EPILOGUE

HOLDING FAST TO HOPE

I deliver more than forty talks every year, and each time I travel, a flash of regret grips my heart. I would rather simply stay home, I think. Our home in the suburbs of Toronto is a safe haven for my family and me. I finger the delicate gold chain ’round my neck, the one a friend had made for me. Two tiny charms—a simple cross and a maple leaf—dangle from it. Oh, Jesus, just you and me and Canada. Life is so straightforward here!

But then I see the faces of innocent sufferers, those whose lives have been traumatized by ignorance and outrage. If I do not go, who will?

And so once more I say yes to the speaking engagement. Once more I pack my bag. Once more I head for the airport. Once more I travel to “there,” wherever there happens to be that time.

The toll on my family has been significant, and the price quite often has been high. When my young Thomas was asked at school to draw a picture of his ma, he crayoned an airplane soaring through the sky. I cringed inside when I saw it, but I was not altogether surprised. My mind flashed back to a poignant moment with Thomas when I was leaving for another speaking engagement, this time in Hong Kong.

“Mommy, this is the last hug and kiss I will ever give you,” he said, his eyes brimming with tears.

I was stunned. “What! What on earth do you mean, Thomas?”

The concern on his face was unmistakable. “There is Asian bird flu in Hong Kong right now. You will catch that disease and die.”

As I wrapped my son in a tight hug, I asked, “Thomas, do you trust the Lord?”

Thomas sniffled and replied in a tear-choked voice, “Yes, Mommy.”

“I do too, Thomas. And because we both trust God, we can believe his promises, right?”

There was more sniffling and then another quiet yes.

I squeezed Thomas tighter. “One of God’s promises says that he will protect us, carrying us under his wings of safety, all the days of our lives. Whenever we feel fearful, we must turn that fear into fuel for prayer. So I would like you to pray for Mommy while I am gone. Will you do that?”

He nodded in agreement.

I like to think that the commitments that took me away from my family made all of us—Toan, me, and our boys—rely on God more deeply.

Ma also would worry frantically whenever I traveled to places with supposed terrorist threats. “Ma,” I would tell her, hopeful she would take my advice, “turn your worry into prayer. If you worry, you harm yourself and you neglect to care for me. But if you pray, you bless us both. You get to come nearer to God in conversation, and you get to minister to me from afar.”

As Ma took in my words, I couldn’t help adding, “Besides, if anything bad goes down on earth, to heaven I go up!”

My ma was not amused, but from that moment on, she prayed.

I feel called to this ministry God has given me, and to refuse to go to the people who wish to hear my message would be the worst kind of defiance of all. And yet, I am not always welcomed with open arms. Recently, when Toan and I offered to return to Vietnam to build two orphanages and a library in conjunction with The KIM Foundation International, we were denied. We had carefully completed the necessary paperwork, humbly asked permission for the appropriate licenses, dotted all of our i’s and crossed all of our t’s, only to be told by the Tay Ninh officials, “There is no need here.” Whew, that was difficult to hear. We knew there was need, great need. And yet what else could we do, except find someone somewhere to serve? There are many in need, it turns out.

In December 2016, Toan and I arrived in a truly tumultuous part of the world. Turkey sits below the Black Sea, beside the Mediterranean Sea, and just above Aleppo, Syria, from where thousands of refugees were fleeing for their lives. I was not in Turkey to speak about or assist with the refugee crisis explicitly, but to promote peace.

Still, at that time, some news outlets had reported that more than 2.5 million Syrian refugees had taken shelter in Turkey, which perhaps explains why every single Turkish media interview I had wound up landing on the subject of the Syrian War. A cease-fire had just been reached between the warring forces—Syria’s official government backed by Russia and Iran, and the Syrian rebel groups, backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United States. But this had hardly stopped the insanity unfolding all around.

On the very day that Toan and I and our hosts arrived, there was a suicide bombing in a Syrian stadium that killed scores of people and terrorized the rest. How well I could empathize with those war-torn people. The senseless violence to protect one’s power, the irrational activism, the wake of destruction and death—the scene was all too familiar to me, reducing me to tears, and also to prayer. “Oh, Father, protect these dear people,” I cried. “Father, please protect Toan and me.”

