@frankedgar6694

3 weeks ago

I became a teacher 20 years after I got out. Our city had a large population of boat people. I was suddenly around Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian kids. After a few day, I realized that I hated those kids. Why? It took me three days of talking to God about my anger before I let myself hear His answer. Twenty years later I was still angry for the loss of friends. These kids had nothing to do with that. Just like that, I was over it.

About 6 weeks into school, I saw a boy being relentlessly bullied. I pulled him into my room and told them to get lost. They were bullying him because his father was VC back in Vietnam. It was my off period so we talked for a few minutes about how that had nothing to do with him and if he needed further help with the bullied to let me know. One of the bullies was in my class. He came to me to apologize and promised that the boy was safe. If I could accept him, so could they.

Later and ancient little man came to wait for me outside. Through the boy who was bullied, I learned that he had, in fact, been VC for a while. Since coming to the U.S. he realized how bad communism was. He invited me to the Buddhist temple for a meal with the community. I’ve never felt so out of place and at the same time , so comfortable in my life.

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