Introduction

Thanks for the opportunity to share my testimony with you all at this moment. Thank God for being alive.

My name is Hongly Grahim Khuy, 44 years old in this year of 1997. I married my wife Sovechana in 1982; and now, I have two children. The older one, Kenory, will be 7 years old January 6, 1998. The younger one, Charanai, will be 5 years old on July 21, 1998.

My older one knows how to spell many words.
My younger one starts to learn ABC.

I am now legally an American, and a small potato in town. But thank God again for being a small potato in America. And thank God for the freedom that I have in this country.
I work for the University of Hawaii at Manoa as an Electrical Engineer/Computer System Admin.

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I want to humbly talk to you all not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of a million or so people that could not make it through the ill-intended starvation/massacre. In other words, I am a person who had walked through the land of death, returned to life, and now a witness to you. For many years, I ducked in trench/fox hole when rockets whizzed by/past. For several years, I didn't brush my teeth -- not because I did not want to, but because everything was taken away. No material things/comfort/privacy whatsoever. I will write more as time permits.

What I am sharing with you today is something that has been in my heart for years.

I have been given a chance to come back to life and share with you what I have seen during those years of "walking among the dead". I am thankful that God gives me this chance. And I must share what I am sharing with you, with as many others as I can - men or women.

When I was desperate, about to die because there was nothing that you could do.....I did pray to God, sincere prayer I am talking about. I am telling you....I had been to the other side. And now I have to share what I did & went through with you - whether you believe in God or not. For me... I, personally, had & have come to that dead end: Things that happened and you can-not exlain why (!). Just something from me! Please continue on !

And the message is this - HAVE FAITH :

God loves you and me.
God has a plan for each one of us.
God never forsake you.
God answers prayers.
God is with us right now. As soon as you tune in to God's frequency, God is right there.
God is real - to me at least!

[ Nowadays God gives me the wisdom to realize that life on earth is short, but things to be done are many. There are many things that I wish to tell some of my loved ones . But it is too late for some. They are dead already. ]


Historical background: Where is Cambodia?
before?

Think of / Picture yourself walking for miles to your working place...........

For centuries, Cambodia was and has been totally wrecked by wars -
civil as well as conventional. Consequently, the population always
existed on its own survival edge. Until the early part of the 20th
century, there had never been any solid social infrastructure of any
kind besides some Buddhist temples; there were no Cambodian
schools, medical facilities, health care, communication network...etc.
Zipp! Ironically, Chinese settlement began to sprout here and there t
hroughout the country during my Dad's childhood, and the Chinese
immigrants organized their own schools and religious temples.
(Sihanouk, about the same age as my dad, and some other so-called
well-to-do people including Lon Nol went to Vietnam for their higher
schooling )

At a younger age, Dad was sent to the communal Chinese school in the
area where he lived. He turned out to be the sharpest in the school --
receptive to the Chinese literature, arts and thoughts. Well known, he
started his own craft-shop, at first producing Chinese arts and
painting, and later on, Cambodian artworks requiring manual dexterity
and artistic skill as well.

Matched and married, as usual in that country, Dad and Mom began a
new family that resulted in six offspring.

I was born second to the youngest. I was raised in the countryside with
2 older brothers, 2 older sisters and 1 younger sister. My mother died
when I was 3 years old, a month after she gave birth to child No. 6 --
due to lack of proper care and medical facilities at that time.

My father, a single dedicated parent ever since, worked hard - extra,
extra hard - to raise the family. Of course, he shared his memories and
the Chinese arts and thoughts with the six of us.

By this time, Sihanouk was installed as king of Cambodia by the
French colonialist. The king then started to promote literacy program
throughout the country using existing Buddhist temples as starting
points. Dad sent each one of us to the Cambodian sc hool - by his own
choice. Everybody worked after school to help Dad with his orders. As
years went by, the literacy program expanded to higher level; and my
older brothers and sisters kept up with it. At one point, my older
brothers and sisters had to leave home to pursue their education in the
city. They only came home during their school breaks. Dad managed
well to send them all to higher school in the city.

Way of life / Cultural background:

We were taught to respect the elders, pray to the ancestors every night,
pray to Buddha whenever we go to the Buddhist temple. And we did
follow both, Chinese and Buddhist practices.

I could remember vaguely the lulling song of my mother as she put me
to sleep on a hammock. And I do remember well that I did pray to the
spirit of my mother every night before going to bed. I do not recall any
bad memories as far as our family is concerned. Even spankings from
Dad every now and then and the rules, the disciplines that Dad had for
everyone of us now are woven together with other family activities to
be the center of appreciation and good memories of the good old days.

Every so often, I received encouraging letters from my brothers and
sisters in the capital city. I appreciated very much all the affectionate,
endearing and encouraging terms they used in the mail.

