Jun's story

"One of my earliest memories was listening to the sound of heavy gunfire while trying to sleep."

This is the story of Jun, our Cambodian friend who has been living with us for the past 5 months. Although Jun and I were born only two weeks apart, the lives we have led are worlds apart in so many ways.

Born into a Christian family in Kompong Thom Province, Jun entered a world where everyone was trying to save their lives while others were losing theirs.

Growing up in the post-Khmer Rouge years of civil war, Jun became accostomed to fighting from a young age. In the daytime, his Mother would send him and his older brother into the woods to avoid being caught by Government soldiers eager to recruit young boys to fight against the Khmer Rouge and other revolutionary fronts.

"We used to hide in the woods and play all day," Jun recalls. "We were not allowed to come back to the house until night. That way, when the soldiers came to our house, my Mother could say: "I have no children here to fight in your war."

The threat posed by Government soldiers by day was not as bad as the threat posed by Khmer Rouge soldiers at night. Desperate for ammunition, food, medical supplies and anything they could sell or barter, Khmer Rouge soldiers would often rampage through the village at night, taking what they wanted and killing anyone who got in their way.

"When we heard the soldiers coming, we would run into the small, underground shelter that my Mother had built for us. We would put some wood and a stack of leaves ontop so that the soldiers would not see us," Jun explains. "My Mother didn't mind if they took some things from the house, as long as they didn't hurt any of us."

Following the death of Jun's Father at the hands of malaria when Jun was only two-years old, it was left to his Mother to carry her three boys through the daily dangers and seemingly endless civil war. The difficulties that Jun faced in life were often complicated by the one thing that marked him out as different from almost all other boys his age - he was a Christian.

As Jun remembers: "When I was at school, there were no other Christians in the entire school. Not one. Other kids would always ask me why I was not a Buddhist like everyone else."

At first, it was odd glances and murmured words amongst his fellow pupils. Before long, the words became more accusatory and were sometimes accompanied by spit. On one occasion, Jun recalls how a group of his classmates decided to have some fun with the only Christian at the school.

"They bound my wrists together and started to drag me along the ground," Jun recalls. "They dragged me out of the school gate and down the village street. The shirt on my back was torn to pieces and my back was all scratched up. It hurt a lot."

But the persecution that Jun suffered only made his faith stronger. He decided from a young age that, if he was going to follow God, he was going to follow God and he would not be putt off by people taunting, teasing or hurting him. His determination not to become like everyone else eventually paid off as he eventually settled into life at school and began to make some friends.

After many years of dodging soldiers of varying stripes and classmates of varying sympathies, Jun became what his long-suffering Mother had always hoped he would - an upstanding, young Christian man.

He moved to Phnom Penh at the age of eighteen to attend Bible College, before going on to work for a Christian development agency known as Asian Outreach Cambodia. He is now a dedicated member of staff at AOC, responsible for delivering informal health education to children and young people living on the poverty-stricken island flood-plain where the organisation currently works.

Having spent the past 5 months in close quarters with Jun and seeing his responses to situations as varied as being caught naked by someone else in our house (!?!), losing his close cousin in a moto accident and struggling with dissapointments in relationships, I have come to see him as a true example of how a Cambodian can live a life for God.

This country would be a very different place if there were more Jun's around to show that you can be truly Khmer and live a life that is faithful to God.