Finding Purpose Through Adversity and Faith

What shapes a person’s life more: where they begin or how they rise above their circumstances? Meet Paul Heflin, whose extraordinary journey started in a Vietnamese orphanage during the Vietnam War. Rescued through Operation Babylift and adopted into a loving family in South Carolina, Paul’s early life was marked by both profound love and heartbreaking tragedy. As he recounts his mother fiercely defending their familial bond and the shattering loss of two siblings in a train accident, you're invited to explore the intricacies of adoption, loss, and the enduring power of familial love.

Transitioning from a sheltered upbringing to confronting the harsh realities of homelessness after incarceration, Paul found solace and a renewed purpose at Gateway Rescue Mission. This episode hears Paul’s honest reflection on his struggles with low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts, and his transformative journey at Gateway. Embracing his spiritual gifts and the newfound hope in his path, Paul’s story is a testament to resilience and faith. Discover how he rebuilds his life, guided by a sense of divine purpose, and what each of us can learn about service and spiritual growth from his experiences.

Transcript

Adoption and Tragedy Shaped My Life

Rex Baker 0:00

Hello everyone, my name is Rex Baker and you are listening to More Than a Shelter, where we talk about things going on at Gateway Rescue Mission in good old Jackson, Mississippi. I'm joined today by Paul Heflin, and Paul is a very interesting guy, let's just put it this way. So, Paul, welcome to the show.

Paul Heflin 0:20

Thank you for having me.

Rex Baker 0:22

Paul, you're not from around these parts. Go back and share the beginning of the fascinating story of where you came from and how you got here in Mississippi.

Paul Heflin 0:33

Oh, wow, this is a really interesting story. I was born around November 27th 1974. And the reason I say around is because they don't really know my exact birth date. They're guesstimating due to my size and weight. I was dropped off at a shelter at an orphanage in Vietnam when I was a newborn baby. You know the old typical dropped off in a box and no known parents, no known relatives or anything, just dropped off. There were hundreds, probably thousands of children done that way off the streets and all that. So for the first couple months of my life I was in the care of the orphanage supervisors, the ladies there, and actually I think there were nuns.

Paul Heflin 1:18

Around February and March the United States government was getting close to the end of the Vietnam War. The Vietnamese city of Da Nang had already fallen in March and Saigon was being shelled and close to falling by the North Vietnamese military. It was around that point that a bunch of Americans in Vietnam and in the United States petitioned the United States military to do something about the overflow of orphans in these orphanages. So after months of negotiating, they finally started getting that ball rolling. About six organizations in the United States took part in this evacuation. One of them was the one I was a part of, A Friend of the Children of Vietnam. They took probably around three to four hundred babies and put them on a US military plane and evacuated them out of Saigon before Saigon fell in April. S o around April 4th, I got flown out of Vietnam, traveled all the way from Vietnam to San Diego, I believe, from San Diego to Dallas-Fort Worth and Dallas-Fort Worth to Atlanta where I was met by my new adoptive parents.

Rex Baker 2:33

So for historical purposes, you can look this up online. It was called Operation Baby Lift, where the US government took planes in and evacuated several thousand children.

Paul Heflin 2:47

Close to 3,300.

Rex Baker 2:49

Amazing. So you don't really know much about your early childhood, do you? Or let me rephrase that. What do you know about what happened when you're at that age where you really don't remember it?

Paul Heflin 3:02

Nothing. I remember absolutely nothing. To be honest. I barely remember being two and three years old.

Rex Baker 3:09

I went back and read on this and it's a quite fascinating story. The whole history around Operation Baby Lift, bringing out over 3,000 babies and young children from South Vietnam at the time when the North Vietnamese Army was about to take over. I'm old enough, Paul, to remember seeing this on the news. When they're evacuating, they don't have enough room on the aircraft carriers to hold all the helicopters and they're pushing them off into the ocean, and it was a really dramatic time of history and I had no idea back then that I'd be sitting here today talking to someone who came out of all of that. So you come out of Vietnam through Operation Baby Lift and you wind up where?

