Posted on 04/13/2016 3:40:18 PM PDT by NYer
The picture is the iconic image of a Vietnamese girl, naked, burned by napalm as she runs down a road.
The girl is Kim Phuc, and her life could have ended in that moment. It didn’t. She has taken an extraordinary journey and has not let that searing moment in her life define her:
Despite the fear that no one would want her, Kim is now married and has two sons. She says her conversion from the Cao Dai religion to Christianity at the age of 19 changed everything.
“And when I read in John 14:6, where Jesus say, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by Me,’ I was really confused,” she told Griffith. “Oh, my religion different and why Jesus say that? I keep searching. And finally in Christmas 1982, I became a Christian.”
“How did that help you forgive the people that dropped the bombs that burned you?” Griffith asked.
“The picture of Jesus Christ when they put Him on the cross and they kill Him, so Jesus say, Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing,” she replied.
“So that picture, that words, Lord, help me to do the same thing like you did. And I started to pray for my enemies, and the more I prayed for my enemies the softer my heart became,” she said.
Dr. David McDaniel, director of the McDaniel Laser & Cosmetic Center in Virginia Beach, is a pioneer in laser technology. He said Kim’s story reminds him that although doctors and nurses treat the outside, it’s Jesus who heals the heart.
“There’s a very famous sign in a mission hospital in Africa that says, ‘Doctors and nurses treat but Jesus heals.’ We’re just the hands and feet,” McDaniel said. “So it’s a great privilege to help her and there are a lot of heroes, they’re not just warriors, they’re children and everyday people from every walk of life that have been burned or wounded.”
Read the whole thing. And check out Jane Pauley’s interview with Kim Phuc from last year on CBS’s Sunday Morning:
The girl in the picture - CBS interview with Kim Phuc
FYI, ping!
The left would die if they knew she became a Christian.
Which means she’ll never meet Walter Conkrite.
I remember when that picture was taken.... it brought tears to my eyes then....
How wonderful to know she survived... and what a good person she became.....
Thank you for the post...
Great story and wonderful testimony.
Amazing story of amazing grace. I tweeted it.
Wow! What a story as she found each step in her journey, including the doctor with the healing treatments.
She has become a Revenue Collection Agent for the UN. Glad she’s alive but wish she wasn’t swallowed by the NWO system.
may God bless,,,
Those are ARVNs in the pic.
Yes, they may wish she died rather than God getting glory by saving her out of the fire. And becoming a Baptist no less.
The napalm, a jellied gasoline, scorched 75 percent of her body with third-degree burns. Associated Press photographer Nick Ut captured the little girl on film and then rushed her to a hospital, saving her life. His photo of her anguished, contorted face was published around the world, and is widely cited as having expedited the end of the war...
For years following the war she was devastated, but she said she was never bitter. She said she was led to God in 1984. ``I realized I was so unhappy, and even though I tried so hard in my own religion, Cao Dai (a Vietnamese faith featuring elements of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism and Christianity), I felt no peace.'' Phan converted to Christianity and now regularly shares with audiences how she accepted Jesus into her life and has been healed.
In 1986, Kim Phuc was allowed to study in Cuba, where she met and married fellow Vietnamese student Toan Huy Bui in September 1992. Later that year, they flew to Moscow for their honeymoon; when their plane landed in Newfoundland to refuel, they suddenly decided to defect to Canada. Last year they became Canadian citizens. They now have two young sons, Thomas, 4, and Stephen, 8 months. The family's life revolves around the Baptist church to which they belong. - http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1998-05-30/lifestyle/9805290743_1_kim-phuc-phan-thi-kim-god-created
But i think the picture should only show from the waist up.
“I learned that the pain is my protection from being proud….Right now, the Lord has given me the opportunity to do many things. It’s easy to be proud based on what I’m doing…So I thank God that he gave me that grace, that mercy—to suffer something physical.”
… “I absolutely don’t want to run away from the pain….God is with me when I’m in pain. When I am in pain, I am in prayer, and the more I pray, the more peace I have.”
… Kim’s heart-healing and deliverance led her to learn, by faith, how to forgive the pilot who bombed her village, and the administrators responsible for coordinating the attack. She considers this the hardest lesson of all, because she couldn’t do it by herself. When she learned to “put everything upon the Lord,” he began to work.
… “Now, I’m free from hatred….Every single moment in my life is like heaven on Earth for me. I have freedom…not only physical, but also spiritual.”
….She chooses to desire a relationship with God when she wakes up. She is determined to know and follow God’s Word (“What he wants us to do is so clear in the Bible!”), and Kim makes it a discipline to cover every activity with prayer.
“Pray and then seek to keep the will of God. He will show it to you—every single day.” - http://illinoisfamily.org/faith/affirming-and-concealing-heresy-denying-grace/
HMMMmmm...
What if pro-lifers...
Excellent testimony of the power of our GOD!
That was so powerful. It’s been passed on. Thank you.
Glory to God. What the devil meant for evil God worked for Good, that one would choose the Good God and live for Him!
But she is not Catholic so...
Good point. Suffering is only a valid argument if it is unavoidably due to war against an enemy who causes mass suffering for decades, and does not hinder sexual freedom and interfere with the women's right to kill the occupants of her vehicle.
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