Quang Nguyen on Coming to AMERICA

On Saturday, July 24th, 2010 the town of Prescott Valley, AZ  hosted a Freedom Rally.  Quang Nguyen was asked to speak on his experience of coming to America and what it means.  He spoke the following in dedication to all Vietnam Veterans.  Thought you might enjoy hearing what he had to say: 

Thirty-five years ago, if you were to tell me that I am going to stand up here speaking to a couple thousand patriots, in English, I'd laugh at you. 

Man, every morning I wake up thanking God for putting me and my family in the greatest country on earth.  I just want you all to know that the American dream does exist and I am living the American dream.  I was asked to speak to you about my experience as a first generation Vietnamese-American, but I'd  rather speak to you as an American.

If you hadn’t noticed, I am not white and yet I feel pretty comfortable with my people.  I am a proud US citizen and here is my proof.  It took me eight years to get it, waiting in endless lines, but I got it, and I am very proud of it.

I still remember the images of the Tet offensive in 1968, I was six years old.  Now you might want to question how a 6-year-old boy could remember anything.  Trust me, those images can never be erased.  I can't even imagine what it was like for young American soldiers, 10,000 miles away from home, fighting on my behalf.

Thirty-five years ago, I left South Vietnam for political asylum.  The war had ended.  At the age of 13, I left with the understanding that I may or may not ever get to see my siblings or parents again.  I was one of the first lucky 100,000 Vietnamese allowed to come to the US.  Somehow, my family and I were reunited 5 months later in California.  It was a miracle from God.

If you haven't heard lately that this is the greatest country on earth, I am telling you that right now.  It was the freedom and the opportunities presented to me that put me here with all of you tonight.  I also remember the barriers that I had to overcome every step of the way. 

My high school counselor told me that I cannot make it to college due to my poor communication skills. 

I proved him wrong.  I finished college. 

You see, all you have to do is to give this little boy an opportunity and encourage him to take and run with it.  Well, I took the opportunity and here I am.

This person standing tonight in front of you could not exist under a socialist/communist environment.  By the way, if you think socialism is the way to go, I am sure many people here will chip in to get you a one-way ticket out of here. 

And if you didn't know, the only difference between socialism and communism is an AK-47 aimed at your head.  That was my experience.

In 1982, I stood with a thousand new immigrants, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and listening to the National Anthem for the first time as an American.  To this day, I can't remember anything sweeter than that moment in my life.

Fast forwarding, somehow I finished high school, finished college, and like any other goofball 21 year old kid, I was having a great time with my life I had a nice job and a nice apartment in Southern California.  In some way and somehow, I had forgotten how I got here and why I was here.

One day I was at a gas station, I saw a veteran pumping gas on the other side of the island.  I don't know what made me do it, but I walked over and asked if he had served in Vietnam.  He smiled and said yes.  I shook and held his hand. 

This grown man's eyes began to well up.  I walked away as fast as I could and at that very moment, I was emotionally rocked.  This was a profound moment in my life.  I knew something had to change in my life.  It was time for me to learn how to be a good citizen.  It was time for me to give back.

You see, America is not just a place on the map, it isn't just a physical location.  It is an ideal, a concept.  And if you are an American, you must understand the concept, you must accept this concept, and most importantly, you have to fight and defend this concept.  This is about Freedom and not free stuff.  And that is why I am standing up here

Brothers and sisters, to be a real American, the very least you must do is to learn English and understand it well.  In my humble opinion, you cannot be a faithful patriotic citizen if you can't speak the language of the country you live in.  Take this document of 46 pages - last I looked on the Internet, there wasn't a Vietnamese translation of the U.S. Constitution.  It took me a long time to get to the point of being able to converse and until this day, I still struggle to come up with the right words. It's not easy, but if it's too easy, it's not worth doing

Before I knew this 46-page document, I learned of the 500,000 Americans who fought for this little boy.  I learned of the 58,000 names inscribed on the black wall at the Vietnam Memorial.  You are my heroes.  You are my founders.

