TESTIMONY

My name is Vuthea. I was born in 1983, Phnom Penh city. I am the third son of the family. I believed in Jesus in 2007. Before that, I never knew who Jesus was. When I was young, around 1985, I used to see a movie. It was about the story of Jesus, but I didn’t know this at the time. When watching the movie, I had doubted, thinking: “Why did they make that man carry the cross when He did no wrong?” I had just kept this thought in the back of my mind until I believed in Him and knew that that was the story of Jesus.

In my family, we have an older sister. She believed in Jesus before me because one aunt, who was our neighbor, often invited my sister to go to the Church with her. After my sister believed, she would sometimes talk about Jesus to our family, but we laughed at her. I looked down on, laughed at, and persecuted her, and I denied Him.

In my family, we had a stepfather who drank every day. He would sometimes use violence, so we had no happiness in our family. One day, my mother divorced my stepfather because he liked to drink wine and use violence on our family. My mother sold the house and moved to live in another place. After that, my brother and sister brought many problems and did not love one another. At that time, I was studying in secondary school, and I was unhappy because of the many problems in my family and no one was encouraging me to study, so I had to study without any support.

One time, I decided to stop studying and go to work at a company named Centry to earn money. I worked as a cleaner on the high road and cleaned the dust and trash every day. I still had never forgotten about my studies even though I had stopped, and I still wanted to continue my education at a higher level. One day, I was tired and taking a short break from cleaning. As I was sitting, I saw a team of people walking on the side of the road and some of them saw and passed me. However, there was an old woman who came up to me and smiled at me. I smiled back. She looked Chinese or Korean but I did not know because she spoke Khmer very well. She asked me for a bit of my time so that she could share something with me and I allowed her. I sat under the tree at the side of the road and she sat in front of me. She took out a thick book and opened it, saying some things that were not clear to me, but I still knew she was talking about Jesus. After she finished sharing, she asked me to pray with her. When she finished her prayer, she gave me the thick book that was the Bible. When I went back home after work, I had some free time so I wanted to read the Bible  but I did not know where to begin. I picked up the Bible and lifted it up above my head, thinking I would read from whichever point I opened it. So I opened it and read, but I saw many names. It was the beginning of the first chapter of Matthew. I asked myself, “Why are there so many names?” I did not understand it. After that, I put away the Bible and did not read it further.

Every day I worked, I was so tired and did not want to work anymore. I wanted to study again. One day, when I went to receive my salary from the company, I saw the boss come down from his car. He was a disabled person but he had bodyguards helping him, carrying him to his cart and bringing him to the office. I began to think and asked myself, “Why did I stop studying? That person cannot walk, yet he is a boss, while I can walk freely but am not a boss like him.” I decided to stop working and become rich even though no one in my family supported me. So, I stopped work and went back to school. I asked the director of the high school if I could continue studying, and he allowed me. Every day, even though I had no money in my pocket, lacked something to eat, and no one in my family supported my studies, I never gave up and continued until I finished high school at grade 12.

During grades 10 to 12, I never received encouragement from my family; instead, they always looked down on me and all the other members in the family, sometimes fighting one another, which brought many problems. No one listened to me and instead looked down on me. I tried to study hard even though I was not a smart student. I was often distressed and discouraged, and my studying was poor because I was a weak person who studied without smarts like the other people, but I never gave up.

Every day I hoped I would find joy in life, but I never found it. I tried to find happiness in this life, and had friends who said nice things to me and invited me to drink wine to be happy, but it never gave me happiness. Sometimes the car from the Church would come to my house to bring some neighbors to go to the Church. They would call me to go also so I went with them, but even though I was at Church, I still did not understand. The problems usually happened in my family, so I continued to be unhappy. One day, I wanted to go the Church again but by myself this time, and by bicycle. I wanted to spend some quiet time there and listen to the pastor’s words to encourage my heart. I went and sang praises with the Church members, and after the pastor shared his words. He preached that Jesus once said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” This woke me up. I had never heard those words before. And I had frequently wondered about life, the way I should go, and the truth for my life.

I realized I had been lost and wrong about Jesus this entire time. He did not do anything wrong, so why did I deny and hate Him? My tears were dropping down. I confessed silently, saying I was sorry that I thought wrong about Him, and how I understood that He died on the cross despite being guiltless. Why did I think wrongly about Him? My tears were dropping.

From that moment onwards, I began to love His words so much that I would go to the Church on my own, not even by the Church’s car. I knew some leaders there and they trained me even though I did not understand well. I kept going to Church with them until I got baptized. After my baptism, one of the leaders of a cell group gave me his Bible and I took it to read it.

