A Fiery Cup

Vietnam's Napalm Girl & the Goodness of God

Kim Phuc Phan Thi was eight years old in 1972, number six in a line of eight siblings, and her childhood was everything a childhood should be. Carefree, abundant, alive. Although her village was seeing more "forest people" (her word for the tunnel-dwelling, Communist-backed Viet Cong rebels who came out at night), she did not bother herself with the adult goings-on of war. There were games to play, books to read, and a jungle of guava trees to climb. She was especially devoted to CaoDai, the religion of her family, and she poured all her heart into living up to its lofty ideals.

The CaoDai temple became an especially comforting refuge when the forest people turned her village into a base of operations. What an adventure! she told herself on arrival. It could be like summer camp!

Burned

Two days into "summer camp," a military plane swooped down to within feet, it seemed, of the outbuilding where she was playing, and it dropped a bright purple and gold smoke grenade. She glanced up to see a soldier, eyes wide, mouth the words "Jesus Christ."

Get out! Run! Go!

Children, run first!

Kim knew terror when she saw it. She ran with all her might and was off the temple grounds and onto Asian Highway Route 1 when the follow-up plane dropped four large black cannisters from its massive underbelly. They weren't loud or heavy like ordinary bombs. These floated down eerily, and within moments the road behind her exploded into a towering inferno of smoke and fire.

Too hot! Too hot! "I am dying! I am dying!" she shrieked, still running.

A young AP journalist dropped his camera to help her, but not before snapping a picture of her running toward him naked, the napalm having incinerated her clothes on contact.

Scarred

She came to in the morgue of a Saigon hospital to the sound of her mother's voice. Hospital staff had left her for dead, her little body swollen and bloody, and her badly burned skin starting to rot. She remained in critical condition for nearly forty days. At one point, her Ma, who had searched her out and demanded she get medical attention, pleaded with the CaoDai gods to end her suffering and take her from this life.

But the CaoDai gods looked away, and fourteen months later Kim returned to her decimated home and village. More agonizing than the searing pain she could never fully escape, a new sorrow clouded her every day: I am ugly now. I have scars. I am unfit to be loved.

Used

By age nineteen, she was ready to be done with this life herself. Three times in her teen years she'd tried to escape Communist Vietnam and failed. Now, government officials had discovered that the "napalm girl," as she'd come to be known because of the photo, made a nice propaganda tool. "You are very important now! Your government needs you, and you must comply," the minder said through clenched teeth. They would regularly kidnap her for appearances or interviews, and after she protested that she needed to be in class, they had her dismissed from university, thus killing her only remaining reason for living—the hope of becoming a doctor and caring for children as she had been cared for. (She wouldn't learn until many years later that they never translated what she actually said, but instead supplied whatever lines they'd been given by the higher-ups.)

She was as alone as a person could be. Friends and family had all but evaporated for fear of coming under the shroud of surveillance that haunted her every move, and she began contemplating a different kind of escape—one that involved running headlong into the center lane of a busy street. Surely the pain of getting run down wouldn't be any worse than what she'd already endured.

Jesus the One & Only

One day she found herself crouched in the religion section of Saigon's central library. Truth be told, she was hiding from the minders, but she started thumbing through books and came upon a New Testament. What's this Christianity all about, anyway? she wondered.

After an hour of skimming the Gospels, two themes became clear. First, in direct contradiction to what she'd been taught through CaoDai—that there are many gods and many paths to holiness—this Jesus presented himself as the way, the truth, and the life. What! she recoiled. How can this be so? There are thousands of ways to get to God. Everyone knew this fact. How brash was this man Jesus!

The second theme was more intriguing than shocking. Jesus had suffered in defense of this claim. CaoDai said Jesus was a prophet and a good man, but certainly not God. Why would he do what he did if he were not, in fact, God? she wondered. His pain must have been for a purpose, or else he wouldn't have endured it so faithfully.

This was a Jesus she had never been exposed to. Her hands trembled as she closed the book. Had she spent nineteen years worshiping the wrong gods? Could this Jesus help her make sense of her pain? Might he help her come to terms with her scars? A distant relative named Anh served as an associate pastor at a nearby Christian church. She perked up. Perhaps he can answer my questions!

