I loved this short video piece by CNN. I always thought it odd how SE Asians seem to have the market on nail salons.
1. You never know the long-lasting impact of your actions today. Tipi cared for the sojourner, and it impacted generations. The person(s) you fight for, minister to, care for, and love might impact generations.
2. Empowerment, not just charity. Tipi could have just given these Vietnamese refugees a handout. Instead, she chose to give them a skill and the hope that they could make it here in the U.S. This lasted far longer than any lump sum of money.
3. Ideas can spread fast. Much like Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, I am amazed at how such a trade and skill passed from family to family within the Vietnamese-American/immigrant community. There’s something powerful about the immigrant community in which these folks take care of each other. Those in the majority community would do well to learn from this sense of community and interdependence.
4. Someone needs to do a six degrees of separation or “family tree” of nail salon owners to see how many trace back to Tipi.
5. “The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him.” – Acts 17:24-27
How amazing that God would be concerned with the welfare of the Vietnamese people such that he would provide for them a skill/trade and plant them in N. America! I don’t know what Tipi’s motivations were, but it makes me wonder how can I care for the sojourner in my midst in such a way so that they should seek God and find him?