Living For Higher Purpose: Story of a City Boy Who Survived the Vietnam War by Living for Jesus and Others

The Vietnam War left devastation in its wake. Not only did it pit Americans against one another but Vietnamese families in Viet Nam as well. Living for a Higher Purpose is the true harrowing journey of Viet. Having lived ten years under the Communist stranglehold, he escapes on his own after several failed attempts to find a better and freer life. During that voyage to freedom, he finds himself thrown into prisons that try to break him. After his release, when liberty is just at his fingertips on board a small boat, he is again faced with terrifying obstacles. Throughout his lifetime, Viet has been forced to make the hardest decisions anyone can make. One of those decisions was to leave part of his family in Viet Nam. His faith in the Lord kept him moving one foot after the other despite losses and setbacks until he reached his final destination of the United States, eventually discovering his life’s purpose. And although the life of a refugee had more downs than ups in the beginning, he prevailed.

Viet’s traumatic crossing into the land of opportunity is full of heart weary events and moments of bliss. However, Reverand Peter G. Vu’s style of narration, because of its at arms-length approach, doesn’t provide a fully connective experience for the reader. For it to become an immersive experience, the voice needs to dig deeper and be less detached so that the reader can be “one” with Viet and his life.

There were also points throughout the book that lent themselves to a language-barrier issue. In one section, the narrator described a fun memory in regard to a person having a stroke or heart attack. With the language barrier issue aside, Living for a Higher Purpose is a glimpse of one refugee’s life, and it is a perspective that doesn’t get written about often, which makes it a worthwhile read.