Sokhorn writes...

My background

My name is Keo Sokhorn. I am nineteen years old, and study in the eleventh grade. My father, Keay Koel, who is 70 years old, and my mother, Om Kea, 63, are both farmers. I have five brothers and four sisters, including three half-brothers and a half-sister. At the time of the Pol Pot regime, my father had a wife, two sons and one daughter, but then his wife died. My mother had a husband during the Pol Pot regime, and had one son, but her husband died too. Afterwards, they met each other and married again. So after that, my parents had six more children, which is great that they did because I am the youngest of the six.

My family are farmers: they work on the farm, planting rice, harvesting it, and selling it at the market to get income for their everyday expenses, and some to support my siblings and I to study. But that money is not sufficient for us all to study, so some of my brothers have left the family to find jobs in other provinces, getting money to support themselves to continue studying. And some of my brothers have stopped studying to help my parents with planting rice and feeding the livestock. Five of my brothers and sisters are married already; four are left, including one of my brothers, who has been intellectually handicapped since he was born. He has been a heavy burden for my parents, who have to take care of him and spend a lot of money on him.

I lived with my parents from when I was born until I was studying in the ninth grade, but then my parents could not support me because they were getting older and older. Because they couldn’t work on the farm to earn money for me to study, they decided to stop me from studying. I was so sad when I was told this unhappy news. But a month later, I had good news: my brother Keo Nirann would take me to Phnom Penh and support me while I continued to study at high school in the city. I was so happy, because I was so keen to study, but also unhappy too, as for the first time I would have to leave my parents and family.

Before I didn’t believe in God

In my province, Kratie, there is a woman who told me the good news about Jesus Christ. I hated her so much and would not talk to her. But that woman kept coming to see me and teach me the words of God and of Jesus from time to time. After a while I started to listen to her teaching and wanted to find out why those people are so crazy to believe and become Christian. One day the woman invited me to go to her church, so I agreed to go on Sunday. They gave me some cake to eat, and were very kind to me, so the next week I went again and again, all the while hearing what they were preaching from the Bible. I began to know and understand and believe. My neighbour knew about it, and they looked down on me just as I had previously hated the woman who talked about Jesus. But I was not angry with them, because they don’t know about God, or Jesus, or his words, and I still tried to tell them about the God of the Bible too. After a while those people didn’t hate me as they had before. Then I left from my province to go to Phnom Penh, to live in the girls dorm where my brother Nirann was the dorm manager. I had time studying the Bible with them. Unfortunately I found that what I was taught there was different from what I had heard and learnt before. I felt it was strange, and wondered a lot why Christians should have differences in their beliefs and teachings, and in their prayer and worship and other activities. But I still paid attention to what they were teaching me and tried to compare and to read the Bible on my own. I began to understand and believe, and now have been baptised to gain salvation.

Thank you David and Anna for teaching me.

Keo Sokhorn

5 June 2010