By Emily Wierenga

SHE’S KNOWN as ‘the girl in the picture’ – the one snapped arbitrarily amidst napalm smoke and screams; the picture of a naked girl running from flames which ate her skin; the picture which changed a war-torn world.

Kim Phuc, now 43 and living in Ontario, describes her childhood in Trang Bang, Vietnam as a happy one. “The only pain I knew was falling off my bicycle,” she says.

That changed with the bombing of her village – which pilots said was simply ‘in the way’ of their intended goal. Phuc wasn’t expected to live.

“Napalm is the most terrible pain you can imagine,” she describes. “It generates temperatures of 800 to 1,200 degrees Celsius.”

Nevertheless, after 17 surgeries and 14 months of hospitalization, Phuc was released – only to be snatched up again by the media.

Proclaimed a ‘National Symbol of War,’ hundreds of interviews ensued with governments and officials worldwide.

“I only wanted to escape that picture. I wanted to forget that ever happened. But they wanted everyone to remember.”

During this time, Phuc battled questions like: “Why did this happen to me?”  She says, “I was living with anger, with bitterness . . . I hated my life.”

Phuc found solace in the library – where she stumbled upon the Bible. “I couldn’t stop reading it.”

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This curiosity drove her to church, where she heard the gospel explained for the first time.

“The love of God changed my life. I knew that Jesus died on the cross and paid for my sins. So I asked God, ‘Do you forgive me?’”

No longer did she need to know ‘Why?’ Instead, she was asking ‘How?’

“My life was like a cup of coffee. Very dark: with hatred, anger, bitterness, sorrow . . . So I asked God, ‘How can I clean everything in my heart, if it’s full of coffee?’”

The answer, she explains, was in letting her cup be poured out every day, “until it became empty and God spilled his love into my cup.”

Phuc’s troubles weren’t over; to this day, she fights the pain from her napalm scars, as well as diabetes. However, she credits God with giving her a wonderful husband and children – and a chance to start over in Canada.

During her visit to the Vietnam War Memorial in 1996, Phuc met – and fully embraced – one of the pilots who had actually bombed her village. She assured the shattered man of her forgiveness.

The following year, UNESCO named Phuc a Goodwill Ambassador for Peace.

“I am not involved in politics or religion,” she says. “I just let them know it’s about the love of God and the love of people. That is more powerful than any weapon of war.”

To donate toward one of Kim Phuc’s projects, visit www.kimfoundation.com.

Winter/Spring 2008