Nine years ago, Pam Cope owned a hair salon in a tiny town in Missouri. Her life revolved around her son's baseball games, her daughter's dance lessons and trips to Disney World. She had never been out of the country, nor had she any desire to travel far from home. Then in 1999, her life changed forever when her 15-year-old son died unexpectedly. Needing to get far away from everything that reminded her of her loss, she accepted a friend's invitation to Vietnam and, from the moment she stepped off the plane, everything she had been feeling began to shift. By the time she got home she had a new mission: to use her pain to change the world, one child at a time. Today, she is the mother of two adopted Vietnamese children but more than that, she and her husband have created a foundation called Touch A Life, dedicated to helping desperate children in countries as far-flung as Vietnam, Cambodia Ghana. Her story is on one level a moving, personal account of loss and recovery, but on a deeper level, it offers inspiration to anyone who has ever suffered great personal tragedy or those of us who dream about making a difference in the world.