On the advent of the 25th anniversary celebration of Sen Nguyen’s first vows as a member of the Sisters of St. Francis, Sacred Heart Province, she spent considerable time contemplating her journey to this point.
This is not to say such thoughts are ever far from her mind. It is a source of ceaseless wonder to her how life unfolds. From her current vantage point, she can look back and see a clear sequence of events, one moment guiding another, leading her here to this small community of religious sisters who have supported and encouraged her. Providence, she declares, which is not unexpected. The eyes of faith give order to what others might consider random.
How, she wondered, should her Jubilee Mass express the marvel and mystery of life, the journey of renewal? It is Isaiah who answers. Chapter 43, verse 19. “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”
“That’s beautiful,” I tell her Monday, two days after her Mass and reception. Her eyes immediately well up.
“I spent a lot of time finding the reading,” she says. “The same chapter says, ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. You shall not drown.’ And do you know that I am one of the boat people?”
Sen was born in South Vietnam. Her father died when she was a child, leaving behind her and her mother, Tin. In the waning days of the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese approached her village and she and her mother fled to another town. That town was full of starving refugees, so Sen left for Saigon, planning to bring back food. Saigon fell while she was there. By the time Sen made it back, her mother had disappeared. Sen went home to look for her, but she was not there, either.
Sen believed her dead. Six months later, a letter arrived from her mother. The postmark was Denver, Colorado.
Had not her mother escaped first, Sen often thinks, she herself would not have left in 1978, traveling by boat to refugee camps in Malaysia. Had she stayed in Communist Vietnam, it is unlikely she would have pursued her religious calling. That call has been strong within her as long as she can remember.
“When I thought about the Jubilee, I thought, ‘How will I convey my home journey?’ ” she tells me. “And I don’t mean my journey home. That journey is outward. The home journey is inward.”
She puts her hands over her heart. “It is already here and it unfolds and it grows and it grows and presents me with newness.”
Her description makes me think of my experience with parenthood. “I would call that love,” I say. “Love, soul, home,” she says.
“It builds upon the experiences we have and it is boundless and always creating something new if we would just open our eyes. Even now, I look back at what has happened to me and yet I ponder what is to come.”
Sen returned to Vietnam for the first time in 1990 and has been back many times since. For years, she has helped support a group of 42 women there. They were stricken by polio and grew up in an orphanage.
She buys their exquisite embroidery and handmade purses, scarves, blouses and sells them at her Bridging Hope gallery on West 43rd Avenue and Tennyson Street. Bridging Hope, the name of her nonprofit, also helps pays for meals and school classes for children. It is only because of this work, that Sen tells her story.
Twenty-five years ago, she says, she would have said she wanted to serve others without understanding why, without knowing how much of that desire was her own ego. She has no such hesitations now. She wants to help others because that is what she is called to do, because that is what lies within the home of her heart.
Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
