We can learn from Natalie Tjahja, the Indonesian woman who is making the dreams of distressed families come true.

In 2006 Natalie’s seven-year-old daughter Maria Monique died from a lung infection because doctors in Indonesia were not able to treat her.

Tjahja sold everything and flew with her daughter to Singapore for treatment. She soon ran out of money…but the doctors continued to treat Maria Monique. Upon hearing her story, one of the hospital staff contacted the local paper. Donations began to flow in.

One hundred days after her death, as Natalie was pouring rose petals into a river (an Indonesian tradition), she says her daughter came back again with a message.

“Maria Monique, she whispered in my heart. She said, ‘Mom try to find many, many children to give happiness,’ ” Tjahja recalls. “She is like my guidance angel.”

She began with just $50 to fulfill her daughter’s wish. The foundation has since grown into something much bigger. To date the Maria Monique Foundation has helped over 6,000 children—from providing prosthetics and wheelchairs to trips to the mall to coloring books.

And one week into 2010 Natalie simply gave a stroller to Rita Zahara so that Nia, Rita’s daughter living with cerebral palsy, could finally see her friends (and more of the world) for the first time outside of the only room Nia’s ever known.

Just look at how happy Nia is for experiencing such a simple pleasure…a pleasure we take for granted every day!

Click here to learn more about Natalie’s story and her foundation.

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
Read an excerpt now
TV Shows and Clips about the Death of Cindy James