My Birthday Blessing

I am officially in my late 30s.  Wow, where did the time go?  I feel like I am still in my twenties.  I hope I feel like this for a long time.  I woke up early being excited for the day and to spend my most precious morning time thanking God for making me.  Some day, I get discouraged that I have so many things to work on and that I am not good enough as a wife, mother, and even friend.  But recently, God reminded me of how much He loves me and how far I have come.  I am different and better than who I was a year ago.  So I took the time to reflect on my own life and the abundant blessing that God, through Jesus Christ, poured out on me.  I thought back from my childhood till now.  There will be too many blessing to be included in one blog, so I will write a few continuation blog entries.

1. I basically grew up at church, but my parents are not believer.  So how is that possible?  When I was 6 or 7 years old, my parents would drop me off at church every Sunday in Vietnam.  And then when I got the the States, Chinese Bible Church came to pick me up.  Perhaps my mom thought that I will learn to be good at church.

2. I was born at the end of the Vietnam war.  My mom and grandparents worked for the American army at the time.  So when the American pulled out of Vietnam, the Vietcong tried to capture all those that aided the American.  So thankful that God kept my family safe and under the radar.

3. Coming to the US was another huge blessing.  Normally, foreigner can apply to come to US if they have family here.  We do not.  But we heard that the American government will allow us in if we can prove that we worked for them during the Vietnam war.  Thankfully, my family saved the paper work despite the risk that we might be caught by the Vietcong.  Being in the US opened up a world of possibilities for me and my sister that otherwise we wouldn't have.  We are both richly educated, me with a master and she as a lawyer.  And we escape the poverty of the third world.  I am grateful that my parents chose to leave their country and family to come here.

4. It was a blessing that my family came to Oakland.  When immigrating from Vietnam, we could have been sent anywhere in the US.  But since my parents had a few friends in CA, we requested to come to CA.  Oakland has lots of Asian which allowed my family to get jobs even though they didn't know much English.  And if we ended up somewhere with few or no Asian, I am not sure I would end up going to church.