Anh took her barrage of questions in stride and carefully consulted his well-worn Bible to respond to each one. Meanwhile, Kim grew more and more conflicted. Something inside her recognized the truth of his words, but there were still these pressing questions. But Anh, what about the napalm attack and these wretched burns I was made to endure? Where was this "God" when I was left for dead? Why did he not spare me from these years of pain? Anh patiently endured the litany, but his time in Saigon eventually came to an end. He connected her with a local church and moved on.

For weeks, Kim wavered between the beautiful thought that she could be loved by one so holy as Jesus Christ himself and the burning, unanswered questions provoked by the pain in her body and soul. Finally, she proposed a deal: "If you will just give me a friend," she said to the heavens, "just one person who knows you and who can help me know you, then I will agree not to take my life." She gave God twenty-four hours to come through.

The next morning, a Sunday, she arrived early at church, and a young woman sitting alone turned as she approached. "Good morning. I am Thuy. Have you come to worship today?"

Her friend. God had provided a friend! For several weeks, Sunday after Sunday (they dared not meet during the week for fear of surveillance), Thuy taught Kim to read and to search the Bible for herself. Most of all, she taught Kim how to pray. "The more we cry, the more we pray," Thuy explained. All Kim's life, religion had meant deference to the gods. She had no concept of having a relationship with God. This Christianity was different, and she studied and studied the Scriptures, devouring the promises of God like thick chunks of guava.

On Christmas Eve, when Pastor Ho Hieu Ha invited any worshiper to open his or her heart to Jesus, Kim nearly leapt from her seat. Worse than the pain in her body, she knew there was hatred in her heart, and it was a burden of bitterness too heavy to bear. She wanted forgiveness. She wanted to let go of her pain. She wanted to pursue life instead of contemplating death. "Yes, you are my Savior now! You are my Father, and I am your child," she said as she hurried down the sanctuary aisle. The next morning, she awakened to the joy of her first-ever true celebration of Christmas.

Cuba

The new year brought new challenges, though. Her family effectively disowned her, and with her education plans derailed, she might have ended up destitute were it not for a compassionate journalist who knew that something was not right about her sunny answers to interview questions. He sought her out, and the ensuing publicity eventually led to an invitation to travel to America, along with three scholarship offers from American universities.

No Communist official could ever release such a useful organ as the napalm girl to a free Western country, but the Vietnamese bureaucrat charged with handling the delicate matter devised a way to grant Kim her greatest wish without ending his own career: "Your plane will leave in the morning," he said. "You will resume your schooling in Cuba." Kim had no idea where Cuba was, but that didn't matter. She was getting out of Vietnam and becoming a full-time student again. Life was looking up.

A Cup Overflowing

More blessings followed. Kim hadn't thought she would ever be loved, but in 1992, with great joy she married Toan, another Vietnamese national studying in Cuba.

And still more: they were given leave to travel to Moscow for a two-week honeymoon. Kim started dropping whispered hints about ways to defect, but Toan would not consider it. "Graduating from university is our only hope," he said.

But Kim had learned to look to a different source for hope. Their return flight included a short layover in Newfoundland, Canada. Once inside the terminal, she closed her eyes and prayed, "Dear Lord, I want to stay in Canada. Show me how to do that." She opened her eyes and saw a hallway with seven passengers from their flight. They are planning to defect! She just knew it.

"Please hand me your passport," she said to Toan. They both knew what that meant, and in the blink of an eye, he made his decision. Kim would long remember the customs agent's first words when she handed over both passports: "Welcome to Canada."

And yet more: Kim and Toan settled in Toronto, and although doctors had said her body could never bear children, their sons Thomas and Stephen were born in 1994 and 1996. In September 1997, her parents traveled to Toronto for a one-month visit. It turned into a welcome indefinite stay, and on Christmas Eve, both renounced the CaoDai gods for Jesus, whom they now knew was real. By 2004, all seven of Kim's siblings had come to faith in Jesus.

Today, Kim advocates for peace and serves victims of war worldwide through her nonprofit organization, the KIM Foundation International. "There is nothing as good as the goodness of God," she says. Though her cup of blessing has been a fiery one, she continues to sing, smile, and praise the God who delivers and blesses through fire.