In the midst of all this, however, I still faced many problems in my life. At that time, during grade 12 of high school, my mother sold the house again because she was indebted to the bank. We no longer had a house to live in and we left shamefully. Some of us got separated and lived alone, and we lived in rented homes. This was also the time I had to graduate from high school and take the exam in order to graduate. Before I took the exam, I prayed to the Lord to only allow me to pass. I did not need a high score, just needed to pass. And I passed my exam successfully even though I did not get a high score. So I finished high school but lived with my family without hope because no one cared about my education and I needed to continue my studies at college, but I had no money because my family were too preoccupied with living their own lives.

Many things came upon my life, but I did not think about Jesus even though I believed in Him. My mother had to rent a house because we had to sell our previous one. One time, I got information that there was one organization that gives scholarships to students, but you needed to take an exam to qualify for it. The organization gave a full scholarship for 100 students, and 50% for 150 students. I went to take the exam, which was given orally, with many other students looking to take the challenge. I did it and without thinking about God or prayer because I thought that I could do it. However, I only qualified for 50% of the scholarship, which I could not afford. I started to worry so much in my life because no one could help me continue my studies, and I lived like a person without a soul in the body. After spending so much time thinking about who could help me in this situation, I gave up and decided to act. I began to punish myself and read the Bible from morning until night, only stopping for rice and then going back to reading the Bible. I continued this until I finished reading the whole Bible.

After that, I understood many things in the Bible that I never knew before, like the Old Testament and the power of Jesus’ words in my life. All the passion in my life was killed and I no longer wanted to be a rich man nor challenge life anymore, because Jesus was enough. I learned from the many things He spoke about in the Bible. I found happiness in my life, and not like before, because only true happiness is in Jesus according to His words. I gave up on all my friends who deceived me with false happiness. I stopped talking to them and started a new life with Jesus. I did not worry about anything around me anymore. This world no longer amazed me because in my eyes it was just a deceived world. For what I shall go with is Jesus alone. So I went on with what I did to continue with Jesus. I tried to find some work in order to go to college. I worked as a construction worker. Even though this job was harder, I enjoyed it. I shared about Jesus with the other workers and tried to show them Jesus regardless of whether they accepted Him or not. I just shared whenever I could, every day and everywhere I went.

One day, the organization that I had taken my scholarship exam for was giving me another chance again to take the exam for a scholarship, as an oral test again. The scholarship they were giving was different from before. Before, the scholarships gave 100% for 100 students and 50% for 150 students, but this time scholarships gave 100% for only 5 students and 50% for 100 students. I had no hope for the 100% option because it was only for 5 students. And even if I’d passed again and gotten the 50% option, I would still have had no money to afford college. Nevertheless, I had courage to try for the scholarship, even though I would be competing in a big pool for a small opening for the 100% scholarship.

This time, unlike before, I went with prayers to the Lord with hope for an opportunity. Before I went to interview for the oral test, they provided to me the full information for the scholarships and asked me to choose 3 subjects that I would continue to study at college. I chose first Khmer literature, second Lawyer, and last English literature. The last one I did not actually learn well before; I only understood a little bit of English and only for reading. Yet I chose English as my priority subject. Before I’d gone into the interview, I’d prayed to God to empower me to say the right thing because I have a mouth that I did not want to open just to speak out of it. I’d said to Him, “Please work in me as You had with Moses because this mouth, You made it.”

During my interview, I said many things that I myself did not even know about. After I finished, they told me that if I pass, they would call me. I went back home happy even though I did not know whether I’d passed or not. I just continued to trust in Him and worked as a construction worker per usual. I worked with many workers and shared the Gospel with them. Even with no encouragement from my family, I just went on with my journey and left home by myself, with my packed clothes, to go to work at another place as a construction worker. I worked on the building of an old Church. Every day I worked hard and even though I worked with others, I still had the power to do it without tiring. I was happy to share the Gospel with the others because I went to work with Jesus alone, who was my strength every day. Sometimes I would make rice on the stone cooker with the woods firing. After the rice cooked well, I would eat it as I sat alone, and my tears would drop down because at that time I had only Jesus in my life. I continued to work normally and waited for a long time for the news from the scholarship organization of whether I’d passed or not.

One day amidst the silent waiting of the scholarship, my phone rang while I was working. When I picked up, a person told me on the other side of the line that I’d qualified for the 100% scholarship and would not have to pay for college. I wanted to cry out with all my feelings but could not in that moment. It was amazing to me that I finally got the thing I could not get. 100% was only offered for 5 students, yet I was among those 5 that had passed! Last time it had been 100% for 100 students but I did not pass; now it was 100% for 5 students yet I had passed. I praised the Lord Jesus who had worked in my life so that I could have a new journey at college. One thing that really amazed me was that I’d passed English literature. That was the subject I hated. I’d chosen it as my third subject just to fill the three required gaps and had not thought much about it. The subject I loved the most was actually Khmer literature and the next was Lawyer. So why did I pass English literature out of the three when I did not even understand it well?

