Neighbors Open Yards In Missouri Town For Thousands of Vietnamese Catholics - Hearts and Minds Are Changed (Marian Days 2010)

Well as I noted earlier today United States Catholics biggest cathering is taking place this week!! Marian Days where about 80,000 people mostly Vietnamese swoop in on the small town of Carthage Missouri. Here is Wikipedia article on it. I really really want to go this one day!! If you like Vietnamese food and music it sounds like Heaven. I will be updating during the next few days with new entries.

This story gives you a slight impression how big of a event it is.

Here is a wonderful story at Residents open their yards for Marian Day pilgrims

CARTHAGE, Mo. —

Randy Miller’s home at 403 E. Highland is a front-row seat for Marian Days.

The house sits directly across from the main pavilion of the Congregation of the Mother Co-Redemptrix, the Catholic headquarters for the annual Vietnamese festival that draws nearly 70,000 people to Carthage every year.

Onlookers on Miller’s front porch can look directly down the pavilion, through the nicely trimmed shrubs and walkways and at the communal fountain and towering sculpture of the Virgin Mary.

“I live right here at the front door of Marian Days,” said Miller.

And his yard reflects that center-stage status. On Tuesday, two days before the official start of the festival, a miniature tent city is already taking shape across Miller’s lawn. For his part, he doesn’t seem to mind.

“I just hope my grass comes out of it,” he said with a smile.

Like many residents who live around the Congregation, Miller plays host to several Vietnamese families who come back to his yard year after year for the four-day festival. But Miller wasn’t always so accepting.

When he was married, he and his wife lived along Grand, and for years theirs was a “no-trespassing” yard. After he moved to his new house on Highland, he said he was initially still against the idea of letting families camp on his property.

“The first year I had fences up and no trespassing signs,” he said.

He said that all changed three years ago, when he got a late-night knock on his door.

“I worked the late shift. I had just gotten off work, and somebody knocked on my door.”

He said it wasn’t the person knocking on his door that won him over, though.

“It was three little kids standing beside their mom and dad,” he said. “And they were thinking they were going to get shoved off again. They promised to clean up after themselves, and they said, ‘Just tell us tomorrow if you don’t like us, and we’ll leave.’”

The appeal was too much for him, and Miller consented to let them camp on his lawn. In the years since he’s opened his lawn completely, and now he takes reservations.

As of Tuesday Miller had three families camped on his lawn, with a combined total of about a half-dozen tents. The rest of his yard, however, Miller has sectioned off and reserved for other returning families.

Miller said he’s never really had a “hardened heart” to the prospect of letting the tourists camp on his lawn, but he admitted to a certain xenophobia — an assumption the migrating Catholic Vietnamese were somehow different from him.

“You find out they’re just ordinary people like us, just living in their communities,” he said. “Until you’re around people, you don’t really notice it.

“It sure changed my outlook on life.”

Update-A new post on this here.