My schooling at younger age:

My day starts with a routine set up by Daddy. Before going to school, I
got to sweep around the house, feed animals, draw water from the
well, take a bath, and then I can ready myself for school which is about
a quarter mile away.

At noon, every student walks back home for lunch/break before the
afternoon session that starts at 2 p.m. The class ends at 5 p.m. Before
going home, each one of us got to contribute one hour of labor work
cleaning up school facilities and properties.

Life had been this way, more or less, for the first eighteen years of my
life.

At eighteen, I finished up my high school in the area where our family
was. Now, it was my time to leave home to follow the footsteps of my
older brothers and sisters; that is, to continue my higher education in
Phnom Penh, the capital city of Cambodia .

No doubt about it, I did well in school. Eventually, I was accepted to
the best business school in Cambodia - the Faculté Des Sciences
Commerciales - where business management training was conducted.

I got many friends, but one stood out among others - at least in my
memory. His name was Thach Sakarea.

A new belief:

Thach Sakarea was a fair young man from the lower Cambodia in the
south. He lived with an Indonesian pastor, a Seventh Day Adventist
(SDA ). He actually gave me enough connections to start a new life.

Occasionally, Sakarea invited me to read materials at his place, and
eventually, to attend Saturday morning worship service in the SDA
church. Honestly, I enjoyed being exposed to English speaking
environment. I did not care much about Christianity. However, bible classes
were the foundation of my growth, linguistically and spiritually. Singing
hymnal songs were something new in my life.



Back in the early 70s, I attended three times a week the bible class
offered to the public by the Seventh Day Adventist group. I was asked
to give my life to Jesus, to accept the salvation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. I refused by various excuses. Even though, my life as a young
man was not that great or fabulous, I could see a nice car, a good
managerial position for me as I was graduating from the well known
business school in Cambodia. I couldn't even imagine doing the work
that my father did to suppor t each one of us; much less to think of
converting to a Christian life. I could see myself marrying some rich
man's daughter, and enjoy the rest of my life in wealth, the material
thing that my father wished for each one of us to have. In fact, my older
brothers and sisters began to move up in the society as they graduated
with higher degrees; they started to hold some good positions.

My father started to pride in himself with bringing up six successful
children. Don't get me wrong -- he fully deserved to be proud of what he
had done, I should say -- for working so hard for so many years as
single widower parent.

Mr. Man Lee, one of the SDA missionary, asked me several times to be
baptized, especially as the war in the country worsened. I enjoyed the
company of all the missionary people in the church; yet I did not make
any commitment as to be baptized or to be saved in Christ. I just didn't
think about it.

A couple of years later, I still did not commit myself to this new faith
even though the church's elders asked me repeatedly. Of course, there
were reasonable excuses at the time. A full time student, a part-time
teacher in a private school, I managed to keep up my grade and good
relationship with the church friends. As a young man, I was not
concerned with the political situation in the country. The outlook of my
future was bright; big banks and tourist industries started to compete
for potential graduates. I had nothing to worry about.

But things started to make a U-turn unexpectedly.

In 1975, the fall of the US-backed government took the whole country
with it to a new era of fear and killings - the reign of the Khmer Rouge
for the next four years. It was an unexpected twist of the history of
Cambodia.

The Khmer Rouge regime: ( 1975 - 1979 )

The Khmer Rouge regime started out with:
- a systematic elimination of the influence of the western
world on Cambodia;
- then, a systematic elimination of the intellectual and the educated;
- and then, a systematic starvation of the population to have control of the country.


[What I learned from the miserable life trek that I 've been through is
that God's love is unconditional and nothing is short of his grace. That
it takes just faith the size of a mustard seed to tell a mountain to move
from here to there. God allows unpleasant things to happen.......Read the book of Jonah.]


Leviticus 26: 14-46 ( if you will not listen to me or obey me...... )

Finally 1975, the infamous year came. In April , 1975, the Khmer
Rouge won the war over the US-backed Cambodian government at the
time. They came in to town to tell everybody in the city to move out to
the countryside. With their scaring and threatening tricks, followed by
many killings, the population started to do as ordered. It was a time of
trial and tribulation of the real human life. The whole Cambodian
culture and civilization was turned upside-down - totally upside-down.
Under the communist Khmer Rouge, the Cambodians traveled on foot.
Everything, cars, TVs ...etc. were destroyed to rid of the western
influence. No private possessions were allowed. No private cooking
pot was allowed. The whole population was forced to live in a
commune like herds of cattle in a farm barn.

Remember : No McDonald, No Burger King.........only rice fields, swamps.....................at least where I lived ..in that regime.

Several months into the communist regime, everybody realized that
they were firmly under the iron yoke.

