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| (Observer photo) |
By Amanda Hudson | News Editor
Kim-Doan Katrina Nguyen, MD, is Vietnamese by heritage and Catholic since childhood.
She is also a big fan of the St. Vincent de Paul Society as evidenced by her book signing in early August with SVdP as the recipient of $9 per $15 book sold.
“I was able to donate $600,” she says of that event, noting that the money was divided between the four Rockford parish conferences: St. Rita, St. James, Cathedral of St. Peter and Holy Family.
She became active with the Holy Family conference of the SVdP Society in late 2016 and serves on the conference’s fundraising team. Her family’s experiences as refugees and the support they received along the way, are part of her attraction to the society and its spirit, she says.
“It is not a handout, but a hand up,” she says, adding that she has empathy for what the friends (the term used by SVdP for those they serve) are going through. Her involvement, she adds, is “a way of giving back.”
Dr. Nguyen’s book, “Live to Give,” is a straightforward account of her life, beginning with her family’s flight from Vietnam on her father’s small fishing boat at the time of the collapse of Saigon. She was 14 months old.
They went from Vietnam to the Philippines, Guam, New Orleans and finally California where most of her family still lives.
The idea of writing the book came in part from people who thought her family’s memories and stories should be written down. She wrote for a short time in 2008, then picked it up again in 2013, the year she and her physician husband moved to Rockford and joined Holy Family Parish.
Her faith, she says, is “kind of the thread” holding the book together.
That “thread” was greatly impacted by a Light of the World retreat she attended in 2014 at Holy Family. She was a faithful, church-attending Catholic beforehand, with Catholic roots going back at least through her grandparents, she says, noting that her parents’ faith helped them through the difficulties inherent to an uprooted life.
But this pediatric gastroenterologist had room to grow in faith. The Light of the World retreat, she says, “allowed me to (put) God at the center of my life, my career, and my decisions.”
As a result, her compartmentalized life, where vacation was vacation, work was work and her marriage was her marriage, changed. Now she incorporates faith into all aspects of her life.
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| (Observer photo/A. Hudson) |
“In the past, my career guided my decisions. Now it’s God who guides my decisions,” Dr. Nguyen (left) says. “In the end, I want to inspire (others) to be more giving ... to sit back in faith and ask, ‘How can I make a difference in other people’s lives?’”
In addition to using her book to benefit SVdP, Dr. Nguyen has signed books to benefit “Blue 815,” which supports the families of fallen police officers. She’s open to other causes as well and can be reached with suggestions and invitations via email (mdkatrina1974@gmail.com).
The Nguyen family story is an interesting story for all ages. The author has been most thrilled to hear from readers in their 20s, 30s and 40s who are “not necessarily Catholic or even Christian,” she says.
Some have told her that “the faith component (in the book) has inspired them to revisit the faith in their life (and) how God intervenes” even in difficult times.
Her publisher noted to her how the tone of both her book and her life is positive. She would agree and says simply, “That’s what I want to share — always something positive.”
