'My road to purpose'.

• Author: Behring, Kenneth E.
• Position: First Person - Kenneth E. Behring

I know something about suffering, and I know something about hope.

In 2000, I went to Viet Nam to distribute wheelchairs to physically disabled people. Our party travelled to a small village outside of Hanoi to deliver a wheelchair to a little girl, Bui Thi Huyen. Because of her disability, she had never been able to move herself. She sat terrified and crying on a pile of old rags in her parents' house. I gave her lollipops, but that did not seem to help. We put her in a wheelchair outside and I showed her how to place her hands on the wheel rims and to move around. She was frightened and tearful, but finally she moved the wheelchair by herself. Then she broke into the biggest smile I have ever seen. All of us around her clapped and cheered. In a few moments, we had transformed a girl on a pile of rags into a girl who could move about on her own, opening up a whole new life to her. We had given her mobility, freedom--and hope.

That was not the first time I had seen suffering, nor will it be the last. I grew up in the United States in the Great Depression, and saw families suffer from lack of food and shelter. My own parents had lost their farm. But it was not until I witnessed terrible physical suffering in the world that I decided to try to do something about it. I came out of the Depression a very determined and driven young man.

I grew up in rural Wisconsin. And to help make money for my family and myself, I cut grass, delivered newspapers and worked in local stores. My first job after college was selling cars; eventually, I scraped together enough money to open a used car dealership. Soon, through hard work, I opened other dealerships and was on my way to a successful career. By the time I was 30 years old I had sold my business, made my first fortune and had lived the American dream. But that was just the beginning. Seeking warmer weather. I moved to Florida, where I started to build a house for my wife Pat and my five sons. When someone offered to buy it at a big profit before it was finished, I sold it and discovered the potential of the home-building business. In Florida and later in California, I made another fortune in home-building. By the time I was 65, I owned a huge mansion, my own private jet plane and even a professional football team, the Seattle Seahawks. I had everything--so everyone thought.

To the outside world, I was a rich, successful businessman, but inside I felt empty. I had all the money I could ever want, all the...