True North Strong and Free

Thirty years ago my family and I arrived in Canada from a refugee camp in Indonesia. It was May when we arrived and we were freezing! We came with nothing but the clothes on our backs, some French with which to communicate with the people of Fredericton, New Brunswick, and hope for a better life.

My parents did not want to leave the only home that they ever knew and the home that they loved but I suppose that they deliberated thoroughly before they set out in a rickety fishing boat with four young children, hoping that the sea would take them safely to another land. We lived in the refugee camp for a few months before receiving word from the government of Canada that a small church in Fredericton would take us. I don't know what went through my parents' minds but I knew that they thought anywhere in the free world would be better than the uncertainty that laid ahead for the family members that they left back in Viet Nam.

So thirty years later we are still grateful every day to be Canadian citizens, to have been taken in and cared for by strangers, and to have the freedoms that we are so blessed with. And while I now call the United States home, I take every opportunity to tell people that I am from Canada. Happy Canada Day!