I woke up that September morning with the same expectations as any other day. I was to rake the leaves that had fallen from the trees during the night. Then, I was to eat breakfast and proceed to school. However, I sensed things differently that morning. I heard the birds chirping more loudly than usual, saw the sun brighter in the sky and I was in a happier mood. Perhaps I had had a good night’s rest for once. Whatever mood I was in, it didn’t last long. I was summoned to the headmaster’s office. Terror struck. Feelings of inadequacy crept in as I pondered, “Why?”
On my way, I tried to figure out what I had done wrong to be summoned to the office. I went back into my deepest memory and replayed every moment since I had arrived this, my third orphanage in Vietnam. I found nothing incriminating. I walked on.
My first reaction to that orphanage had been one of uncertainty. I had seen the children and they all had looked street worn, rugged, tough and bullied. My friend from my second orphanage, who arrived here a year earlier, had disowned me.
I remember thinking that this place was a dark place. Dark, not in the literal sense, but metaphorically, it seemed to be a place of no hope. Sadness was a constant companion within this compound. The buildings in the orphanage were French style architecture and most had serious signs of decay. Lots of the windowpanes were missing or had broken pieces of glass protruding from the wooden frames. Water stains decorated the walls or all the buildings and roofs leaked when the monsoon rain poured. My assessment of the place was quick and complete.
Almost everyone who wanted to survive conformed. As time had gone on, I tried to conform, by my physical features – white skin, brown curly hair (when I had hair) and blue eyes – prevented me from being successful. I had been bullied and pushed away from the center of the social circle in this little make-believe world. Being on the periphery of this little walled in society had extreme disadvantages but it had given me a unique vantage point to observe the children of this crucible.
I had seen the children wandering aimlessly in an attempt to find excitement and fill their time. They would start fights and provoke others to fight. Most of the time, thought, they had resembled zombies just gliding lifelessly from day to day on the prevailing winds in the orphanage. These children were so malnourished and neglected that it is safe to consider them sacks of bones.
However, I had heard from the nuns at the second orphanage about a God who loved me and cared about me. With my childish understanding of God, I had always wondered what I had done wrong to be given bodily features that differed from everyone else. At that orphanage, I had asked, if he loved me why was I here? He knew I didn’t belong here! I truly didn’t belong. They had brown skin, black eyes and straight hair. I didn’t. The others wondered out loud how I could evens ee with those blue eyes. They truly did not understand who I was. They quickly and often reminded me of that fact.
When I had been transferred to the third orphanage, I came to a crossroads. I had no friends, except for this incognito God. I had no choice either to deny God for delivering me to an even worse orphanage or to cling to him as an invisible friend.
I had continued to accept God for various reasons, but most importantly for my personal salvation. This salvation was not immortality from death but my salvation from utter despair. I had decided to hold fast to God because the nuns had guaranteed that I would be loved at all costs. I would be “in the arms of God,” they once told me. I could be wrong and bad but God was willing to forgive me and love me if I confessed. I could be different and rejected by society and God would still gather me in his arms. That salvation, or point of grace, was what eventually drew me in my darkest moments to his promise of love. It had not matter that God had a vengeful said. I had already felt enough cruelty that if he spilled his wrath, it would be nothing different to me.
Nothing in Vietnam ever gave me complete hope except this promise of God. Why not believe in a God who offers Hope – a hope that can overcome all with endless possibilities? At that point in my life, I didn’t care if I could gain eternity after death. I simply wanted to be liked and respected. This God seemed to give me all – through hope and salvation.
I had begun to pray to God as the nuns had instructed at the previous orphanage. I had hoped precisely because of this abundance of possibilities. I saw myself in America, with friends of the same race and skin color, part of a family who loved me. I had cried out for deliverance and for the restoration of my soul. I had waited anxiously for an answer to my plea but none had been forthcoming.
I had become impatient and had prayed again. I had told God that my hope was fading and had asked him to, “Please deliver me away from here.”
Thankfully, the nuns had told me a lot of about God. To them, God was an image of authority, endurance and constant stability in an often-overwhelming world. God was big and everlasting and his was an authoritative voice of reason and justice. To me, he was omnipotent because of the nuns’ descriptions.
No answers had come. I had gone on with my life. As much as I had wanted to be mad at God for his lack of action, I had clung to the hope that, maybe, he still was there and I just needed to continue to pray to him. I had been so desperate for anything or someone to be one my side that I had to continue believing. I believed because I kept remembering a beautifully penned Vietnamese children poem about God. It started out like this:
While I waited, I endured rocks thrown at me. I was identified by hateful monikers that had cut at my very being. I was considered bui-doi, the dust of life, I do not believe one could have been any more an outcast than I had been in the third orphanage.
But, my prayers were answered on that fateful September morning when I had been summoned to the headmaster’s office. I hadn’t done anything to incite the displeasure of anyone. I had conformed as much as I could to the rules of the orphanage. But there I was, walking to her office. Why?
When I arrived at the office, I quickly found out. I was one of eleven Amerasian children summoned. We all wore looks of nervousness as she slowly called out our names. Then she told us we were leaving the orphanage for America. The news revitalized my soul. It was as if God had come down and opened up my grave and freed me from the clutches of the zombies and restored my hope and future.
The next two weeks were a period of transformation. I floated on a new spirit for the remaining days in Vietnam. Our sacks of bones fitted and dressed in fine clothing. We were given medical treatment and dolled up as if we were going to Cinderella’s ball. We were given new sinews, flesh and skin, just as the bones in Ezekiel’s vision. We were not zombies aimlessly and hopelessly wandering. We were children o Israel, being gathered up from every quarter of the world into our own (Ezekiel 37:21).
During those two weeks, I again saw the world in a whole new light. The world was better. Everything seemed so grand. The clouds were puffier and the stars brighter. The sky was bluer. The trees were more fruitful and greener. The hurtful monikers of the past didn’t seem as biting. I didn’t despise the children there anymore. For once in my life, I was happy and didn’t care about anything but going to my homeland.
It was a Saturday morning in late September 1983 when I last saw Vietnam. I was jubilant to be leaving that dark valley and be restored to the land of my belongings. This day was the culmination, the zenith of my hope, my longing and my prayers. It was the fulfillment of all I longed for.
That afternoon, as that Vietnamese children’s poem echoed in my head, I was lifted on silvery “wings to fly to heaven”.
