Unleash Winter Newsletter 2021

While driving back to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, I’m doing my best to avoid the grandiose holes in the road. To call them potholes would deny their reality. I knew the next stop would be particularly difficult. One more winding mile of road and I would arrive at a place my mother had told us about as children… the “Killing Fields.” Many of my relatives were slain there in the horrifying Cambodian genocide that massacred more than 2,000,000 people during an oppressive regime.

I grew up in this area, the son of a construction worker and an educator. We were a strong family and at 14 years old it seemed I had the world at my fingertips. I was well-liked at school by my teachers and fellow students, and was one of only three people in the village who had a motorbike to ride to school.

The next year, however, life was forever changed when my aunt got into some serious financial trouble and needed money. Our family sold everything to help her... including my motorbike. At my young age, it was devastating to me. Too ashamed to return to school, I started hanging out with dropouts, visiting the brothels, smoking, drinking and doing drugs. I had found new ways to be popular.

At 16, I was determined to prove how dangerous I could be, so I started a gang that lasted eight years. Everyone knew who I was, including the government, and I felt both feared and respected. But as tough as I wanted to appear on the outside, my heart remained soft toward my family. When my sister was in a terrible road accident, I stayed by her side at the hospital. The doctors thought she may never walk again, so my mom prayed to Buddha daily, offering sacrifices for her to be healed.

One day while Mom & I were sitting with my sister in the hospital, a young Christian man named David mistakenly walked into the room looking for his friend who had just been admitted. Mom was instantly impressed with his kindness and the peace that came in the room when he entered. We struck up a conversation, and soon David was stopping by every day before he went to see his friend.

As we came to know each other, I confided in him that I thought I was dying of HIV and wanted to do something to make my mom happy before I died. David suggested that I enroll in Bible College, and, because Mom wanted me to have what David had, she and I both agreed.

On the first Sunday of the semester, all the students were excited to go to church. I was confused. I’d never seen people worship with such joy in a religious service. There was a skit where the man playing Jesus said, “Your sins will be forgiven and you’ll be washed as white as snow.” I thought, “How is this possible? How could I be forgiven for everything I’ve done?” But when the altar call was given to accept Jesus, I couldn’t get to the front of the church fast enough. It was as though the burden I was carrying was immediately lifted from me and I no longer felt weak or sick! Afterward, I ran all the way home to tell my mom what had happened.

Right away she saw the physical difference in me and exclaimed, “Who is He that can change my son? Show me your God. I want to serve Him too!” The very next Sunday, Mom met Jesus! Later I realized that what Psalm 37:23 says was true in my own life: “A person’s steps are directed by the LORD, and the LORD delights in his way.” When David stepped into the “wrong” hospital room, it changed my life, my mother’s life, and transformed a family of broken, hurting people into His servants.