PORTLAND OREGON
The Family of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus started in 2005 at Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Portland Oregon USA with a group of friends of Deacon An Vu. It was recognized as a Private Association of the Faithful on Dec 8, 2009 by Archbishop John G. Vlazly, Archbishop of Portland in Oregon.
The Establishment
The Establishment
In 2002 I attended World Youth Day in Toronto Canada. I sold a lot of my musical CDs, most of them are sacred songs. I knew that I could not use the money from those CDs for myself. I had to do something for the poor. First I contacted father Joseph Dinh Huy Huong, my spiritual director, who was in Vietnam, asking him to establish some libraries for children. A few months later I focused on the elderly. I would like to help them with the basic need: rice. I announced on the radio that with only $2 USD we could help an elder have two meals daily for the whole month. I got a lot of donations after this announcement. In the beginning, in 2002, there were only thirty recipients in the Cai Nhum Holy Cross Adorer Sisters through the collaboration of Sister Martha Phan Thi Tuyet Hong. The number increased rapidly. In 2004, Teresa Charities officially incorporated. In 2005, three years after the start, the number of recipients reached five thousand. The highest number was in 2009 with almost fifteen thousand. These elders received 10 kg of rice monthly. After 2009 the donations have decreased in half and at the same time, the price of rice four times more expensive in 2013. As I am writing this page in-2014- Teresa Charities still strives to maintain the service.
I was very impressed when viewing a video clip where an old lady expressed the appreciation to the "Order of Teresa." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSUZ6DlgNMk&feature=youtu.be
One day in 2005 I brought the flyer about the program to a store in Portland, Oregon. Mr. Nguyen Phu Duc, the owner, said to me, "The Teresa Order is really good in doing this." From this comment I thought: Why not establishing a religious order of Teresa to serve the ministry longer to the future? We have been collaborating with different Catholic religious orders and even the Buddhist monks and nuns to serve the elders in more than 300 locations all over Vietnam from North to South . Why not having a religious order of our own to do this ministry wholeheartedly? We already have the Charism: the Little Way of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the ministry serving the elderly. With these two unique projects I was convinced that sooner or latter the Teresa Religious Order will be recognized by the Church. Time is needed for this dream to come true; that would be twenty years or so.
When I first attended the classes of Diaconate Program I thought that I was but a sinful man with very limited ability, especially in the English language. More over, I was already in mature age, fifty years old. I never expected that one day I would be ordained Deacon. But, our Lord is so generous that he ordained me after seven years of me my trying best with patience to follow Him constantly.
One more time I trust in the infinite generosity of our Lord. I am an very unworthy man, even a married one, but I dared to found a religious order: the Family of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus. In 2005 I was brave enough to submit a report to the Archbishop of Portland in Oregon about the activities of Teresa Charities and asked him to start the Family of Saint Therese. In waiting for his response, through radio broadcasting talk shows, I invited people joining this organization to serve the elderly. I was very happy that I got a big turn out. I received many enrollment applications from around the country, some of which were from religious groups other than Catholic. We officially formed two big groups: one in Portland, Oregon, and one in Houston, Texas. All of the members in Houston are Vietnamese, headed by Deacon Joseph Bach Si Nguyen. This group has regular meetings. Each year, since 2004, Houston Family has organized the fund raising dinner usually during the time of the Feast of Saint Therese, October 1. Thousands of guests attended the event and donations have always been big, to almost a hundred thousand dollars each time. There are two groups in the Portland Family: a Vietnamese-speaking group and an English-speaking Group. Besides these main groups, we have smaller groups: Dallas, Texas Family; Tennessee, Ohio Family; Lafayette, Louisiana Family.
I contacted father Anton Vu Duc Tu in the Thanh Hoa Diocese and Sister Maria Nguyen Thi Thu Huong in the Bui Chu Diocese, asking them to collaborate with me in establishing the Family of Saint Therese in these places. They accepted gladly. A little time after that, the Families have been formed in Dalat Diocese and Hue Diocese. I was assigned to serve as Deacon in Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Southeast Portland, where there is a somewhat big Filipino community. Through these faithfulness of our Filipino friends, especially Ms. Lisa Arnaldo, the coordinator, I have had the opportunity to serve some elderly in Quezon City since 2005.
After four years of continuous communicating, the Archbishop of Portland in Oregon, John G. Vlazny, signed the decree recognizing the Family of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus as a Private Association of the Faithful on December 8, 2009, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception..