At this point, everybody from the city had only a set of clothing, and had no privacy at all. Foods were rationed out in the collective kitchen. The whole population was spread
out throughout the whole country to clear out lands and jungles for
farming -- from scratch. I slept in the rain and mud, ate like animal -
lived and worked as oxen or buffaloes. There were times that I had to
work without foods for weeks. I hit the bottom of my life. ( Jonah in the
whale stomach? ). Nothing of material comfort stood between me and
God.

( Used to joke around as my friends and I looked back: foot print is the foot print of a human being, but look at the DOO DOO , it is that of a pig or something. Think about it. )

I hardly saw my father or other family members. Everybody had his or
her own assignment. Once in a long while I got to see my
brothers/sisters or my father .......as our path criss-crossed while performing
the so-called "Party"-assignment in the fields. I remember one night, a
dark night with tropical pouring rain, when my father and I were
exchanging some thoughts. It was a heart-to-heart talk at the lowest pit
of our lives. He said, " I am not a lucky man. " In response, I remained
silent. I understood completely what he was saying. In addition, he
said "The country just can not be in this state for ever. It will change." A year
after that, my father collapsed and died as he tried to haul his emaciated
body out of his shelter to go and get his ration. Nobody in the family
was at his side as he died. I was far away in the field, and so were my
other brothers and sisters in their work sites. Soon after that, my
brother-in-laws died - one out of starvation, the other killed by the
Khmer Rouge. My older brother was killed as well. Then my nephews
and my nieces died. And so many others that I knew died. And soon the
man who was in charge of burying the dead died. I could see my own more obviously than ever.

Every morning, the communist cadres woke us up as early as 3 a.m. -
raining or not. Sometimes, I woke up in the pouring rain, and some other times I could see the moon so bright as I walked in line to the fields; sometimes, a slice of moon, and others, a bright morning star. In moments like these, the hymnal songs ( the one that relates to the morning stars ) resounded over and over in my mind. Tears came to my dry eyes as the early morning breeze caressed my
face, recalling the time I sang praises to God. Sometimes, I forgot that I
was stepping behind my co-workers in line, wading in mud, to work in
the rice fields. There were times that my legs and my body were
swollen. There were times that I could hardly walk, but yet I had to go
for the food ration or else I would not be allowed any food.

In the evening, after the food rationing, everybody was told to gather
and listen to, and cheer the new ideas and principles/doctrines that
Chairman Mao had sown for each one of us. There were times that the
communist cadres shone the petroleum lamp on your face to look for
the ones to be killed as we were sitting in line listening to them. There
were times that several people in the line were called out and killed
within your sight. And yet, remaining brothers or sisters dared not step
out to help. I had seen the face of hell in the land of death.

There are just too many more bad things to tell. It needs hours to tell the rest of the stories.

Before this dark period, I was never sincere in my praises. Now, I
started to mutter sincere prayers to God for myself -- the sincerest ones
-- asking for forgiveness for being so stubborn until then, for guidance
and for my life in its literal meaning .

Yet at this lowest point of my life, God still loved me. He has a plan for me.

A lesson in the enemy's camp:
One morning, ( two years into the communist regime....) as I woke up, I found a small sheet of paper ( approx. 3" x 5" ) at my feet. It was a sheet from the Good News book - Matthew 6: 5 - 15.

explanation: It could have been from the Khmer rouge soldiers who use the Good News book for rolling their cigarette. That's all I could think of.

Coincidence ? No, I don't think so. ...................I stuck the piece of paper in the
seam of my only pant. For the rest of my time in the Khmer Rouge, that
was the only thing I read and memorize. It was about prayer, the Lord's
Prayer. It took me so many years under the communist regime to understand the Lord's prayer. That's the prayer that I prayed every morning as I was in file to the field.


Was I another Jonah? Perhaps.

Times and times again, God stopped me from being perished. And He
did answer my prayer. Through many dangers, toils and snares.....He preserved me from death -- sometimes by a very, very narrow margin.


Wandering trek out:

The start of 1979 marked the beginning of another era.
Border disputes between Vietnam and Khmer-Rouge Cambodia flared up to a full scale
conventional war between the two country. Vietnam, stronger i n
military forces, took over Cambodia in a short time, sending the Khmer
Rouge running for their lives in the jungle near the Thai border. The
Cambodian population, the left over from being tortured, killed or
starved by the Khmer Rouge, began to wander t hrough mass graves
and mine fields in search of foods , shelters, and relatives. Some
ended up back to their birth place, some to the refugee camps across
the Thai-Cambodian border, some did not make it.

