"I think everything in our lives leads us in a certain direction. Coming from Vietnam, a third world country, seeing the pain, the hunger and all the hardships of life, affected my choice and my missiomary vocation. It shapes it in the sense that I want to help people who suffer."

Maryknoll Sister Giang began her life in Vietnam, continued in the United States, served in Taiwan and now is ministering in Kenya, Africa as part of a peace-building team of Sisters.

Sister Giang was born in Vietnam and came to the United States when she was eight years old. Her family settled in Houston, Texas.

Sister Giang earned her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Houston. She joined the National Aeronautics and Space Adminstration in Houston as a systems engineer, where she worked for more than five years.

After entering the Maryknoll Sisters in 1996, then making her First Profession of Vows, Sister Giang served in a Taiwan ministry with people suffering from HIV/AIDS, child prostitutes, and other indigenous groups.

In 2006, Sister Giang, along with two other Maryknoll Sisters, was assigned to our new Peace Building Team in Africa, based in Kenya. Presently the focus of this team's ministry is "Conversations for Social Change" - a program designed to prototype a process to effect social change through personal transformation. The team published A Psycho-Social Response to Post-Election Violence in Kenya in April 2009.

Read Sister Giang's special Peace Team Blog and send her your thoughts, prayers and ideas.