This post was originally produced for Forbes.

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When LeAnn Thieman’s kids were moving out of the house twenty years ago, she says her husband, Mark Thieman, “had this wonderful ideal thing that I was going to stay home and start quilting.” Instead, her “hobby” of writing and speaking took her down another path to becoming a bestselling author.

Working as a nurse for more than two decades, Thieman, now 68, was an unlikely candidate to become a sought-after motivational speaker and author of 21 books that have sold more than 3 million copies. What brought her into the spotlight was a story she didn’t tell publicly for almost two decades after her visit to Vietnam at the end of the war.

Thieman decided to buy a dozen cupcakes at a bake sale benefitting an organization called Friends of Children of Vietnam.” The organization primarily worked to help orphans who were fathered by American soldiers with a goal of findin…

Her Husband Thought She’d Quilt But She…

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