A Bridge Born From Gratitude

Radina was born and raised in Cambodia, in Chrouy Changva, a peninsula across the river from Phnom Penh. Her childhood was simple and happy. There were boat rides into the city for shopping, for parks and restaurants, for the ordinary entertainments of a family life she assumed would always be there.

She still remembers walking home from school and stopping at a neighborhood shop for salted eggs or shaved ice. Small pleasures, easily overlooked, that she would later come to understand as gifts.

Radina was adopted after birth by her biological mother's second sister. Her aunt was a single mother and a dedicated nurse who worked while continuing her own education, eventually earning a full scholarship to pursue a higher nursing degree in Canada. Her perseverance, her compassion, and her belief in education left a mark on Radina that never faded.

During the Khmer Rouge period, Radina's family, like so many others, was forced from home. As she describes it, “My family was forced at gunpoint to leave our home.” They lived under the surveillance of Angka and were moved again and again between locations and villages. People whose backgrounds became known, teachers, doctors, scholars, high ranking officers and soldiers, could be taken away, tortured, and killed. Radina saw people led away to be killed. Sometimes entire families.

Teenagers and young adults were required to perform hard labor, and at just 14 years old, she was among them. She was frequently separated from her family for months at a time. Thirteen members of her family endured those years together: her grandmother, her biological parents, the aunt who raised her, six siblings, her oldest sister's husband, and their two children.

Over roughly three years, ten of them died of starvation, disease, poor sanitation, and severe malnutrition. Radina, the fifth of nine siblings, survived along with her second sister and her younger brother. She herself came close to death several times from dysentery, malaria, and contaminated water.

She does not tell this part of her life to be pitied. She tells it because it is where her appreciation for life, for family, for resilience, and for the chance to help someone else was formed.

After surviving those years, Radina escaped Cambodia on foot with her sister, her sister's husband, and her younger brother. Their path led through several refugee camps.

When Radina entered the first refugee camp, she did not know English at all. While living in the camps, she began taking English classes taught by former Khmer-English instructors, along with educational programs provided for refugees. It was there that she began learning the language that would later become an important part of rebuilding her life. Through that continued effort, she developed enough ability to work as a translator in the refugee camps.

At her final refugee camp, Phanat Nikom in Chonburi, she had the opportunity to work for an agency known as JVA. That opportunity became life changing. After several months working with JVA, Radina was given the opportunity to immigrate to the United States without having to go through the standard process she had expected.

Beginning again was hard. Radina arrived with seven years of formal education and was still learning English. College brought loneliness, cultural distance, and bullying. What it did not do was change her mind. As she puts it, “I was determined to become a nurse and follow in the footsteps of the mother who raised me,” the aunt who adopted her and who was herself a dedicated nurse.

With encouragement and support, she earned her GED, completed four years of college, earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, passed the NCLEX, and became a registered nurse. She then spent 29 years at a Veterans Administration hospital, working in Medical, Emergency, and Oncology and Hematology, and serving as Charge Nurse, Acting Nurse Manager, and Assistant Nurse Manager, as well as a preceptor for newly hired nurses.

The final sixteen years of her nursing career were spent caring for cancer patients. She brought her clinical skill to that work, and something else as well. Having lived through suffering and survival, she could sit with patients who were afraid or losing hope and speak to them as someone who had been there.

Her husband became an essential part of her life in America. Both had known profound loss, and each understood the other's loneliness. Together they built a loving life and a family. Five years after Radina retired, he was diagnosed with cancer, and she found herself drawing on the compassion and hope she had spent sixteen years offering to others. She later lost him.

Faith runs through the center of Radina's life. She was raised in the Muslim faith, and from a young age, she says, she searched for God with all her heart.

After coming to America, her sponsors introduced her to the Bible and to Christianity with love and kindness and without pressure. Through prayer and her own search for truth, Radina came to know Jesus Christ, was baptized, and became a Christian. She believes God's grace carried her through surviving Cambodia, rebuilding her life, becoming a nurse, serving her patients, and walking through the loss of her husband.

After his passing, she prayed a simple prayer: that God would use her life in service to others. Since then she has taught Bible studies, preached, helped people in need, and supported practical needs in Cambodia. Bridge of Life and Hope Foundation is an extension of that prayer.

For many years Radina has dreamed of taking part in a mission trip, and she has prayed about that desire. In January 2027 she will have the opportunity to participate in a medical mission trip through another organization based in Long Beach. She sees it as part of God's answer to her prayer, and as a dream coming true.

Radina first returned to Cambodia in 1991 with her husband. Seeing the country again, and the places where she had grown up, was deeply emotional. Much of what she remembered was gone, and the country was still recovering from the Khmer Rouge era. She went back several more times, including trips with her children so they could see their roots and understand the opportunities they had been given in America.

More recently, a friend showed her his work with families in remote areas of Cambodia. What moved her most was the lack of clean water, and watching families walk miles to collect what they needed for a single day. Radina prayed about how she could help, and personally contributed toward a well that, she says, now serves approximately 200 families.

One experience stayed with her. Through her friend's YouTube interview, Radina learned about a 12-year-old girl in Cambodia who had contracted typhoid and had become so weak that she could no longer walk. Her mother was eight months pregnant with their third child, with no access to prenatal care and very little food for the family. Some days, all they had to eat was rice with pickled mustard, and yet they were grateful simply to have rice. They did not even know what they would have to eat the next day.

“Seeing their circumstances through that interview broke my heart,” Radina said. “Here was a pregnant mother without proper nutrition or prenatal care, while her young daughter was suffering from typhoid and had become too weak to walk. I could not simply hear their story and walk away. Experiences like this became part of the reason Bridge of Life and Hope Foundation was formed, to help families facing circumstances like these find hope, dignity, and a path toward a healthier future.”

Radina carried that story in her heart and prayed for guidance. She helped provide medical care for the girl, and helped provide a well for the community. Later she learned that the girl had received treatment and was able to walk again.

The joy of that news changed how she thought about her own efforts. Helping one person at a time was good. Building something capable of reaching more people was better.

Radina shared what was on her heart with her friend Michael, who has experience with evangelistic and humanitarian work in Asia. Together they saw an opportunity to serve beyond individual acts of kindness. Her connection to Cambodia and his roots and involvement in the Philippines shaped the foundation's initial focus on those two countries. Radina serves as President and primary organizational lead.

Cambodia is where part of her story began. The Philippines reflects a commitment to letting that story of hope cross borders. For Radina, the work is about connecting people who have been blessed with the ability to help to people and communities facing hardship, with faith, compassion, dignity, and the offer of real opportunity.

Over the next five to ten years, Radina hopes the foundation can reach more communities across Cambodia and the Philippines: remote villages, rural areas, mountain communities, and cities. Her hopes include expanding access to clean water, bringing medical teams to communities in need, providing health and lifestyle education, helping local people share what they learn with others, building lasting relationships with communities and organizations, and supporting practical humanitarian needs.

These are hopes, not promises. And Radina has said she is far less concerned with how large the foundation becomes than with how many lives it can positively impact.