That same year, Gnia Nou Thao from Mua Long was the chief commander of the [communist Hmong] Pa Chai troops at Nong Het. [Pa Chai had been a famous Hmong messianic leader of a resistance movement against the French some forty years before, and his name had been given to this particular contingent of troops which came from the area where he had led the insurrection.

Gnia Nou was on his way back home [to Mua Long] when he met fifty-two civilians and seven of his soldiers on their way [from Mua Long] to learn the Pahawh from Shong Lue. He asked why they were traveling, but the soldiers lied to him, saying that they were going to their military assignment at Nong Het, whereas they were really going to learn the Pahawh at Shong Lue's place instead of going to work. 

Gnia Nou had been home for ten days when officers from Nong Het ordered him to send the soldiers to their posts there. This surprised him because he had met them [ostensibly returning to Nong Bet] as he was traveling home ten days before. They must have gone somewhere else.  So the next day he went to Shong Lue's place and found the soldiers there learning the Pahawh.  He walked around [looking over the situation] and called out to the people there, "Because you have been learning and teaching [secretively] in the jungle, this is why the officials accuse you of [being part of] a plot by the American CIA. I see here that you are all civilians and are doing nothing wrong. What all you civilians are doing is nothing but learning. Go and build your school in Fi Kha. I will go to the officials and tell them not to bother you any more."

Shong Lue was happy with Gnia Nou Thao's assurance and returned to build a school and a round house for worship at Fi Kha Village.

Shong Lue's Life at Fi Kha

While Shong Lue lived at Fi Kha Village they built a school and a round house for worship, and he named twelve clan representatives as [religious] leaders to worship the Father, and named many teachers to teach the Pahawh to the Hmong and Khmu' people. One of those teachers was Pa Kao Her [who has continued to be a major leader in movements spawned from Shong Lue Yang's movement]. Shong Lue also named many Khmu' teachers to teach the Pahawh Khmu'. So the Pahawh was now being taught in a classroom at Fi Kha Village.

Gnia Nou Thao returned to Nong Het and asked the high officials not to bother Shong Lue, because he saw only civilians learning the Pahawh. But "They criticized him, asking how, as the chief commander of the Pa Chai troops, he could become a victim of the American CIA plot. The argument led them not to trust him, and they would have had him arrested, so he went back to Mua Long and never went back to his position.   

The communist officials sent Vietnamese soldiers to arrest Gnia Nou Thao but they were not successful because all of his relatives were well equipped with weapons. He stopped supporting Shong Lue and gave the people learning the Pahawh Hmong no further assistance, but Shong Lue continued worshiping the Father and had his teachers teach extensively.

When Hmong and Khmu' people from both Vietnam and Laos knew that Shong Lue was teaching the Pahawh again they all came to learn it in large numbers. Those who came from Vietnam, Shong Lue asked to stay at Fi Kham Village, to which he sent teachers from Fi Kha, to teach them. At that time there was a total of 250 students at both villages of Fi Kha and Fi Kham.
Chia Long Thao's house was located at the entrance of Fi Kham Village, so Shong Lue asked him to help those students who came from Vietnam by providing rice and other food, which Chia Long's family did.

Because there was such a large number of students learning the Pahawh, the Lao communist officials were really very unhappy about the situation, so they placed [a few] soldiers outside the [entrance to the] village and wrote messages [in Lao] to the civilians not to learn the writing which came from the American CIA. [They threatened that] anyone who dared to continue learning would be killed.

But the civilian students were brave enough to continue learning and not to be intimidated by the Vietnamese soldiers. The Vietnamese soldiers could not kill them because they were civilians, so they stayed there outside the village and each day wrote a letter telling the people to move out of the village so they could arrest Shong Lue [whom the people in the village protected by not identifying him]. The civilians were not free to come and go [over the trail to and from the village], and the soldiers could not attack Shong Lue's village because it was inhabited by civilians without weapons. The soldiers did not allow the men [of the village] to leave looking for food, afraid that they would contact the enemy.

Shong Lue was in a difficult situation, so he [held a meeting] telling [his students] that they would have to turn to [General] Vang Pao [Hmong commander of the government forces defending against the communists] for protection. But a student by the name of Blia Kao Yang, a soldier on the communist side, heard this and reported to the higher communist officials that Shong Lue really was involved with the American CIA. From that day on a group of Vietnamese soldiers restricted access to the village even more closely.