Sokhon has a children’s home ministry to help orphans in his home country, a vision the Lord gave him because of his own experience. His mother committed suicide when he was 11. His father remarried, and Sokhon did not get along well with his stepmother. He left home and stayed at a Buddhist temple, then moved from place to place. His older sister became a prostitute to support her siblings. Life was such a struggle for them.
He knows the dangers homeless and orphaned children face: human trafficking, drug addiction, abuse, and neglect. Sokhon understands the difficulty of attending school and improving himself as an orphan. He desires to spare children from the kind of struggles he and his siblings went through.
I asked Sokhon if he could tell me a story about a child that their home had helped. My heart sank at first when he said, “Yes, I have a story from 2013.”
We usually ask for current stories, and this one happened 11 years ago. But as I listened, I understood! He was sharing about So Phally, a woman who works in his ministry now. But her story with his ministry began in 2013.
So Phally became an orphan in 2013. First, her father, who built houses, fell as he was working and died. Her mother remarried and became pregnant. Then, she had difficulty with the birth and also died. After that, So Phally and her two older brothers went to live with her grandmother. Life was a struggle as her grandmother had no job to earn an income. Women without a man as a breadwinner struggled to have an income.
So Phally had a Christian aunt who was friends with Sokhon. The aunt requested Sokhon’s help by admitting So Phally to his children’s home along with her two older brothers who also needed help. Seeing how desperate they were in their miserable situation, Sokhon took the three children into his children’s home.
The children’s home supplied So Phally and her brothers with food, clothing, and a place to sleep, and they attended a government school. The ministry met all their needs. The children attended school during the week and kept busy with Bible study and prayer meetings every weekend. They also had chores to help keep the home clean and neat. Many children like So Phally and her siblings participated in sports, too.
Most importantly, they would do church activities on Saturdays and Sundays. After a time, all three children became dedicated Christians. So Phally became the worship leader at the church where the children’s home kids attend. She stayed in the home until she graduated from high school.
Her aunt then requested that Sokhon help So Phally attend Bible School. Sokhon agreed to help her. While there, she met another Bible School student, fell in love with him, and married him. They now serve the Lord together in Sokhon’s ministry and have had their first child.
This story is an excellent illustration of the importance of monthly support for a ministry. Giving monthly to Sokhon allows him to help children over a longer period of time until they are trained to be self-sufficient like So Phally.
One of the main requests we receive from our ministry partners, even more than financial support, is that they need prayer support.