At this time, I would like to ask all the Vietnam veterans to please stand. 

I thank you for my life.

I thank you for your sacrifices.

I thank you for giving me the freedom, the amazing liberty I have today. 

I now ask all veterans, firefighters, and police officers, to please stand 

On behalf of all first generation immigrants, I thank you for your service and may God bless you all.

Quang Nguyen

Creative Director/Founder

Caddis Advertising, LLC

"God Bless America"

“One Flag, One Language, One Nation Under God”

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Interesting when we have Illegal’s here in the U.S. waving Mexican flags and flags of other countries; we have  NFL players (and others) not respecting our flag and national anthem.  We have city Boards discontinuing the practice of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.  We have fools rioting and looting and saying how terrible America is. 

Perhaps they should visit some of the socialist countries they'd like the U.S. to emulate. 

Venezuela and its discouraged, starving people, for example,  could use a few well-fed, strong, disgruntled Americans to help restore their once-prosperous nation (prosperous before socialism.)

Romans 15:13

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." Romans 15:13 

Quote from R.C, Sproul

"The failure of modern evangelicalism is the failure to understand the holiness of God." R.C. Sproul

Weep / Rejoice

Weep / Rejoice by Rick Warren

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).

When you see God providing for others, you can choose to respond with either joy or resentment.

In some ways, the second half of today’s verse is much easier to do than the first half. It’s easy to weep with those who weep.
But it’s much more difficult to rejoice when someone experiences success. In fact, we sometimes feel threatened by it, and we resent it. That’s because we think the world is a giant pie that’s divided up into slices. If somebody gets a slice that’s a little bit bigger than mine, that must mean my slice is going to be smaller.

That kind of thinking is wrong. God’s got all the pie slices in the world! He doesn’t run out of blessings. He doesn’t run out of grace. There’s more than enough to go around for everybody, and just because God blesses somebody else doesn’t mean there’s not enough blessing for you, too. He wants to bless you, but it may be in different ways.

Envy keeps you from entering into the joy of other people. As a result, you don’t enjoy much that goes on in the world. Envy will make you a pretty miserable person.

This is what happened in the parable of the vineyard workers in Matthew 20. The owner hired some people at the start of the day and others later in the day, but he paid them all the same. The first workers thought they’d been cheated. Instead of enjoying their pay, they resented it.

But if you choose to rejoice in God’s goodness to others, you can be joyful all the time—because something good is always happening to somebody.

Today in History

Today in History
1941
Preparations for the Final Solution Begin

On this day in 1941, Hermann Goering, writing under instructions from Hitler, ordered Reinhard Heydrich, SS general and Heinrich Himmler’s number-two man, “to submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question.”

Goering recounted briefly the outline for that “final solution” that had been drawn up on January 24, 1939: “emigration and evacuation in the best possible way.” This program of what would become mass, systematic extermination was to encompass “all the territories of Europe under German occupation.”

Heydrich already had some experience with organizing such a plan, having reintroduced the cruel medieval concept of the ghetto in Warsaw after the German occupation of Poland. Jews were crammed into cramped walled areas of major cities and held as prisoners, as their property was confiscated and given to either local Germans or non-Jewish Polish peasants.

Behind this horrendous scheme, carried out month by month, country by country, was Hitler, whose “greatest weakness was found in the vast numbers of oppressed peoples who hated [him] and the immoral ways of his government.”

This assessment was Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin’s, given at a Kremlin meeting that same day, July 31, with American adviser to the president Harry Hopkins.

Chinese Subversion / Russian Conspiracy

China Covertly Subverting Trump Reelection - FreeBeacon

China is conducting an aggressive disinformation and influence campaign designed to block the re-election of President Trump in 2020, according to Guo Wengui, an exiled Chinese real estate tycoon-turned-anti-communist critic.

