Lilly Pyle of Cape Elizabeth is a woman on a mission: She wants to help the people in her native village, Dong Ha in central Vietnam, rise out of poverty and into prosperity.

In particular, she wants to help women and children in need there, some of whom are in danger.

She worries about their future, and is hoping to get people to donate money to help. She is taking personal responsibility for where the money goes, personally interviewing prospective recipients and handing them the money herself.

She has also managed to keep the Vietnamese government’s hands off the money, with a clever threat: If they try to take it or deprive the people she helps, she’ll stop bringing much-needed money into the country.

“I’m doing it the right way, the way I learned in this country,” she said, proud of her ability to outmaneuver Communist officials.

After 30 years in America, she has taken to heart hard lessons she has learned in creating her own life in a faraway land.

And one lesson has stood out above the others: “I’m American now, so if I think something and I don’t do it,” it’s a problem. She’s busy doing it, but she needs help.

You can find out more about her foundation – including seeing pictures of some of the people she has helped – at her Web site, www.VietnameseHopeFoundation.org, and can send tax-deductible donations to the Vietnamese Hope Foundation, PO Box 2752, South Portland, ME 04116.

She also needs another piece of assistance, and is hoping for some help from the Vietnam veterans out there. She is looking for the Navy lieutenant who used to run the base near her village in the early 1970s. She knows his last name was Shepherd, but isn’t sure how it was spelled and doesn’t know his first name.

She wants to find him, to thank him for past kindnesses, and to let him know that she and many of the children he and his men saw at the fence line survived the war, and the peace.

A new Web site

Regular readers of the Current will notice a difference in our front page this week.

We have redesigned our flag – the top of the front page – to make room for the logo for our new Web site, www.keepmecurrent.com.

The new Web site will be a forum for community news from Scarborough, Cape Elizabeth and South Portland, as well as the surrounding communities covered by our sister papers, the American Journal, the Lakes Region Suburban Weekly, the Reporter and the Citizen.

It will enable us to give our readers with Internet access updates on stories throughout the week. When a fire, a local vote or a big high school game occurs days before our newspaper would normally come out, we’ll be able to get information out to the community on our Web site.

If police are searching for someone or seeking to get out information on road closures or other traffic problems, we’ll use our Web site to help them. If parents are wondering whether school has been cancelled because of snow or ice, we hope they’ll visit our Web site to get their answers.

Web site users will also be able to use it as a place where they can voice their opinions or post their news. Visitors to our Web site will be able to post opinion letters to stories. Businesses and nonprofit organizations will be able to post their own press releases.

Regular readers of the Current shouldn’t worry that the quality of the paper we publish each week will suffer. If anything, we believe the quality will only improve.

Because not only will we be using the content of our print newspapers to enhance our Web site, we will be using the Web site’s content to enhance our papers. Some content will remain unique to either the newspaper or the Web site.

In the weeks and months to come, we will be adding new content to the Web site and working to continually improve it. Please check it out and make it a regular online stop for local news and information.

Jeff Inglis, editor