VOICE OF TRUTH FOR TODAY
Faith Through the Darkness
Looking back on my life forty years ago when I first arrived in America, I’m amazed by how much has changed in the world. Technology has advanced in ways we could never have imagined. Yet one thing has never changed in my life—my faith in Jesus Christ.
I grew up in a poor family in the Cambodian countryside. Despite our circumstances, my childhood was filled with love. When I was about eight years old, my father traveled to the capital city to trade goods. While there, he heard the beautiful name of Jesus for the first time. The people he met told him stories about Christ, and he believed. When he returned home, he shared the good news with our family, and we believed too.
Not long after, everything changed.
On April 16, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took control. My brother and I were separated from our family and forced into labor camps where we worked long days in the rice fields with little food or water. Many people around us died from starvation, sickness, or violence.
Even in those dark days, I remembered the words my father had spoken to me. He would recite John 3:16 and tell me to believe in God. Those words gave me strength to keep going.
Eventually, after losing my father and brother to the horrors of that time, I escaped and was taken to a refugee camp in Thailand. Later, a church in Jefferson, North Carolina, sponsored my adoption. It was there that I first heard the Gospel preached and felt the love of Christ in a powerful way.
Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Through every trial, God carried me. Today I travel around the world sharing the message my father once taught me: faith in Jesus brings hope, even in the darkest circumstances.
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Excerpt from Voice of Truth Magazine
“Global Connections” by Siv Ashley