I’ve been lucky enough to do a lot of traveling.  A time existed, after I graduated from college, when I taught English in Japan and then backpacked around Asia.  I had little money and tended to stay in rooms that cost a few dollars a night.  With nothing more than a couple sets of T-shirts and shorts in my backpack, I visited places such as Vietnam, Thailand, Nepal, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Korea.  Some of these countries I grew to know quite well.  I’d find a cheap room, rent a scooter, and explore as much of an area as possible.  Sometimes my future wife or my friends were with me, though I was often alone.

I saw so many beautiful things throughout these adventures, sights such as the Taj Mahal, the Himalayan peaks, and white-sand beaches unspoiled by humanity’s touch.  But I think that I witnessed the most beauty within the street children I encountered.  These children seemed so similar, country to country.  They were out at all times of day and night, selling their postcards, their fans, their flowers.  For many nights in Thailand, I played Connect Four with a boy who wasn’t older than seven or eight.  Some travelers told me not to play with him, convinced that his parents were nearby and were sending him out at night to work.  But I never saw his parents, and one night I spied him sleeping on a sidewalk, a piece of cardboard his bed.  I don’t think I ever beat him in a game.

Throughout these travels I met hundreds, if not thousands, of children who lived on the street.  Sometimes they were sick or had a physical deformity.  But most of them were simply homeless—abandoned into extreme poverty.  Bright, eager, and unafraid to laugh with a stranger, they taught me so much.  I owe them so much.

It is my hope that Dragon House will be a success, and out of that success something good can happen.  I plan on donating some of the funds generated from my book to an organization called Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation.  This group works with children in crisis throughout Vietnam.  Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation offers disadvantaged children a wide range of services and support to help them break out of poverty, forever, by getting them back to school and helping them achieve their best.

To my delight, Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation already has a center for street children in Hanoi, and also has been reaching out to dozens of needy kids in Ho Chi Minh City.  So, thank you, dear reader, for supporting me.  Your support allows me to aid this wonderful organization, an organization that sits quite close to my heart.

If readers want to provide additional support to Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation, please visit http://www.bdcf.org.  Anyone who goes to the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation web site, and donates $100 will receive an autographed copy of Dragon House.  I’ll manage this process and will send out copies of my book.  My goal is to help raise a substantial amount of money for Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation.

Again, I appreciate the support of everyone who reads Dragon House, because the success of my novel will allow me to better help street children in Vietnam, and to raise the level of awareness of the perils that street children face around the world.

Thank you.

John