After multiple days of one unscheduled interview after another, I was exhausted. My scars were upset. I needed rest, and silence, and peace. We had only one more appointment—a visit from the mayor of Sariyer—before we would be heading home the following day.

I assumed the mayor’s visit was a courtesy call, to bid me farewell. But when I answered the knock at our hotel room door at 10:00 p.m. and opened it, I was surprised to find the mayor with his assistant, several staff members, and a full media entourage. Ah, sleep would have to wait.

That final interview was conducted by a reporter who spoke broken English at best, but I understood clearly what she was after—she wanted me to take a political stance on the situation. “Kim Phuc,” she finally said, exasperated, “as an ambassador of goodwill, you are obligated to say what your position is on these tragic matters of war.”

I swallowed hard at her intimation. Whatever I said would be broadcast to tens of millions of people across the region and would live forever in media history. I wanted my words to matter. I did not want to shrink back from the truth.

In the space of a precious few seconds, my thoughts chased back to when Thomas and Stephen were young boys. Every night, when Toan and I put them to bed, we prayed the Aaronic blessing over our sleepy sons. “Lord, please bless them and keep them. Please make your face to shine upon them and be gracious to them. Please, Father, lift up the light of your countenance upon their lives, and always, Lord, give them peace.”

Praying that blessing would become as natural as breathing to me—and not only for my sons. Almost daily, someone would come to my mind, and I would be prompted to ask the Lord to bless that person and to keep him or her in his forever grip of peace. “Help them to feel no rejection this day,” I would ask the Father. “Keep them from isolating or withdrawing. Remind them that you adore them, that you seek them out, even when they feel unloved.”

God sees us! He loves us! He has good things in store for us!

Sitting in the hotel room in Turkey, I found myself praying blessing over my own life: “Father, bless me and keep me as I answer with truth. Keep me here in your grip of peace. Make your face to shine upon me. Help me to shine with Christlike love.”

Steadying myself with a deep breath, I looked directly into the interviewer’s eyes and said with quiet confidence, “My ‘position’ on this, and all matters, is forgiveness. My ‘position,’ if you will, is love. My faith in Jesus Christ is what enabled me to forgive those who had wronged me—and as you know, the wrongs were severe. My faith in Jesus Christ is what enabled me to pray for my enemies rather than curse them. And my faith in Jesus Christ is what enabled me to love them. I do not just tolerate them, nor am I merely civil toward them. No, I love them. It is this love, alone, that ends wars.”

The woman, who had been very professional, very serious, very stoic at the beginning of our discussion, now had tears in her eyes. Several silent seconds passed before she cleared her throat and spoke. “You are an amazing person,” she whispered to me.

“It is only the Lord,” I replied.

Twenty-four hours after Toan and I returned home, we would learn from a CNN news alert that Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, had been assassinated during a speech he was giving at a modern-arts center in Ankara, just minutes from the city center where we had stayed. Twenty or so people had been allowed into the room for the opening of an exhibit and were listening intently to the live broadcast of Mister Karlov’s comments when one of the bystanders, a Turkish police officer assigned to the event, opened fire. With media cameras capturing every frame of the action, the ambassador fell to the floor while onlookers cowered in fear.

Like countless others around the globe, I scrolled through the photos that surfaced immediately on the Internet. Oh, the futility of such a treacherous act. “Allah is greater!” the gunman had shouted, just before discharging his weapon. “Remember Aleppo!” he screamed. “Remember Turkey! Allah is greater!”

I imagined my great God was greatly grieved. Honestly, so was I. Had my message made any difference at all? Would peace on earth ever prevail?

I couldn’t take my eyes off one photograph, showing the people who had run for cover huddling underneath a table in the gallery. As I studied their faces, I nodded in recognition. “I know that look,” I said to myself. “I know the terror. I know the despondence. I know the fear. I know how wearying wartime experiences are. I know how hopeless life can feel.”

“Do not give up!” I whispered to those faces on my computer screen. “I know this peace I have found can be yours. I was a little girl who suffered much, but today, I live at ease. Yes, my circumstances can still be challenging, but my heart? My beating heart is 100 percent healed.

“Hold fast to hope,” I urged them. “It is hope that will see you through.”