Where do dreams … come from?

I was born and grew up in my home district of Quỳnh Lưu, Nghệ An Province. My family is not whole, not as wonderful as so many others. My father is a convert; when I was four, my parents stopped living together and my father went off in search of a new life. From then until now, the four of us children have had only our mother's hands to depend on for our food. Around that same time I broke my leg in an accident. My family was in dire straits, and with no father to share the hardship, my mother had a very hard time of it. My leg was badly broken and my family had no money for treatment; by God's grace I met a benefactor who paid for my stay in hospital at that time.

Once that wave had passed, my mother and I had to row against the new waves of life. On her own she toiled to raise and educate the four of us, but the family was so poor that my brother and my two sisters had to leave school partway through, before finishing seventh and eighth grade, in order to earn their keep. Only I, the youngest, was left to go on to school and carry on my brother's and sisters' dream.

Now I am a university student, and I am very happy — happy because I have not let down my mother, nor the sacrifices she and my brother and sisters have made for me all these years. My brother and sisters are married now and have their own little homes to care for; only my mother and I are left. My mother is the same as she has always been, doing every hard job under the sun to earn the money to keep me in school. She works as a hired hand, washes dishes, keeps house for others, sometimes nearby and sometimes far away, sometimes in Vinh, sometimes in Hà Nội. She goes back and forth, up and down, to earn every đồng to raise me and to build a new house in place of the cramped, run-down one we used to have. My mother is an ordinary woman, but she has done things many other women could never do. The house lacks a father as its pillar, but my mother has shouldered it all.

The day I passed my university entrance exam my mother was overjoyed, but I knew it also meant one more worry, one more burden weighing on her shoulders. She still let me keep studying, and she still had to keep toiling to provide for me. For more than a year now she has worked close to home, selling congee through the night from seven in the evening until five the next morning. For every night spent awake working like that she earns only 50,000 đồng. On many cold nights, lying under a warm blanket, I ached for my mother so much that the tears came and I sobbed. She is often ill too, and has to take medicine every day. Aching for how hard she works, I try my best at my studies; outside class hours I also tutor to earn money to help her out. I have always had to remind myself to study as well as I can to make my mother glad. In all twelve years of school I was an all-round excellent pupil. In ninth grade I won third prize in the province and first prize in the district in English. In tenth and eleventh grade I won third prize in the province in the IOE online English competition, and so on. And now I am a student of English Language Teaching at Vinh University; at present I am the head of branch 55A1 of English Language Teaching, and a member of the Executive Board of the Students' Association of the Faculty of Foreign Language Teaching.

For more than a year I have been accompanying and guiding the Vinh Education English Club, founded by Ms. Tuệ Phương and the Education For The Poor association, which meets at Cầu Rầm church and helps Catholic and non-Catholic students alike to learn English. In the 2014-2015 academic year I earned the title of excellent student and received the university's academic encouragement scholarship as well as an encouragement scholarship from the Nguyễn Trường Tộ Scholarship Fund of the Diocese of Vinh. In the first semester of the 2015-2016 academic year just past, my grade point average on the 10-point scale was 8.46 ( 3.74 on the 4-point scale ), and my conduct score was 92/100, rated excellent. My dream is to become a good teacher of English. I have wanted to be a teacher since I was little, and moreover this was the unfinished dream of my two sisters, which I want to carry on. Choosing a foreign language field is a great challenge, because succeeding takes a very large investment of both effort and money to obtain this international certificate and that one. At the moment I am studying hard for the IELTS examination.

I will strive even harder to achieve good results in the semesters ahead and to complete my degree, so that I can find a good job later on. That is the distant future; for now I have to study, and take part in volunteer activities, and tutor on the side to earn money for food, lodging, travel, books and advanced classes, because it pains me to see my mother work so hard for me… I want to lighten her burden, since she is still ill and has to take medicine every day.

I learned of the Our Lady of La Vang Scholarship Fund and would like to ask the association for help to cover a little more of my daily living, so that I need not ask my mother, even though I know there are many others in circumstances harder than mine.

These have been the confidences of my heart. Finally, I wish the Our Lady of La Vang Scholarship Fund ever greater growth, so that it may help still more Catholic pupils and students, and I wish the members of the association health and success.

Anna Trần Thị Thơm Parish: Tân Lập Field: English Language Teaching Vinh University