Paul Heflin 3:53

I wound up in Columbia, South Carolina, which is kind of strange because, after doing some research, the United States wasn't the only country that adopted babies. Australia and New Zealand and, I think, UK, so dozens of countries, and God had it for me to be placed with this family who already had three natural born children who are actually quite a little bit older than myself, one being already four years old, the other six and the other seven. So they already had children past baby age when I came along.

Rex Baker 4:25

So what memories do you have of your young childhood?

Paul Heflin 4:27

Well, I think I remember around two years old actually, I remember because it was actually a pretty traumatic experience. It was Christmas morning, I had just turned two years old, so that would have been in 1976. It would have been the middle of the night and I thought I heard Santa. We lived in a two-story house. I was upstairs. So I got out of the bed at two years old, started running down the stairs in the pitch black and I fell down the stairs, hitting the kitchen door on the very bottom stairs and I ended up breaking my arm in multiple places and they had to put a bunch of needles in there.

Rex Baker 4:59

So you probably spent that Christmas in the emergency room or something.

Paul Heflin 5:03

Yes, I did.

Rex Baker 5:04

So, tell us about some of the rest of your life as you start to get out of high school.

Paul Heflin 5:11

My childhood was actually very wonderful growing up. I had two older brothers and an older sister who loved me and treated me like I was a natural born sibling and my adoptive parents loved me and, as a matter of fact, I remember my mom saying that she was in the grocery store one time and a woman asked her if that was her baby and she kind of looked at the woman like kind of cross-eyed, not knowing what to think, but she said of course it's my baby. So that was kind of fun, but I had some very loving family. The most traumatic thing happened actually, I was 11 years old. My older sister was 14. I had a brother who was 17. My oldest brother, who was 18, and my sister, who was 14, were killed in a train accident. They were hit by a train while taking my sister to a dance class. I was supposed to be with them because I was 11 years old. They didn't want to leave me by myself. But because my brothers had a very small car, they had to go pick up one of my sister's friends. They told me to stay home. If it wasn't for that, I would have been with them in that train accident and there was no telling what might have happened.

Finding Hope at Gateway Rescue Mission

Rex Baker 6:15

That is tragic. So bring us up to date now. How did you wind up at Gateway Rescue Mission.

Paul Heflin 6:22

Well, through a series of really bad choices and not holding up the responsibility, I moved down to Mississippi in 2006 and lived with a family friend, but I ended up being incarcerated in 2010. I got out of prison in September 2024, and I went to another organization for housing, which didn't work out. So I called some representatives at Gateway and they told me "just come on down, And it was only by God's grace and blessing that they had a spot in the program that was available, because I've heard that it is really hard to get in the program at Gateway. But they had a spot open and staff here just accepted me and loved me with open arms. It's been amazing.

Rex Baker 7:12

So how long have you been at Gateway now?

Paul Heflin 7:14

I have been in Gateway now for a little over three months. Three and a half months.

Rex Baker 7:19

Okay. I was talking to you the other day and you were talking about the psychology or how you felt when you first came to this homeless shelter called Gateway Rescue Mission. Talk about that a little bit.

Paul Heflin 7:31

When I first walked through the door, I had looked through the office there at the shelter and saw bunk beds lined up and it just brought back memories of prison. It hit me that I am homeless and I just broke down in tears because I thought being in prison was low, but now being homeless and living in a homeless shelter, my ego took a huge hit. I just busted out in tears because I felt like my life couldn't have gotten any worse and I almost felt like I wish I was back in prison for a few minutes, because at least there I know I would have been taken care of. I know I would have medical. I know I would have food. But being at a homeless shelter which I've never done before I didn't know what to expect. My pride and my ego got the best of me on that day.

Rex Baker 8:19

So, Paul, what has been your experience so far at Gateway, when you compare it to that first day and thought "Oh, I'm in a shelter.

Paul Heflin 8:25

Well, honestly, it has been mixed. There have been some good days. Some really good days. And there have been some bad days. Some trying days. Days where the storm feels like it's more violent than others and more chaotic. But all in all, my experience at Gateway Rescue Mission has been amazing. I couldn't have asked for anything better. Every morning I get up at 5 o'clock in the morning, get dressed and go outside and just spend 5 to 10 minutes just thanking God. Doing a gratitude of praise and prayer. Just thanking God for where he has me. Yes, everything's not perfect, everything's not where I want my life to be, but I see now why God has me here. He's fine-tuning me. I have a lot of work to do and Gateway Rescue Mission is helping me do that through the counselors and the staff.

