The Age: Kim Vo – Tiny in size, mighty in spirit

By Marie Hughes, director, Chambers County Museum at Wallisville

Editor’s note: This is the second and last part of this article on the life of Kim Vo.

“We went from Guam to Fort Chaffee, Arkansas. At the refugee camp, I did the same thing . . . same ole thing I did. One day, I got so mad—I washed two buckets of clothes, and my hands [were] bleeding—and it just bothered me, you know, thinking about my family. I sat outside on the step and I cry. There was a lady out there who saw me and she said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I told her, ‘I just want to go back home, go back to Vietnam.’ She said, ‘You can’t go home. Who’d you come with?’ I said, ‘Just me. I don’t have nobody.’ I said, ‘Did you come with somebody?’ She said she come with her aunt. I told her, ‘I don’t want to stay with these people,’ and she said, ‘I help you. First thing in the morning, you meet me at the cafeteria, and I’ll be there . . . five o’clock,’ she said.”

She waited anxiously at the cafeteria, just as the woman had promised. What happened next would open her world to unfamiliar customs—and a kind of kindness that felt both foreign and uncertain.

“I couldn’t sleep that night; I couldn’t wait to meet her. I got up and ran over there and sat and waited for her. She came, and I’m happy to see her too. She said, ‘I’m going to take you to see the father, who is a Catholic.’

“I’d never heard of that. I never heard of Baptist church or preachers. All I know is Buddha, that’s all I know—that’s what my family is. I told her, ‘Father? What do you mean, father? I don’t have a father. My father is in Vietnam.’ She said, ‘No, the priest—the Catholics call the father.’

“I said, ‘I thought you came with your aunt. Now you say you have a father?’ She was laughing, but I wasn’t laughing, ’cause I didn’t know. She said, ‘No, in the Catholic Church, the people, we call him father.’ I said, ‘Not me. I’m not calling him daddy, not me…’”

Despite her confusion, Kim went with her new friend to meet the priest.

“So, she took me to the church and the father walked out and she said, ‘Good morning, Father.’ I’m looking at her and I’m looking at him and I’m thinking to myself, I’m not going to call you Father. I said, ‘Good morning, sir.’ That’s what I said.

“He said, ‘Good morning,’ and he took me and her in his office and we were just talking. I was fourteen at the time. He said, in the United States, under the age of 18, it’s hard to get her out . . . he said he would see what he could do. He said I could go back to the family and he would send somebody tomorrow to get me out of there. I was happy, boy—Hallelujah!”

But her excitement quickly turned into a confrontation with the people she had been staying with.

“So, I came home, I was happy, and she asked me where I’d been. I told her, ‘I don’t know. Some lady came and took me to see somebody she called Father—but he’s not my daddy.’ She knew exactly who he was and said, ‘No, you don’t need to go with him.’

“I said, ‘I am. He’s not my daddy, but I go with him.’ She and her husband tried to scare me. They said, ‘You don’t know what the country do to you. You’re a young kid, a little kid. They’re going to rape you, they’re going to kill you, they’re going to hurt you. You better stay with us. You don’t need to be going with them.’

“I said, ‘No, I go with them. If they hurt me, I accept that—’cause they’re not my people. My own people hurt me.’ She said, ‘Well, I’m going to keep all your clothes. I’m not going to give you none of your clothes.’ I said, ‘You can have them. The charity people, they gave them to me.’ She gave it up, ’cause she knew I was going to go.”

The woman tried one last time to assert power over Kim, insisting she was her daughter. But Kim’s defiance was clear and unwavering: she was not her daughter—she was her slave.

“So, the guy came and got me and took me to the building where all the nuns stay. I never seen anything in my life that wear the kind of clothes—the uniforms—that those nuns wear. I got scared,” whispered Kim. “I got scared. I thought, ‘Those people gonna eat me tonight—kill me and eat me.’

“But the nuns, the sisters, were nice to me. They said they were going to get some lunch for me—they were going to have some chicken that day. Oh, I want the chicken, but I couldn’t eat it ’cause I’m afraid they poison me,” said Kim, laughing now at her fear. “I didn’t eat it. I was hungry, but I didn’t eat it.

“I lied to her saying, ‘Ma’am, can I go to the bathroom?’ She said, ‘Sure, go to the bathroom. Make sure and come back.’ As soon as I got out the door, I ran—I ran about a mile to the office.”

