Ill health prevented Vietnam War victim Kim Phuc from speaking in person to a packed audience at the Weyburn Legion Hall on Monday, but her voice and spirit still filled the room.

"I'm sorry I cannot be with you at this moment," the bedridden Phuc said, talking on a cell phone from her hotel room in Swift Current. "I thank God that I can send my voice to you; also my heart is with you."

Around 350 people crowded into the Legion to hear the story of the little girl whose pain was captured on film June 8, 1972, when her South Vietnam village was battered by Napalm bombs.

Phuc, nine years old at the time, was one of several children hit by the searing Napalm, a sticky substance which can burn skin right through to the bone. As she ran down the road out of the village, her arms outstretched, clothes burned off her body and screaming, photojournalist Nick Ut captured the horror of the moment in an unforgettable photo that changed the course of the war.

The third degree burns that ravaged the little girl's body still affect the 37-year-old woman today, whose back is covered with painful scars. Her frail health was affected by the busy speaking schedule she has been on in Saskatchewan as part of the Christian-based Power to Change tour. This prevented her from coming to Weyburn in person, although her voice was broadcast over a speaker.

Through Phuc's own words and a documentary shown on a big screen TV, the audience learned the details of her amazing story.

On that fateful day in 1972, rumours of an American air strike near the small village of Trang Bang caused her family and the other villagers to take shelter in a pagoda, the village's place of worship.

But as the sound of the bombs approached, the people feared they were going to drop right on the pagoda. The children were rushed out of the building and started to run. That's when Phuc saw four bombs moving through the air. When they hit they released Napalm, which splattered buildings, trees and several of the children in their attempt to escape.

The Weyburn audience was visibly moved as black and white news footage captured the children emerging from the cloud of fire and smoke that engulfed the village. The disturbing images included Phuc's grandmother carrying her three-year-old cousin as his skin hung off his body; then Phuc herself, running, crying, her back blackened, getting water poured over her body by journalists who were at the scene.

Nick Ut rushed her to a nearby hospital, where she was not expected to live due to the third degree burns. At the insistence of a British journalist, she was moved to a larger hospital where she began a 14-month recovery period and endured 17 operations.

Phuc lived in anonymity for 10 years. But at the age of 19, she was discovered by the Vietnamese government to be the girl in that famous picture. She was forced to give up her dreams of medical school and was paraded around for publicity as a symbol of the people's war.

"I became a victim all over again," said Phuc over the phone. "I was so scared, and felt isolated. Do you know what it's like to be watched 24 hours a day? Sometimes I really wanted to die, because I couldn't deal with what I was feeling."

During a trip to Germany in 1984 for surgery, she got her first taste of life in the Western world. She knew she wanted to leave Vietnam.

Those feelings were strengthened when she came across the Bible one day at the library. She had grown up learning about ancient Chinese rituals and gods, but was intrigued by the teachings of Jesus. Her curiosity was fueled when a family friend who was a Christian invited her to go to church with him.

"The pastor said Jesus came to the cross to die for our sins, and if you open up your heart, Jesus will come in and take away any burdens. Wow, it seemed like the pastor was speaking to one person that day. I really needed someone to take away my burden. That happened at Christmas 1982 when I was 19," she said.

Not too long after Phuc was allowed to go to Cuba to resume her studies. She met her husband, Twan, while there in 1986. They were both anxious to defect to the West, and during a trip to the Soviet Union for their honeymoon in 1992, they got their chance. While the plane was refueling in Gander, Nfld., the couple got off, and didn't get back on.

After spending some time at a home for refugees in Toronto she and her husband eventually established themselves in Ajax, Ont. where they live today. They have two small children, both boys.

In 1996, Phuc made a trip to the U.S. to meet the people who helped her along her journey. She met and thanked the doctor who helped her in Vietnam, Nick Ut and his family, and spoke at the Vietnam memorial in the U.S. on Veteran's Day. Remarkably, in the audience was the soldier who had flown on that airstrike that hit Trang Bang on June 2, 1972.

The man, who had become a Baptist minister, met Phuc. They cried together, and she forgave him.

Forgiveness was a big part of Phuc's message as her soft voice drifted through the Legion Hall.

"I can share with you my message, how I learned to forgive the people who caused my suffering. When I talk to God, it feels like my cup is empty and then he fills it up with strength. When I first read the Bible it talked about loving your enemies. I asked God to help me learn how to forgive, how to love my enemies. I kept praying, and finally I got it.

"I realized it was the fire of the bomb that burned my body and the skill of the doctors that mended my skin, but it took the power of God's love to heal my heart. That's a wonderful thing. I thank God for the ability not to have animosity so I can forgive the people who caused my suffering," she said.

Phuc established the Kim Foundation in Chicago in 1997 to help innocent victims of war. That same year she was named a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, and has been sharing her story of forgiveness through public speaking since that time.

In a phone interview after her talk, Phuc said her mother and father, who are now staying with her in Ajax, look after her children when she travels to spread her message.

"That picture has been a powerful gift to me," she said. "When I go out to speak I feel like people can learn a very important thing about forgiveness. That's why I say to my mom, that girl in the photo, she's not running anymore, she's flying. I really want to give people a new way of looking at my picture. It's not a cry of pain but a cry for peace."