Regardless, I just kept going in college and continued to hardly study English literature. I stopped working in construction full time in order to do CDP stuff part time. I was just a volunteer and getting a little bit money to keep attending university. This work was at the old building where they were constructing the Church there. I volunteered as a Sunday School teacher for about 5 years there, from when I started university until I graduated. I was trained by many leaders at that Church and as I grew my knowledge of the Bible, I was able to lead the youth and taught them every Sunday. During my time in university studying English literature, I realized that knowing this subject was actually God’s plan all along and it was not me who knew it, but the knowledge God gave me to understand it. So, I decided that when I finished my studies, I would go to Bible school to study God’s word. I did not know where to receive the support to do this, but I simply trusted His plan.

When I was almost finished with my fourth year at university, I prayed to God that He would bless me with a wife who would have the right desire like me to love His way and words, and would go together to serve Him. I’d never thought about  a wife before because I really knew my condition, so why did I pray for one? I believed that the right desire was God’s will. I usually loved sharing God’s words on Facebook and motivated many people to have faith in Jesus. One day, I posted a caption related to Christian faith, and one lady commented to encourage me. I replied to her with positive words to live as a pure Christian. She was also interested in me, so we kept going on to having a good relationship by talking to one another about Christian life. I usually followed God’s words in Bible verses through my chats with her. Day by day, we were growing closer to one another. She started saying we should start dating, but I did not want to because I knew my situation. So I denied her requests; I did not want to meet her in person because I was scared to face her. Yet she still insisted again and again, so I prayed to God and asked that this lady, if He would give her to me, would not deny me when we meet in person. I now wanted to go see her. When we finally met, she did not deny me and we went for a walk together. We grew closer knowing each other every day, and I started thinking about our wedding. I had no money to have a wedding, how could it be? Still, we wanted our families to talk to each other to agree on the marriage even though we had no money to celebrate the wedding. Her family was Christian. We introduced our families to each other and they approved of us. My wife’s family allowed us to plan for our wedding, but I had no money.

Every Sunday, she came with me to worship together at Church. The members of the Church encouraged me to have a wedding but I knew I could not due to finances. We prayed together and we went seek advice from the pastor of the Church. He advised to just hold a small wedding without spending much money and told us to call our families to talk together about this. So she and I kept praying together. My sister Kanha who worked at Korea heard about us and she sent us 500 dollars to help, but it was still not enough for a wedding. So we used this money to make the food for the wedding celebration. Eventually, we had our wedding before the presence of the Lord because we had kept praying to the Lord and He had blessed us to have it. After our wedding, we had enough money left to spend on the things we did on the wedding day and even had some money to go for a walk together. We praised God for supporting us and allowing us to have our wedding by His grace. We had nothing, but He supported us to have it.

Months later, my wife was pregnant with our baby boy and I still wanted to go to Bible College. We kept continuing in prayer together. Our families did not want me studying at Bible College because they just wanted us to get a job for our family and lifestyle, but my wife agreed with me despite our families’ opinion. So we kept praying. I also prayed to God to show me the right College that would explain to me clearly the knowledge in the Bible because I really wanted to understand the Bible well. So God guided me to study at Westminster, where I learned the knowledge I was seeking.

Why did I pray for Bible College? Because there were many schools from various denominations, so I needed to consider my choices carefully and pray on it. We praised God again for answering me and being with us for the right thing. During my time at Bible College, I lacked support for my lifestyle and our families also did not support us. My wife and I kept praying and stood firm together, reading the Bible every day. His words kept us standing firm in faith together even though we lacked food to eat and constantly heard much our families complaining about us. But even though they complained, they would still sometimes give us some money. We kept going and prayed together because we knew the way of God would give us the strength to go forward through His revealing, according to His words in the Bible which we read every day. Our families did not like us doing this, but we did not respond to their complaints because only my wife and I understood God’s will. I am truly thankful to the Lord for sending the right lady to my side, who prayed and knew His will together with me when  I was discouraged.

I was empowered by God to continue my journey at Bible College. I thanked God so much for sending the right lady of faith to me. He strengthened me until I finished Bible College. And my wife, even though she faced many difficult duties as a housewife, she still kept going on the right journey together with our Lord. Our life was walking with God. It seemed like nothing on the outside, but He helped us keep going to success. I truly adore my Savior who always lives by my family and our journey for the sake of His Kingdom. We really honor Him and are thankful for His grace that was revealed to us to understand Christian life and faith in Him.

We are thankful to and praise our God who revealed His love, grace, truth, and His will and way to us assuring in faith. All things are not our will and way, but His will and way for us to do the right thing He had planned for us. Praise God our Lord, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for His faithful work upon us. Amen!