A 7-foot Jesus statue in Tuan Pham's back yard and at the heart of a zoning dispute was damaged by fire Sunday morning.
Pham and his wife, Mai, awoke for an early church service to see a blaze enveloping the marble statue Pham had imported and erected in his prayer garden beside the Mississippi River bluff. A pile of nail-studded wood had been stacked around the statue's base and lit on fire.
Pham, 75, put on a coat, ran outside and tried to move the burning 2-by-4s away from his beloved statue. A daughter called police, comforted her mother and began snapping photos.
The incident has left the family distraught but more determined to keep the statue in its current spot -- one that the St. Paul City Council says is closer to the edge of the bluff than city rules permit.
"God never gave up," Pham said. "So I follow him."
"It's a sign," said Pham's daughter, Sylvie Phan. "God wants his name to be known."
After an anonymous complaint to the city last November, a zoning board rejected Pham's request for a variance that would have allowed the statue to stay put. The City Council upheld that denial last week, saying that the statue is subject to the 40-foot setback from the bluff.
The statue is a replica of the 105-foot Christ of Vung Tao statue in Pham's native Vietnam. Pham said Sunday that the fire makes him feel like he's in "Libya, or Vietnam -- not America."