Tina-Thu was born in Saigon, Vietnam in November of 1966. In 1978, at the age of 12, she and her family escaped from Vietnam to Malaysia. On the boat, as her family traveled from Saigon, Tina-Thu met her cousin Lilly Nguyen for the first time – a meeting that would change her life. After a year in a refugee camp on Bulo Bidong Island, Tina-Thu and Lilly’s family were allowed to immigrate to the U.S. While Thu settled in Park Ridge in northern Illinois, Lilly went to live in southern California where she would later become heavily involved in charity work.
It was there, many years after their own first meeting that Lilly introduced Tina-Thu to Sủco Phúc Minh, a Buddhist nun who was then at a temple in San Diego. Originally from Vung Tao, Sủco had worked for many years to help the poor and the deformed in Tam Thanh, Quang Nam, regularly undertaking the difficult journey to travel there with other Buddhist nuns. In 1999 when Sủco decided the best way to continue directly helping these families was to return to Vietnam, the idea for the House of God’s Love was born.
What follows describes how God eases suffering and brings joy to his children – working through Tina-Thu and a handful of generous others in Illinois, Lilly in California, Suco in Dong Nai, and a small hard-working team on site in Quang Nam province.
This is the story of House of God’s Love. We warmly invite you to be a part of it.