“Yes, You Can”
today i went to the empowered woman’s second sunday brunch. speaker julie thong, carmen aplegren, and nancy morris.julie thong talked about how when she was 15 living in cambodia, in a big ole pretty house how her world got turned upside down.
cambodia got taken over by communist and her and her family got captured and split up. this is a 15 yr old girl who was told to dig 6×6 foot ditches everyday. fed a tablespoon of rice daily and that was it. she lost her hair, and being so malnutritioned, couldnt even walk anymore. they put her in a separate camp and left her to die.
so here comes the good shit, like straight out of a movie or something.
because it was the place the prisoners were left to die, they didnt have guards. she would venture out and gather berries and nursed herself back to health, well at least well enough where she could walk again. ESCAPED the concentration camp and found her parents!!! her parents had to hide her, otherwise they would’ve all been killed. eventually, cambodia was restored to it’s original government, but the family had lost everything. this little girl decided she was going to sneak across the border and go into taiwan. her parents told her no. she (again, at a young age) decided TO DO IT ANYWAY. ran away with her brothers and sisters into taiwan. made some extra money by helping others get across the border, and paid someone to KIDNAP her parents, because she knew they wouldn’t come willingly. got her parents into taiwan, went to a refugee camp that was sponsored by the UN and found a sponsor from America that brought her and her family into the US.now tell me that aint crazy.
tell me that isn’t determination, ambition, dreams, and a tenacity so fierce, it’s untouchable!
i was soooo moved i can’t even begin to explain. she said because she went so many years hungry, now and still her favorite pasttime is eating! LOL, i can relate to that.
so my lil ole goals, my lil ole roadblocks, are NOTHING compared to what life COULD throw my way. she said she was scared to death, but regardless of the unknown, she had to face her fears anyway. fears of finding her family, walking day and night in a communist country where troops are around every corner. fear of transporting her family to taiwan. fear of coming to america. fear of learning a new language and learning a different way of communicating.
we complain about so much. what are we praising?
what are we thankful for?
what are rejoicing?
face your fears. be fearless.
if this little old tiny woman (i swear she looks like she’s about 80 lbs!!! and the woman just turned 50!) can do it, then damnit, so can i!
so can i, and nobody can tell me different. what if she said, “it is over” when she lay in a hospital bed surrounded by dead people. they left her there to die. and despite that, SHE CHOSE TO LIVE. @ 15 yrs old. she chose life.
i choose life. i choose happiness, i choose the pursuit of my dreams. I choose god. i choose love. i choose family.
i choose ME!
stay blessed folks
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