It felt soooo good to help others by volunteering yesterday and to do my part to help toward a good cause to “feed the hungry”, regardless if it is a big or small part! :)
I believe we as humans are made to be compassionate souls to bring "GOOD" in the world. Of course, we can also bring "EVIL" in the world too! Just look around each day and we see, read, and hear the good and evil events.
It gets down to our individual choices, like we all get to choose our own dreams, big or small, and to live them out during our lifetime if we can.
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| I no longer own this nonprofit organization or website in this picture. |
It is said, dreams"inspire"and give us "purpose!"
Remember when I blogged about Living Your Dreams (part 1, 2, 3), I shared my top 5 dreams, and I discussed three of the five on this day's blog at http://cottagechic1.blogspot.com/2011/07/living-your-dreams-part-1-day-13.html
My thoughts go back to this list, so today I will blog about this 4th dream of mine.
4) Help to re-build an orphanage in Cam Ranh City, Vietnam, where I grew up, in order to help other orphans.
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| CamRanh City Christian Orphanage in Vietnam |
I won’t bore you with all the details here, as I have told them many times in my past. You can google my past under this title “In The Arms of Grace” 2003 by LeChristine Hai. It is available, very cheap nowadays, for purchase via the Internet at site locations such as Amazon. I do not benefit from your purchase, so no gains here if you get it or not. It is just for information purposes that I mention it here.
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| I am still looking for this soldier. His last name was Grace |
However, I will highlight the dream’s stepping stones to get to my main point.
This dream began for me in 1991. It was my first trip back to my past and my beginning! I visited my heritage country, Vietnam, after a 15 year absence. Being in America had changed me forevermore compared to that “orphan from Vietnam.”
After finding my lost biological Vietnamese family, and collecting all the missing pieces of my life from East to West, I had more questions than answers to my life.
I was only 25 years young with a classic survivor guilt of “Why was I one of the lucky ones to survive, and now return to my poor country with nothing to offer?” I didn’t want to disappoint my Vietnamese orphanage headmaster, Pastor Ha Xuan Nguyen, for saving all of us (about 70 orphans, escaped at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975). Wouldn't he want me to sacrifice for the poor of my home country, just as he sacrificed for all the orphans when we were children.
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| Thank you, Pastor Ha, for being my earthly father when I was an orphan. God bless you always. I know you are in heaven, looking down on us all, not as adults, but as the childen of God you saved. |
It was then that I, with a naïve and open heart, declared my wish to give back to my homeland by building an orphange. I felt compeled to make sense of my life, and this act of giving seemed to be like a calling in my heart. I did not understand why, but it was such a strong feeling, and I could not ignore it's influence on my daily thoughts. I decided to be bold and make this dream come true by sharing it with the Universe, my headmaster, and any others who were willing to listen. I had something to live for.
This dream did inspire, & gave me purpose these past 20 years. I am where I am today because of the hope this dream gave me, as I coped with all of life's challenges. It gave shape to who I am today. I am so humble & grateful for the power of dreams!
First, this dream helped me put all the pieces of my own life together. For the first 5 years it helped give me the drive to prove myself as a young married, ambitious career woman, and to gain status, money and self worth. But despite this American drive, my inner self still thought my life purpose was to come full circle, and to somehow rebuild that orphanage so that other homeless children would have a safe haven as I did during the Vietnam war.
I had no idea how, what, where or when to make my dream come true. Life continued to roll along as I sorted out my purpose…
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| Building my orphanage home in 1968. I am that little girl, with a flower dress, in the front on left with my brother behind me. :) So long ago... |
And then one day it came to me. I would write a book about my life's journey as that orphan, sell lots of books, and use the proceeds to help me build that dream! Easy enough! I had a plan and God was going to help me (though God had other plans for me)! Literary speaking too!
So, in 1996, I took a trip to see my headmaster, also known as Pastor Ha, and brought my 6 month old daughter, Lauren, to visit her "grandfather" per say, and to share with him my ideas and thoughts of that dream. It was strong in my heart, and I wanted his blessings for such a journey.
At that time, Pastor Ha was living in California for the dry and warm weather conditions that helped with his failing health, and also be among his family there. I stayed with Pastor & Mrs. Ha for a week, to do research for my book, wanting to hear “our story” and to help me tell the story of our common past. I was limited in my memories as a child, but knew he would be the perfect source to begin my story. It brought back so many memories, both happy and sad, as we sat and talked for hours and hours about the orphanage and all the children. That was the most endearing visit I had with our headmaster and his wife! Today I am very grateful for that time, more now as I am older.
He suggested that I reach out to the other orphans from our group about writing this book, and have them share their own stories with me. I thought Pastor Ha had a great idea, and it would make the book more colorful and interesting. Unfortunately, none of the orphans responded positively to my offer to hear their stories and include them in my book. Maybe they were too busy or perhaps the timing was not right for them. I will never know why they wanted to remain silent about their past.
To be continued tomorrow... Your Dreams Can Change ~Part 2
With Love & New Dreams,
Hai
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