The campaign has been underway since the 2018 mid-term election and involves enlisting pro-China elements inside the United States to end the Trump administration after four years.

"For the 2020 U.S. presidential election, the security committee has given very clear instructions that it is not permissible for Trump to win the 2020 election," Guo said speaking through an interpreter.

By deploying its intelligence and influence resources in the United States, the CCP is working to exploit the harsh political divisions between Democrats and Republicans in seeking to unseat the Trump administration.

Chinese interference into American politics was first disclosed by Trump in September and a month later in a speech by Vice President Mike Pence. Pence stated that the Beijing political interference employs a whole-of-government approach involving political, economic, military tools, and propaganda to interfere in both policy and politics.

"To put it bluntly, President Trump's leadership is working; and China wants a different American president," Pence said in a speech Oct. 4.

On another point of interest: Ex-FBI chief of staff sats Russia conspiracy came from Obama White House - WND

James Rybicki, who served as chief of staff to former FBI Director James Comey, suggested in sworn testimony that the Trump-Russia collusion investigation was orchestrated by Obama's White House in October 2016, according to newly released bureau documents.

Lawyer Ty Clevenger obtained the documents as part of a lawsuit on behalf of businessman Ed Butowsky, who claims columnist Ellen Ratner told him murdered Democratic National Committee worker Seth Rich and his brother provided WikiLeaks the DNC emails before the 2016 election, not Russia.

Clevenger explained that the OSC prosecutors were noting that the FBI publicized its reactivation of the Clinton email investigation shortly before the 2016 election. It was in that context that one of the prosecutors commented that the White House wanted some kind of statement made about Russia.

"It looks like the Obama White House put its thumb on the scale, pressuring intelligence agencies to adopt the Democratic National Committee's talking points, i.e., to blame the stolen emails on Russian hackers rather than an internal source (like Seth Rich)."

Quote from Rich Mullins

"Save me from trendy religion that makes cheap clichés out of timeless truths."  Rich Mullins

Thoughts on Today's Verse

"To all who received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God." John 1:12-13

Thoughts on Today's Verse by Phil Ware

We live in a time and culture of rights. "It's my right to ___." Just fill in the blank. We claim many rights for ourselves but one right is imparted to us by the Holy One Himself. We are given the right to be God's child by God's grace.

This right came to us at great cost to God. Jesus came to earth, lived, died and was raised from the dead. We receive this grace through faith: God gives us new birth as we trust in Jesus to be our Lord and Savior, and we are baptized and reborn through the power of the Holy Spirit (John 3:3-7; Titus 3:3-7).

To be born of God, to be born from above, to be born "again" is the gift of adoption into God's family and brings us all the rights of heirs in God's house (Galatians 3:26-4:7).

My Prayer...

Abba Father, thank you for including me in your family. May my life today reflect your influence, character, mercy, holiness, compassion, righteousness, and love. I want to be like you, my Father. So just as I was born into your family by the power of the Holy Spirit, please fill me with your Spirit today so that I will reflect you in all I do and say.

In the name of my older brother Jesus I pray. Amen.

Proverbs 20:11

"Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right," Proverbs 20:11.

Quote from Rick Warren

"Every good thing in our lives is a gift from God, and it is up to him to decide when and how he blesses us. It’s up to us to choose to be grateful and make the most of what we’ve been given." Rick Warren

The Atheist and the Little Girl

The Atheist and the Little Girl

An atheist and a little girl were seat partners on an airplane. The atheist  turned to the child and said, “Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.”

The little girl, who had just started to read her book, replied to the total stranger, “What would you want to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the atheist. “How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?” as he smiled smugly.

“Okay,” she said. “Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?”

The atheist, visibly surprised by the little girl’s intelligence, thought about it and said, “Hmmm, I have no idea.”

To which the little girl replied, “Do you really feel qualified to discuss God, Heaven, and Hell, or life after death, when you don’t know crap?”