Father Michael’s First Request
I met Father Michael (Khac Mihn), a Vietnamese Catholic priest in 2009 at the Port Columbus Ohio airport; he was flying onto Paris to study theology and I was heading to Lincoln, Alabama to work on a project at the Honda Plant there – I work for Honda Engineering.
We traded email addresses and went on our way, writing to each other small snippets now and then.
As time passed, Father Michael wrote to me and said that he was back home in Vietnam and laboring in the Rach Suc Mission Church in Can Tho, Vietnam. He asked me that if it was possible could I go to Vietnam to visit the mission. He also asked if I could help them in some way. The first thing that he shared with me was their desire to have a playground for the children.
Here is a letter that Father Michael wrote to me in March of 2011
A building project of small cultural garden for the poor children!
I am priest Michael NGUY?N KH?C MINH, I were ordained 7 years ago. And now I am working at the parish RACH SUC, a missionary parish in Can Tho diocese, it belongs to Mekong delta,Viet Nam.
Parish Rach Suc is a missionary church, they are most new catechumens. Because of the war before 1975, people evacuated and now they come back but they are not completely catholic.
Now there is about 15,000 residents here, about 3000 children and minors. Our church is surrounded by the rivers.
But this is a very poor area. Not many people here get graduated from school, normally the children have to stop study at school because of many reasons: they have to work to earn money for their parents, they get married soon by their habit, they have to take care of their younger siblings …
And moreover nobody here has field to cultivate, so they spend most of their time day by day for work. They have to work every day to earn food, they don’t know what will be happen for them tomorrow or their future.
Because they have to hire employees, so they let their children at home alone. It is a dangerous situation, their children could fall down to the river easily or they gathered with the street wanderer and may face with a risk of drugs, become gangsters… and other social evils.
We like to build a small cultural garden about 600 m2, and we will gathered these children and look after them carefully in this garden. They can play with slide, swings, small wooden house with sand, play with balls… and of course we teach them knowledge and how to become a useful person. We had asked a group of students for volunteer, and they are ready to help us.
We estimate about 250,000,000 VN? (= 12,000 USD).
In that 200,000,000 VN? (= 9000 USD) for sand, bricks, cement…
and about 50,000,000 VN? ( = 3000 USD) for instruments as toys, books, swings…
And we have contributed 10,000,000 VN? (1000 US?),
and the others gave us 1000 USD,
so we need totally = 10.000 USD
Normally we have to hire a builder, but the resident here say that they are so happy to have a small culture garden like that, so they are ready to work without salary.
I am deeply grateful to you and for your help and for your generous!
Yours truly,
Nguy?n Kh?c Minh
Priest catholic