Kim rushed into the administrative office, terrified and desperate for someone to understand. She couldn’t speak English, and the man in charge, Bob, didn’t speak Vietnamese. Still, he knew something was wrong. He found a translator—a Vietnamese woman married to an American soldier—who helped Kim explain what had happened.

“The man they call Father—he’s not my daddy—he came and got me out and took me to the building where there’s a bunch of people wearing something I’ve never seen, and I got scared. I don’t want them to kill me.”

He laughed gently and tried to reassure her.

“He said, ‘They’re not going to kill you, they’re nice people.’ I said, ‘I’ve never seen those people. Weird clothing—I never seen anything like that. I got scared and ran away from them. I don’t want to stay with them.’

“He said, ‘Okay, I’m going to put you in a group shelter.’ I didn’t know what a group shelter was . . . the lady said it’s a building with a whole bunch of kids who don’t have any parents. I said, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll go there. I don’t want to go back to those people. I scared.’

“The guy laughed and took me to the group shelter. I was so happy. I got a bed to sleep, I got blankets over me, A.C.—I thought, Man, I’m in Heaven. Thank God. I sleep all night long.

“And about two days later, the Father came with the nuns. I hid under the bed. I didn’t come out, and they didn’t know where I was. They kept calling for me, but I didn’t come out ’cause I didn’t want to go with those people.

“Finally, I came out, and I sat with the translator, the Father, the nuns, and Bob. The Father said I had two choices. He said, ‘Either you go with us or you stay here.’

“When he said that, I said, ‘Oh, I stay right here,’” laughed Kim, tapping the table for emphasis.

Learning the language of belonging

“I stayed three months in the group shelter, then a family came in and adopted me. They took me home and we lived way out in the country. There are no Asian people there, only me . . . nobody could talk to me, I couldn’t talk to them.

“Oh, we had a hard time. I can’t talk no English, she can’t speak Vietnamese. She talked to me in English, I talked to her in Vietnamese, so nobody understands nobody. She doesn’t understand me, I don’t understand her,” said Kim.

Her adoptive mother tried earnestly to bridge the gap—using a dictionary to teach Kim English, not realizing Kim didn’t yet understand the alphabet. Determined to help, her mom eventually found a Vietnamese woman who spoke English and brought her over.

“She had the translator ask me what I wanted. I told her, ‘I didn’t need anything. I had everything I needed. I just can’t communicate. It frustrates me and I get mad at myself. I’m not mad at her. I told her to tell her I’m fine, I’m alright. I feel like I’m staying in Heaven. I have a home, I have pillows, I have a room to sleep, I have food to eat, and I can eat with them at the table. I didn’t have none of that growing up. Tell her to just give me some time to learn English.’

“So she sent me to school. But before she sent me, she got a tablet and a pencil and taught me the A, B, C’s and made sure I knew all of that.”

Kim was placed in second grade because of her language barrier.

“She sent me to school in second grade, ‘cause I don’t know English. I sat behind a girl named Sheila Wood—I remember that girl’s name—and I copied her paper because I didn’t know how to do my own work. I didn’t know English. If she failed, I failed. If she passed, I passed,” said Kim, her laughter having a ripple effect around the table.

“If she missed one, I missed one. If she missed two, I missed two. She let me copy her paper. The teacher, Miss Craig, she let me copy her ‘cause she knows I can’t speak no English. I can’t spell it, I can’t write it. Every six weeks we’d get a report card—if she made an A, I made an A. If she made a B, I made a B. If she failed, I failed.

“Then they moved me up to sixth grade after I finished the second grade. I could read a little bit, I could write a little bit, and I could spell a little bit and do a little math.”

But being the only Asian child came with challenges beyond academics.

“Every day we go outside for a little bit and this little girl, I don’t know, I guess she didn’t like me ‘cause I’m the only Asian one. She called me an @$$#&%!, and I didn’t know what it was—I thought it was good,” chuckled Kim, bringing an uproar of laughter from the ladies. “I just looked at her and smiled ‘cause I didn’t know what it means.

“Every day she called me that word and I thought maybe she liked me, so I tried to remember the word. I’d repeat after what she said to myself—I didn’t say it out loud.”

