Tears streamed down Mony’s face as he sat in the Tuol Kork Seventh-day Adventist Church in Phnom Penh. Eric put a comforting arm around him as Mony softly spoke.

“I was praying for my father. . . I miss him. . . I love him. I was praying for my brothers, for my whole family.”

You may remember the touching story of Nico,1 the Muslim scholar who came with his wife in the dark of night to study the Bible and subsequently gave his heart to Christ in our living room. Sadly, Nico’s bad habits and temptations got the best of him again and again, and he succumbed to drug use, abusing his wife and children, and trying to cheat us out of money. It broke our hearts, but when Nico shut the door in Eric’s face and would not let his family study the Bible anymore, we had to give them space, pray and trust in the Lord.

Mony, Nico’s teenage son, has kept a small flame burning in his heart. He was the teenager who had asked Eric to come in the dim light of morning so he could study before biking to school. Mony memorized the names of the books of the Bible in one day to earn his very own Bible—a challenge Eric gave him to foster a sense of ownership over his Bible, even though he could not afford one. As Mony got older, he left home to go to school, and we had not seen him in a couple of years.

Not long ago, he messaged Eric, saying he had attended a Christian church in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. Mony was working in the capital and was out from under his controlling father’s thumb.

While on a trip to the capital to run an errand, we made a point of meeting up with Mony on his day off. His jaw line is sharper, his shoulders more square. He is 22 now and is effectively the father figure to his younger siblings, who all share a tiny rented room in the city. Mony works as a school guard, and his younger brother works at a soy sauce factory. The two other younger siblings go to school. They have a sense of freedom, in a way, and do not want to go back home.

“I have not seen my dad for over two years,” Mony told us. His mom, a victim of her husband’s abuse, tried to run away too, but was pulled back to care for her youngest son, whom Nico will not let out of his sight.

We brought Mony back to our hotel for a light lunch of leftovers and fruit. He told us about his life over the past couple of years. In the evening, we invited his siblings to join us for dinner at a restaurant. Little 12-year-old Hana was dressed up as much as she could muster, with a bow in her hair and a little blush on her cheeks. They ate and ate, and ate some more. “I’m full, but I cannot stand to waste food!” she said shyly. It both touched and broke our hearts to see them, so young and vulnerable, looking after each other as a little sibling family.

As a mom, it makes me tear up at the idea of my own children trying to fend for themselves like that someday, yet at the same time, I am proud of those four brave youth who had the courage to get away and live freely, considering their circumstances.

We know the seed has been planted in Mony’s heart. He has studied the Bible for many collective hours with Eric and on his own. Now we are just praying that his faith continues to grow under the sunshine glow of freedom from family persecution and with access to Christian churches—an opportunity no one in our village has if they stay home.

“I think I will come back next week,” Mony said as we left church. The young pastor of the Tuol Kork church has promised to minister to them with God’s love.

Mony wants to study English at a reputable school in the city. He already has his schedule mapped out so he can work during the week (and be home to cook three meals a day for his siblings) and then learn English on the weekends. “I will go to church to pray before I go to school,” he told Eric.

Please pray for Mony and his siblings and parents as well. Pray for his father to accept Christ into his life and allow God to transform his heart. When Nico rejected us for not enabling his addictions, we thought this story might be over. But Mony’s growing, lingering faith gives us renewed hope!

1 You can read more about Nico and Mony in the following issues:
• September 2022 (articles by Tirado, Lewis and C. White)
• November and December 2022 and January 2023 (Tirado)
• May 2024 (C. White)

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