Rex Baker 9:20

Why do you think God has you here?

Paul Heflin 9:23

Because I'm not ready for the real world yet, because I still have a lot of mental and spiritual issues that need to be worked out. I need to be more confident in my walk with Christ, I need to be more knowledgeable and alert about my recovery and I just need more training on how to be a productive member of society. Learning how to have responsibility. And I'm actually very grateful for Gateway, because if I had gone out just straight out of prison into the real world, I don't think I would make it. I think I would have done something to get myself thrown back.

Rex Baker 10:02

Wow. So what now is a day in the life of Paul Heflin? What's that look like?

Paul Heflin 10:08

The day in the life is, I wake up, and like I said, I do my gratitude prayer at 5 o'clock in the morning. I pray in for breakfast. I really don't always eat breakfast, but I can go there and pray, which is a lot of fun. It's a good way to start my day. Then I go upstairs and do about 15 to 30 minutes of quiet time with God. I'll read devotionals, get into the Word and really start my day off right, which is something that's new to me, because I never used to do this before. In prison. I didn't do this. Definitely not before I came to prison. So I start my day off with a Word of God. Then I go to chapel service where we recite our verses. Most of the time, I come back to the administration office where I work as a desk man and door greeter.

Rex Baker 10:55

And you're very good at it, Paul. I mean, I know when I pull into the parking lot, you're going to be outside smiling, looking my direction before I even get out of the car. So you are a very welcoming person. So I appreciate you doing that.

Paul Heflin 11:09

Well, It's my pleasure.

Rex Baker 11:11

I think it shows how we can begin to make some small changes in our lives that bless other people. I don't have to have it all figured out yet, but I can see God working in your life. When I think about you started in Vietnam and came through Operation Babylift, you were not in a car that you were supposed to be in when it was hit by a train, it's obvious that God has his hand on your life and He wants to do something with and through you.

Paul Heflin 11:38

Oh, absolutely. I haven't shared this with a whole lot of people, but I've survived three suicide attempts as well. Being born in Vietnam, because I obviously was different from my adoptive family, I've always grown up with low self-esteem. I didn't know who I was and always struggled with that. So at low points in my life, yes, I have tried to commit suicide. I've tried to overdose on drugs and alcohol and again, by the grace of God, He wouldn't let me go. Now I know He has a plan for me. I don't know what that plan is, but I'm okay with that. I'm okay with not knowing.

Rex Baker 12:14

Sometimes, when you know God has a plan for you, but you don't know what it is yet, you just follow him in the next thing He lays out for you. So if that's being a Gateway, you follow Him there until He lets you see something else. Sometimes we can get so caught up in "I want to know the long term, and I still don't know the long term amongst some things that God's doing in me. But I think you're doing the right thing now just by letting Him do that. Sometimes that slow redemptive work is more necessary and more powerful than if something happens quickly, and I think that's where we can get ahead of ourselves and set ourselves up for failure is when we want God to move fast, and sometimes God does move fast, but most of the time when He's doing something in us, He's going to take his time, because that's where the more healing takes place. So where are you on the self-esteem ladder now?

Paul Heflin 13:12

Well, on the self-esteem ladder I'm actually a lot better. I'm not going to say I'm great. I think on a scale of probably 1 to 10, I'm probably like a 7, maybe an 8. But it's only because, through the word of God and through my confidence that, even though I may have been abandoned as a baby, I have not been abandoned by God.

Rex Baker 13:32

That's powerful.

Paul Heflin 13:33

I know that He loves me and it's evident, because otherwise I would be dead.

Rex Baker 13:38

Yeah. God always has His remnant. Whether it's in the big city, whether it's in the prison, whether it's in Vietnam with the North Vietnamese Army closing around, He had his hand on you and brought you out of this here today because He wants to do something in you and through you to bless other people and to give glory to the Lord. So we're talking with Paul Heflin, who has a fascinating story of being brought out of what then was South Vietnam, now it's just all one country, but through Operation Babylift. You can look it up online. Learn a lot about it. It's what I did. It's kind of what you did too, isn't it Paul?

