had 240 people in attendance even though the church seats 170,” he said.

The Rev. Dr. Winfred Vergara, missioner of the Episcopal Church Center’s Office of Asian American Ministries, was the celebrant for this service where he preached in the Hmong language and baptized four Hmong people.

“Today, we stand at the edge of mission in the 21st century when American mission is no longer understood to be physically going to the jungles of Africa, the forests of Latin America or the islands of Asia,” Vergara said in his sermon. “Rather, mission is simply opening the door of our hearts and flinging open the door of our churches to receive the peoples that God has brought upon our doorsteps. As we can see today, the Anglo-Europeans are among us, the Africans are among us, the Latinos are among us, the Asians are among us---and pardon the pun, the Hmong are among us. In the beginning is the word and the word is ‘hospitality.”

New faithful

Bulson said a date is being set by Bishop James L. Jelinek of Minnesota, to receive the Hmong faithful en masse at St. Mark’s Cathedral. Also at the end of June, he and a few others will attend the Episcopal Asian American (EAM) Consultation in Seattle, WA and will be introduced as the first majority Hmong congregation in the Episcopal Church.

Bulson said he is currently studying the Hmong language and that Holy Apostles has begun to integrate the new faithful into positions of leadership and have assembled a team to translate the Prayer Book.

“You’re pretty much left breathless,” Bulson said. “It’s overwhelming, it’s beautiful, it’s frightening, and it’s exciting. The way it probably felt to Moses when he was in front of the pillar of fire or the way it might have felt at the first Eucharist at the last supper when the disciples were sharing Christ Body and Blood. Beauty and sense of one’s smallness; sense of being beloved and provided for.”

According to Census 2000, there are 25,000 Hmong residents at St. Paul’s. However, local Minnesota officials estimate their number to be around 60,000.