Her innocent misunderstanding came to a head one Sunday after church.

“We go to church every Sunday and one Sunday she (mom) invited the preacher to come over to eat and his family.  She cooked steak and seafood and I helped her set up the table and everything and we prayed.  I sat at the table and said out loud, ‘@$$#&%!.’  Everybody was looking at me and I didn’t know what for,” laughed Kim.  “My preacher said, ‘Kim, you fine?’ I said ‘@$$#&%!.’ I called him @$$#&%!, I didn’t know what it mean.  My momma said, Kim you need to be quiet. I said ‘@$$#&%!.’ My brother said the same thing, ‘Sister, be quiet.’  I say, ‘No, @$$#&%!.’”

“My mom is sitting over there and it embarrass her. She took me into the bathroom. She asked me where I learn that word and I said at school. She asked me who told me that and I said, ‘Some girl tells me that every day.’ She said, ‘You know what that means?’ And I said, ‘No.’ I thought I was doing good—I learned some English—but it was the wrong word!”

Her mom explained the meaning of the word, and Kim was devastated.

“She had me apologize, which I was glad to do, saying, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know what that word mean . . . I was just sharing my new word. . . I thought I was doing good.’ Everyone was laughing and the preacher said, ‘That’s alright,’” noted Kim rather calmly, though it took the rest of us a minute to regain our composure.

A new faith, a new home

“We were Baptist, and that week we watched the film Jesus of Nazareth. I sat there and watched the first part and thought, Why people kill Jesus? Why they hurt Him? He’s the one who help us. I questioned it all the time.

“When I finished all of the movie . . . three days . . . each day I go outside—she had a big yard—and I look up to Heaven. I see rainbow, trees, wind, and I say, ‘Oh, now I know who up in Heaven. Now I know who You are.’

“Then I came in and then the next day I came out and I talk to Him the same way. And the last part, I came in and I said, ‘Thank You for bringing me over here. Now I know who died for me. Without You I’d be dead,’” Kim said softly.

“Then I asked Him one last question outside. I said, ‘Jesus, I have one last question I want to ask. Can I see You in my dreams?’ And I did—not right away, but later.”

Kim shared how Jesus appeared to her in her dreams and how real the moment had felt. She told her mom the next day but struggled to find the right words to explain exactly what happened.

Despite the peace she found in her new life, Kim’s heart never wandered far from her family in Vietnam.

“I think about my family, and I ask Him all the time, ‘Jesus, I know that I’m away from my family so long. I don’t know where they at. You do know where they at, so please, help me find them. Take me over there to see them, then bring me back.’

“He took me over there in my dream to see my family. They all there, but they’re so sad. The reason, I think, is they all Buddhists and I don’t follow their religion,” determined Kim.

A voice across the ocean

After years of adjusting to American life, Kim eventually married a Vietnamese fisherman. In 1989, the couple moved to Oak Island, Texas, where they started a new chapter—and a family of their own. They had three children together, though the marriage later ended.

Still, Kim carried with her a deeper, unresolved longing: the ache of separation from the family she left behind in Vietnam.

While living in Oak Island, that longing finally found its voice in prayer.

“You need to help me find my family,” Kim cried out to God. “I need to go see them. I don’t know where they are or if they have anything to eat or not. I don’t know how their life [is] over there.”

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, help appeared.

“One day a lady called me and asked me if I knew my parents’ names,” Kim recalled. “She was going to have someone go to Vietnam and look for them.”

Kim provided what she could—spelling out their names phonetically in English, since her written Vietnamese was still limited at the time.

Nearly a year passed in silence before anything came back. Then one day, a letter arrived.

“I wasn’t sure it was them,” said Kim. “Some people pretend to be family to try to get your money.”

To test the letter’s authenticity, she asked two questions—things only her real family would know. What had she called her mother as a child? And how exactly had she left Vietnam?

She enclosed a stamp, hoping for a reply. A month later, their answer came back. They had answered both questions correctly.

It was them.

Kim immediately wrote again, this time asking for a phone number. When it finally arrived, she called as soon as she could.

“All they did was cry,” said Kim. “They were happy to hear from me, I guess—they thought I was dead. Before I got off the phone, I said, ‘I [will] be there in June . . . and I will see you all.’”

She brought her youngest son with her to Vietnam.