Paul Heflin 14:23

Yeah, it sure is, as a matter of fact, because all I ever heard was a bunch of rumors and hearsay. So I finally said you know what, it's time. I want to know the truth about my adoptive situation and I looked up Operation Babylift. But I also got an affidavit that my mom sent me about the organization that brought me over here and all the work that it took, legally and logistically, to just move one baby, let alone 3,300 babies. There are a lot of babies that were evacuated, that didn't make it because of being sick, being malnourished. They were just so small and they just didn't survive. So, they had paperwork on this one child, they put it on another child, regardless if it was the truth or not. Lots of children did not make it to America or to other countries into a loving family. I'm extremely blessed and grateful that God allowed me to be.

Rex Baker 15:17

Paul, you mentioned your mother. I s that your birth mother or your adoptive mother?

Paul Heflin 15:21

My adoptive mother.

Rex Baker 15:23

Are your adoptive parents still alive?

Paul Heflin 15:25

Yes, they are. They live in Columbia, South Carolina still.

Rex Baker 15:29

When's the last time you had any communication with them?

Paul Heflin 15:31

I talk to my mom every Sunday.

Rex Baker 15:33

So tell me about them. How are they doing?

Paul Heflin 15:35

My mom, oh my gosh, she is like a little firecracker. She's always on the go, always on the go. Bible study, church functions, this, that and the other. She's 81. About to be 82 this month or next month. And my dad, he's 84 and his health is declining. She told me last week that his health is declining and it's getting worse and worse and worse. You know that's something I'm coping with. He and I do not have a relationship. He actually washed his hands of me about 20 years ago after my divorce from my first wife. So he's kind of got tired of me messing up. So he said he was done with me for a while. And I have through recovery, worked on my 12-step process and I've even written him letters trying to make amends, but I have yet to hear from him back. So all I'm doing now is just praying that God would move in his heart and, if it be his will, to restore our relationship. Because, honestly, I do not know, cannot say for sure that he is a believer or not. My mom is. She is an amazing and wonderful godly woman. She has been my spiritual rock my whole life. But my dad hardly ever goes to church. The only time he really has gone to church is during Christmas or maybe Easter, and it was during my brother's and sister's funeral. Other than that he doesn't go.

Rex Baker 16:52

You know, Paul, life can be messy with families. I guess it's whether it's birth families or adoptive families. The human nature that we're all fallen. You see that a lot in the family dynamic. So, looking to the future, Paul, what would you like to do with your life?

Paul Heflin 17:10

My plan is to finish this program, get a job. I have some legal obligations I have to fulfill. I just want to be 100% honest. I want God to continue to make me the man that He wants me to be and to work in my life the way He wants it and guide my life where He wants it to go. And for that to happen I have to 100%, totally submit to His will. Whatever He wants me to do and I know He may put me somewhere I don't want to be, or somewhere that's uncomfortable or whatever, and I am okay with that. But my plan right now is to just learn and grow in Christ and learn to trust Him.

Rex Baker 17:55

Let me ask it this way. What do you sense God preparing you to do in a general way?

Paul Heflin 18:03

I've talked to somebody about this. We kind of agree that my spiritual gift is service. I've always worked restaurants or retail and I love helping people, whether it be helping people directly or indirectly, like in the background or working like in an office somewhere. But I really think my spiritual gifts is of a servant's heart. And I would love honestly to work in an administrative position, but again, that would be my desire, but again God may have something totally different for me and that's OK. I'm good with that.

Rex Baker 18:38

Well, when you put it in God's hands, you can know that He'll have something. Whatever that is. All right, we've been talking today with Paul Heflin, who is here at Gateway Rescue Mission, going through our New Life program at this time, and I know that God's got something wonderful for your future. Paul, you came into this world in Vietnam in another era. God brought you out of that to the United States and here you are with us today and I pray God's continued guidance, blessing and direction upon your life. Been good having you with us today. You have been listening to More Than a Shelter, a production of Gateway Rescue Mission. I'm your host, Rex Baker, and until next time have a blessed day.