Thuy is thankful to have her family back. “Getting clean and sober means nothing if they’re not in my life,” she says. “But they are. Our relationship is restored, and we’re making up for lost time.” Thuy is learning what it means to be a mom — a good mom — to her 3-year-old daughter. She’s worked hard to build a better life for both of them. But the future hasn’t always looked promising, not by a long shot. The odds were stacked against her.

Born in Vietnam after the Vietnam War ended, she spent some of the earliest months of her life in a refugee camp. Her mother died tragically there. By the time she was one year old, what remained of her family had made it to the United States. “My father did the best he could to raise my sister and me,” she explains. But he wasn’t around much. She often felt neglected and lonely.

The family also struggled financially. “Sometimes I was so hungry I had to go to the neighbor’s house to eat cereal,” Thuy remembers. When she was 9 years old, her father remarried. After that, she felt even more unwanted. “I got into trouble at school a lot,” she confesses. By age 15, she was using alcohol and drugs. At 16, the police caught her with methamphetamines. “My father was very disappointed in me,” she recalls. That hurt. But it didn’t stop her from using. Addiction would dominate her life for the next 20 years. She was six months pregnant and homeless when she hit rock bottom.

Thuy came to the Mission desperate to change. Thanks to you and others, she got the chance. “I have been so blessed since coming into the Village of Hope,” Thuy says. She received a grant to continue her education, and is now ready for full time employment. She’s taking parenting classes, developing skills and job preparedness — and she can do all this knowing that she and her daughter have a safe and stable home.

“The Mission has made me feel like I have a purpose — a good purpose,” she says.