“They picked me up at the airport. It wasn’t what I expect—they just different. I went to their home and see my mom . . . I didn’t see my daddy. People were sitting around talking to me. I say, ‘Where my daddy at?’ All I get was, ‘Your daddy went somewhere. He not home yet.’ So I believe them.

“I went to his in-laws and asked, ‘Do you know where my daddy at?’ She said, ‘Your momma didn’t tell you?’ I said, ‘They said he went somewhere, and I’m waiting for him.’ She said, ‘You sit down and stay calm and I tell you the whole story.’

“She patted my shoulder and said, ‘Your daddy’s gone. He died.’”

Kim’s body trembled as the truth sank in.

“I asked how, and I started shaking. She said, ‘Your daddy died starving himself. He don’t eat, he don’t drink. He come to see you, to find you. Anywhere he heard your name, he go there to look for you.

“‘The last time he go, the lady told him that you dead—that she found your body and the dump people picked it up and dumped you. He believed her because . . . the woman know you.

“‘He went to a palm reader and a psychic, and she told him you are not dead—but you are far away.’

“He told my brothers and sisters, ‘If I still alive, I won’t see her.’ So, he don’t eat, he don’t drink—he just die. He was all bones.”

Kim’s voice faltered as she continued.

“When he die, I was in Oak Island and I saw him in my dreams. I saw the family a month after. It was hurting me so bad to know how he die, to see me.”

Tears filled her eyes.

“He knew his daughter was somewhere,” she whispered. “But he didn’t know where. He know now.”

Suffering sparks compassion

The years Kim spent starving and destitute did not make her bitter. On the contrary, they forged within her a deep-seated compassion for anyone who suffers—regardless of race, nationality, or religion. She made it her life’s mission to help others in need, determined to spare them from the kind of hardship she once knew so intimately.

That mission was put to the test again in 2008, when Hurricane Ike devastated her community. Kim lost her home. But rather than let that loss define her, she did what she had always done: she rolled up her sleeves and got to work.

Not only did she set about rebuilding her own life, she threw herself into helping her neighbors rebuild theirs—fighting to secure housing, food, and supplies for those displaced by the storm.

Kim once said there were two things she knew how to do: she knew how to work hard, and she knew how to cook. That simple truth would blossom into something extraordinary.

She had learned a long time ago to roll with the punches—this time, quite literally, by rolling eggrolls.

What began as a small effort soon became an outreach movement: an eggroll ministry. Over the years, Kim has cooked and sold thousands of eggrolls, using the proceeds to fund education, pay for medical surgeries, support families after personal tragedies, and help neighbors rebuild after disasters.

Though she has helped many across the United States, the people of Vietnam have never left her heart. She knows all too well the abject poverty many still endure there—because she lived it. And so, each year, Kim returns to Vietnam. Not as a refugee this time, but as a giver.

She seeks out the poorest of the poor, not just to hand them money—but to be present with them. She shops at local markets, purchases food, and cooks for families in their own homes—often over a campfire outside a grass hut, drawing water from a muddy stream nearby.

Her eggrolls have not only fed bodies, they’ve helped mend hearts. And through every rolled wrapper, every meal prepared, every dollar raised, Kim Vo continues to turn her suffering into sustenance—proving that with faith, resilience, and love, even the deepest scars can become the roots of healing.

Tiny in Size ~ Big in Heart

Kim continues to work hard and make friends wherever she goes. These days, she operates a large roller for a construction company out of state—a job that would seem daunting to someone her size.

So tiny inside the towering machine, she places a pillow on the seat just to see over the steering wheel. But what she lacks in stature, she makes up for in strength. Her co-workers admire her for her tireless work ethic—and love her for the home-cooked meals she brings to the job site.

Knowing they’re far from home and missing the comfort of a kitchen table, Kim’s nurturing spirit kicks in. She feeds them not just with food, but with the kind of care and generosity that has defined her life.

She is, in every sense, tiny in size—but mighty in heart.

Kim Vo is a living example of love and kindness, and a powerful testament to the strength of prayer and the resilience of the human spirit.

To see part one of this story, go online to: https://bluebonnetnews.com/2025/05/02/the-age-a-vietnamese-girls-unbreakable-spirit-tested-as-she-escapes-war-torn-southeast-asia/