Here in Cambodia I have been working at an amazing ministry called Joy Community Center. There is a group of teenagers here that constantly amaze me. These young men an women between the ages of 12 and 20 have chosen to follow Christ in a country that is about 2% Christian. They daily have to fight for their faith and endure hatred and persecution from the majority of their friends and family. The people in this small friend group are some of the strongest and most faithful people I have ever met.
In this friend group there are 4 girls between 18 and 20 who live at the center off and on. They are here with us all day, they serve us way more than we could ever serve them and they have become some of my closet friends.
I have grown especially close to a girl named Sokhom.
Sokhom is seriously one of the funniest people I have ever met and she brightens every room with the joy she radiates. But not unlike any of the other young Christians here she has endured a lot to get to where she is.
I am going to tell you a little of her story.
Sokhom is on of seven children in a Buddhist household, having 1 brother and 5 sisters. She grew up with them and her mother and father down the road from where the Joy center is now. Her father is an alcoholic and her mother was busy working, keeping house and raising 7 children. Sokhom remembers even as a child struggling to feel loved by her family.
Several years before becoming Christian Sokhom met Seth and Samol (our ministry hosts) who were doing outreach here and in the surrounding villages. She mostly went to their activities because they gave out snacks and all of her friends would go. Slowly something began to shift in her heart. She began accompanying Seth and Samol to surrounding villages to minister and do outreach there.
At the age of 10 she decided to give her life to Christ making her the only Christian in her family. She said her parents didn’t mind her doing all of these things when she was younger but when she gave her live to Christ and grew older they began to have problems with it. She explained to me that there is a huge misconception about Christianity here, that when you are Christian you can only love God meaning you can no longer love family or friends. She said her family began telling her she was stupid and crazy for believing in her god and how awful she was for no longer loving them and choosing something above family. She says she remembers her family just being angry with her all the time and not being able to tell them about her days doing outreach or about church.
At the age of 15 her parents could no longer afford to send her to school so they told her she must begin to work. Sokhom was sent to work in a factory in Phnom Penh where she sat at a sewing machine and stitched clothing all day. Every morning till she was 17, Sokhom would wake up early and walk down to catch a truck. She would stand in the back of this overcrowded truck with no covering and no seats for the hour to two hour ride into Phnom Penh. From there she would use her older sisters ID saying she was eighteen to illegally get into work with her boss full knowing of her age.
Sokhom describes this as being an extremely difficult time in her life because of the persecution she endured at home and now at work. Many of the people who worked in this factory were around her same age and would ask here questions about God and Christianity. She said when people found out she was a Christian, even girls she had been lifelong friends with stopped talking to her. She said when these girls did talk to her they would call her names, tell her how horrible of a person she was and how they hope she will not dance on their graves like she will her family. She was also very sad as she would come home to go to church and all of those friends had just come from school and had been together all day making her feel left out.
After helping support her family for three years and secretly saving money to go back to school, she quit her job at 17. This made her parents very angry and they refuse to help her go back to school.
At this point she was living at home with her mother, her sister and her husband and the younger siblings. She says her sister and brother in law would fight a lot and then her mother would fight with the both of them. She said it became a very loud, negative and hostile environment so she decided to leave.
In July of 2016 Sokhom made the decision to move into the Joy center full time. With the little bit of money she saved and the support of Seth and Samol she went back to school. During the school year she would go home in the afternoons for about half an hour to help around the house cleaning and doing whatever was needed. However she refuses to go home during holidays as her parents make her go to the pagoda and try to change her mind back to Buddhism.
Sokhom became staff here at Joy Center helping with church services, youth activities, cooking and cleaning. She now rides her bike to school everyday, where her favorite subject is Khmer where she learns reading and writing similar to an English language arts class.
Sokhom hopes to be able to finish high school and from there do a Discipleship Training School with YWAM (youth with a mission). She is eager to learn more about God and gain more knowledge of the bible. When she grows up she hopes to do something within the church, working with children and discipling the next generation. She says she is still praying and seeking out what the Lord wants her to do so she is trying to keep an open mind and heart for whatever God calls her to.
She remains hopeful that God can work in her family’s hearts though it is hard for her to directly share her faith with them. Because of this she said God is teaching her a lot about love, grace and forgiveness.
Sokhom tells me the most important thing she is learning in this season is about love and her value and worth. She is learning about the fathers love for her and then how to show that unconditional love to others. She is figuring out where to find her worth and value and that it does not come from the world and what others say about her.
When I asked one of the other staff what they think of Sokhom they said “she serves God with her whole heart. She takes charge and is always looking for ways to serve and learn. I learn more about God through her life and her actions. She encourages me just by the way she lives and is always challenging and encouraging me in my faith.”
This is such an accurate description of Sokhom. She is truly one of the most joyful and faithful I have ever met. Her life is a true testament of the power of God and endurance of faith. Sokhom is a true example of a woman of God and she openly tells anyone that she would not be where she is without her true father in Heaven.
I have had such the privilege to grow close to her and hear her inspiring story first hand and I hope her story will bless and inspire you as well.
Please keep Sokhom, her family and all our friends at Joy Center in your prayers.
