After transferring through three different airports and traveling over 20 hours, I finally arrived at Tan Son Nhat. It was about 10:30am there and I was a bit delirious from a long and restless flight.  Still, I was too excited to be tired. I was eager to see Vietnam, to see the motherland I’ve heard so much about.  I wanted to explore, eat lots of fruits, make an ao dai (a traditional Vietnamese dress), and so much more.  I had a whole list of things to do and see. 

Saigon, or shall I say Ho Chi Minh City, is like any other big city - noisy and congested with people.  Even so, I immediately fell in love with the country.  I loved everything about it:  the language, the people, and the familiarity.  It was home.  Still, I was cautious as I ate my first meal as I wasn’t quite adjusted to the customs of true Vietnamese living quite yet.  I even brushed my teeth with a bottle of water that night because I was afraid to get sick. I couldn’t and didn’t want to get sick.  I came to Viet Nam for a reason and that reason was “Mission Vietnam.”

Mission Vietnam is a service trip that the Holy Trinity Youth Group is trying to establish under the guidance of Father Joseph Vu Hai Dang, Sister Joanna Hoang Thanh Nga, and the support of Our Lady of Lavang Parish in Portland, Oregon. Father Dang has been a staff of Lua Viet for many years and has gone on a few missions to Vietnam . This mission allows young adults like myself an opportunity to visit Vietnam, to learn and deepen our knowledge about our ancestors, our roots, and to give back to fellow Vietnamese who are less fortunate than us by building houses, providing material needs as well as spending quality time with orphans, patients with leprosy and HIV/AIDS.

Our mission started on Thursday, July 24, 2008.  We woke up early and headed towards Bao Loc. I didn’t really eat much that morning. I got in the van and slept the whole three hours until the driver stopped at some hole-in-the-wall for lunch. I was a bit groggy and disoriented as I rolled out of the van into the warehouse like restaurant. It was a little less sanitary than what I’m used to in the States.  We got our menus, placed our order, and I excused myself to use the restroom. I didn’t want to touch the moldy damp door so I wedged my foot in one of the huge gaps and swung it open.  Right then I got a whiff of an incredibly powerful foul smell.   I gagged and ran away.  As I was gasping for clean air, I saw on the floor in front of me, fish heads, intestines, guts, and waste products. I kept gagging as I stood there not knowing what to do. I thought of all the possibilities I could think, wait for the next stop or pee in my pants.  Yes, I actually would rather pee in my pants than go back and use the nasty smelly hole, but the thought of sitting in wet pants for the next few hours didn’t sound too appealing. So I decided to kick my American born, princess side of me out the window and return to the foul stall.  It was quite hard urinating while holding my breath, squatting, and staggering to hold the door closed with one hand and my pants with the other.

Later on we reached B’Dor where we funded to build six houses.  Where is B'Dor you may ask?  I’m not too sure because it’s an undeveloped area so therefore, it’s not on the map.  I just know it’s somewhere close to Bao Loc. It’s toward the mountains, so the climate is colder compared to Saigon.

The images below are pictures of a house for seven people. Our mission is to build them a new house, one that can provide proper shelter from the rain and cold mountain weather.

            Building houses for the poor has always been a dream of mine.  I grew up in a Vietnamese parish so I wasn’t exposed to programs like this.  It wasn’t until I reached college that I heard about youth groups going to Mexico to build houses for the poor.  I was always so envious of the students who went on those types of missions because my parents would never allow me to go. I told myself then that when I was done with school, I would go regardless of what they said.  However, by the time I graduated from college I not only wanted to build houses for the less fortunate, but I wanted to do so in Vietnam. I mentioned it to Sr. Thanh Nga during one of our conversations that I wished our parish had such programs. She too expressed the same sentiment and after 3 hours of talking, we decided to put something together.  We held a fundraising dinner, asked for donations, and did car washes in order to raise money. All proceeds went toward the program and airfare came out of our own pocket.  After many months of planning and fundraising, a group of 8 people made it to Vietnam to embark on the mission for the first time.

Building a house

Everyone jokes about us “kids” building houses, saying that the houses we build will not last, that it will fall apart and crumble. I seriously don’t know how long it will last, but I know it will be a lot better than the current house they’re living in.  The cost to build each house is roughly $600 USD - this is just for the materials, labor fees are not included. We raised money to fund the houses and the locals found professional help to teach us how to “build” houses, mix cement, paint, etc.

The pictures above makes me laugh when I look at them. My friend lost his wedding ring in the water container and since i had the longest arms...