As a single man, separated from the rest of the family by the Khmer
Rouge, contracted malaria, I did have a taste of death during the
confusion. For several months to follow, I roamed the dense jungle
southwest and northwest of Cambodia. As a matter of life or death,
dodging bullets and minefields, I finally wandered to the
Thai-Cambodian border. I entered Thailand with many others. I got there just
in time to be pushed back to Cambodia by the Thai government. The Thai government
pushed the refugees back to Cambodia because there were too many of us. They took us
from the western part of Cambodia, and then dropped us ( refugees )
off in the northern part of Cambodia. I walked back to the western part
of Cambodia in about two months. And eventually, I walked back to
Thailand again. This time, the Thai government accepted the refugees
to Khao I Dang, a refugee camp So uth west of Cambodia. That's where
I could smell some relief and that's where I ran into one of makeshift
medical facilities of different humanitarian organizations. I entered the
one that was set up by the Seventh Day Adventist group.

After four years in hell, it was a joy to see the "SDA" sign that I was
familiar with.

Rejoice and Hope:

As I walked into the makeshift medical facility, a nurse, a Youth With a
Mission volunteer came to greet me and help my meager body and
spirit. We talked and exchanged ideas. After that, I became interpreter
for the YWAM, and then a YWAMer, doing evangelist work in the
camp, and on the border camps as well. The work of interpretation and
evangelization continued for about a year, from camp to camp. One
day, after a long exhausting day, the elder administrator of the Youth
With A Mission from Kailua-Kona, doing mission site evaluation ,
talked to me under the shade of a tree on the Thai-Cambodian border.
"Do you want to come to Hawaii?", he asked. "Of course.", I answered.

And that was the beginning of my Hawaiian life. Several months later,
all the paper works were done, and I was processed through different
refugee processing centers; and finally, I came to Hawaii.

I was fortunate to be called to join the Discipleship Training School (
DTS ) at Kailua-Kona, Hawaii - three months of intensive classroom
training and three months of outreach evangelism in Honolulu.

New Career/Schooling:

At end of my DTS, I was offered a place to stay by an American doctor (Dr. Daniel Susott) . Application for schooling began, and the rest of my story is in my
resume if you are interested to know.

Now that I am here, free, and well fed, what should I do?

I'd better do my best to follow His commands. The result? The
outcome? Everything is in God's mighty hands. Just listen and obey,
and pray faithfully. I know he will take care of me.

Am I proud of what I did and have done so far ? I am not sure. But in
front of God, I must always be humble.

Lately, I was struck by Luke 17:7-10.

"When a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, he
does not just sit down and eat, but first prepares his master's meal and
serves him his supper before he eats his own. And he is not even
thanked, for he is merely doing what he is supposed to do. Just so, if
you merely obey me, you should not consider yourselves worthy of
praise. For you have simply done your duty."

Luke 18: 10-13 The proud (prayer) shall be humbled, but the
humble shall be honored. I was as humble as a person could be at the
time.

Matthew 23: 11-12: "The more lowly your service to others, the
greater you are. To be the greatest, be a servant. But those who think
themselves great shall be disappointed and humbled; and those who
humble themselves shall be exalted."

Am I expecting a bright shining day ahead? As a matter of faith, Yes!
God has the plan. I am not sure of his plan. He might not do things that
he said he would do ( Jonah 1:1-2 ). However, he will guide me ( and
you ) through tough times; that is for sure.


Haing Ngor, co star for the "Killings Fields", successful, millionaire, later own many businesses in Cambodia................now dead. What can you draw from that?

My dad was proud of his children..........successful in a way......now dead. What can you say?

Conclusion:

What I learned does not apply only to me, but to you , brothers/sisters in Christ as well.

What an Amazing Grace!

I have risen above the misfortune that I encountered with the Grace of God.

You don't have to go through what I had gone through to meet God face-to-face.

Have faith.

Listen and obey.

Be a servant.

Be humble.

Pray faithfully, and your prayer will be answered as God sees fit.

God has a plan for you even before you ask Him

Knock and the door will be openend.

1 Cor. 12: whole chapter
Everybody is a part of the whole body of Christ. Mine is just a small part. But I am glad to read 1 Cor. 12: 22 to find out that it says: And some of parts that seem weakest and least important are really the most necessary. I just want to do my part.

Ephesians 5: 17-22 :
Live no longer as the unsaved do, for they are blinded and confused. .........
Now your attitudes and thoughts must all be constantly changing for the better. Yes, you must be a new and different person, holy and good. Clothe yourself with this new nature.


Time is short, tell your family members what you want/feel now.

As a factual note: More women survived the starvation and the killing. When it comes to physical operation; men are just like 8 cylinder-cars. Women are just like 4 cylinder-cars. For the same amount of gas, the 4-cylinder ones go farther than the 8-cylinder ones ...on a flat terrain.

Thanks Fred, David Peterbridge and church & members.