How to create global object in VB NET - vb.net

Question

I'm triying to build a language dictionary in VB NET in order to be able to have several languages in the application.
This dictionary has a init method that loads from database the entire dictionary and stores it in memory.
In the rest of the classes of the project, I added the reference and I can use directly the object without create a new instance because their methods are shared.
My question is how i have to load the dictionary content in order that the rest of classes only accessing to Language.GetWord method obtains the properly record of the collection, same way as My.Settings class.
When My.Settings is used from any class the values are loaded. I'm looking for the same effect.
This is the code of the class:
Public Class LanguageProvider
Private Shared CurrentLanguage As Collection
Public Shared ReadOnly Property GetWord(ByVal Label As String)
Get
Try
Return CurrentLanguage.Item(Label)
Catch ex As Exception
Return Label
End Try
End Get
End Property
Public Shared Sub LoadLanguage(ByVal CultureId As Integer)
Dim SQLController As New SqlDataAccessController
SQLController.SQLSentence = "SELECT DNF_CULTURE_LANGUAGE_LABELS.LABEL, DNF_CULTURE_LANGUAGE_LABELS.VALUE FROM DNF_CULTURE_LANGUAGE_LABELS WHERE DNF_CULTURE_LANGUAGE_LABELS.CULTUREID = " & CultureId & " ORDER BY LABEL;"
SQLController.OpenConnection()
Dim dr As SqlClient.SqlDataReader
dr = SQLController.GetData()
CurrentLanguage = New Collection
While dr.Read()
CurrentLanguage.Add(dr.Item("Value"), dr.Item("Label"))
End While
dr.Close()
SQLController.CloseConnection()
End Sub
End Class
Function LoadLanguage must be called when the application loads, in order to access once to database.
After that property GetWord must access to the collection with the words and return the result. The problem is that the instances are not the same and the dictionary is not loaded when a class uses it.
Thanks.

Answer 1

Something along the lines of
Public Shared ReadOnly Property GetWord(ByVal Label As String)
Get
Try
If CurrentLanguage Is Nothing then
LoadLanguage(theDefaultCultureIdYouWant)
' Now CurrentLanguage is not Nothing any more,
' so LoadLanguage won't be called again
end if
Return CurrentLanguage.Item(Label)
Catch ex As Exception
Return Label
End Try
End Get
End Property
Of course, you have to provide a value for theDefaultCultureIdYouWant, depends on what you want to happen if the user just calls GetWord without explicitly mentioning a specific culture.