            We spent four days at B’Dor. During the day we would build houses, paint, play with the kids, prepare meals, hang with the locals and try to fish like them. The day we went “fishing” with them was quite an experience. When they told me we’re going fishing, I didn’t think much of it. I just thought we were all going to chill by a river and fish, but instead of handing me a fishing pole they handed me a woven type basket. Naïve, little me thought the basket was used to store fish we caught, but when we reached the pond I realized the basket was used to catch the fish. It was hard, hard work –  you go down to the pond, place your basket under water in front of you, stomp or run in one place to cause motion, and then lift your basket up to catch the fish. I caught one tiny fish, the size of a dime after an exhausting 45 minutes of running in place. 

There wasn’t much to do at night, but we found ways to keep ourselves busy. One night we hand washed two weeks worth of laundry, which took us almost two hours.  The other nights we prepared hundreds of bags of goodies for the locals as gifts.  Some of the days we just sat around and made animal balloons for the kids. 

Trai Phong Cui Di Linh (Leprosy facility at Di Linh)

We headed out early morning the following Monday to Di Linh. This was probably my most dreaded part of the mission.  I seriously didn’t want to go see patients with leprosy, not because I was afraid to catch the disease, but because I didn’t think I could handle it. When we were putting this mission together and Sr. Nga sent me pictures of the leprosy to put on our flyer, I cried as I inserted them.  If I cried just looking at pictures, there was no way I would be able to handle it in person. Despite trying very hard not to cry, I knew I would anyway.  I wasn’t sure of what my facial expression would be communicating;  I definitely didn’t want them to think I was disgusted by their condition and I didn’t want them misinterpreting my feeling and feeling offended. I made up my mind the night before that I will stay in the van while everyone else visited the people with leprosy, but when we got there the care taker of the facility convinced me to go in and to this day I’m still not sure how I felt about it. I’m not sure if my presence made a difference even though they said it did. I know it probably brought them some type of comfort to see people from the outside world caring for their well being, but I was so wrapped up in my own feelings I couldn't accept that rationalization. I wish I could have done more.  More than my presence.  More than 10 lbs of rice we gave each family.

After visiting Di Linh we headed to Nha Trang for a few days, then back to Saigon to visit other facilities. We visited a total of four different care facilities: orphans, handicap, single mothers, and patients with HIV/AIDS. Out of all the facilities, Mai Am Mai Tam stood out like a sore thumb. Mai Am Mai Tam is a facility that provides medicines, food, shelter, and jobs for HIV positive mothers and orphans. We sat in a room and chatted for a while with Father Phuong Dinh Toai, the program manager.  He was a very humble and educated priest.  The stories he told us were heartbreaking.  The majority of the patients who came into the facility were emotionally unstable.

One lady came in after a suicide attempt.  She had found out she was HIV positive when her husband died of AIDS. Her parents abandoned her, society shunned her, and on top of all of that she was pregnant. She couldn’t handle it and chose to end her life, but the people at the facility found her in time and treated her. It is possible; HIV positive mothers can give birth to their child without transmitting the disease if they’re medicated. That was all the hope she needed; to know that it was possible for her baby to live without having HIV.

Not only was it hard for the pregnant mothers who were emotional distraught because they were lied to, betrayed, cheated, and/or abandoned, the children had it just as bad.  Fr. Toai showed us around the facility and we stopped by to visit and play with the orphans. They were a lot different from the orphans we visited the day before. They were desperately searching for love, hungering for attention. They were brought into the world with in incurable disease and then abandoned when their parents died of AIDS. They didn’t have a choice.  They were all too young to care for themselves and they couldn’t turn to anyone because no one wanted them.  Everyone was afraid of these cute little kids.  They were just little kids longing for love and tender care. There were about 30 kids in the multipurpose room- a room where they ate, played, and slept. Almost all of the kids were excited to see us. 

All, but one.

We thought she was just shy seeing so many strangers, but when we heard her story we understood why. She was so adorable; she had nice big round eyes, chubby cheeks, long eyelashes.  She was someone you would just want to pick up and squeeze like one of those cute Huggies kids. Despite the case, she still had to endure much pain as a young child.  When she was 3-4 years old she had been abandoned 3 times. First, by her mother, then twice more by people who took her in because she was so adorable, but abandoned her quickly after they found out she was HIV positive.  When she was brought to the facility she wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t play with the other kids, she just kept to herself most of the time.  It was hard to bear just watching her.  It was very evident that she knew what was going on.  

I wish I knew more about Mai Am Mai Tam or Mai Tam House of Hope earlier because by the time we made it to the facility we had already depleted most of our funds, so I ended up emptying whatever was left in my bank account. I know I’ll be in major debt, but it was worth it, I just couldn’t turn my back.  How can people turn their backs on these innocent kids?  They have gone through so much already.  When it was time to say “goodbye,” I hugged them and wept silently. I vowed to myself that I would be back soon and when I come back, I would bring much more then what I gave that day.