Working with people living with HIV/AIDS means seeing suffering every day. It’s difficult to see people who are dying. Because of stigma, many of these people suffer alone because their friends and family abandon them.
Because I am a Christian, I have God’s love in me. It is because of God’s love that I want to help people and teach the church how to care for people with HIV/AIDS.
In my own life, I have gone through many hard things. But it is because of these experiences that I am able to tell people about the hope of Jesus Christ. I found that hope when God answered my prayers one day in a refugee camp.
I was very young when the Khmer Rouge came to power in Cambodia. People told me that my mother took me to a children’s camp during that time and asked the old lady there to take care of me, but I don’t remember it. I don’t know what happened to my parents. I’m not even sure about their names.
I lived in an orphan center until the war ended. When other parents came to get their children, no one came for me. So I stayed with Grandma Yom, the old lady at the orphanage. Even though we were very poor and she couldn’t feed me enough, I loved her very much.
When I was 12, Grandma Yom found a little money to pay a smuggler to take me to the Khmer-Thai border to look for my parents. We walked for three days and slept on the side of the road with no food or water. I was very hungry and cried the entire way. We had to walk through the Khmer Rouge zone and then through the minefields. Everyone was really afraid.
When we reached the border, the smuggler asked me to change my clothes. He gave me Thai clothes and made me look like a Thai child. I walked across the Khmer-Thai border and met some Thai soldiers, but I did not speak to them, because I didn’t understand their language. I followed other people to a nearby refugee camp without much hope, because I didn’t know anyone there. The first night I slept in a small hut with no walls and the roof leaked everywhere. I cried a lot because I was sick from hunger and all alone. The next day I met a family with seven children. They asked me where I had come from and why I was there. I told them my story and they let me stay with them.
The family was very poor and had many children. I was the eldest. We all lived in a small wooden hut with plastic sheeting walls and a dirt floor. We never had enough to eat. Every day, I woke up at 4 a.m. to clean the house and wash clothes. At 5:30 the parents went out to find work. I stayed home to take care of the children and cooked whatever food we could find. I had to wait until the family went to bed and then I washed the dishes and went to bed myself. I always got to bed late and woke up early.
I cried all the time when I fed the children because I too was hungry. I was afraid to eat the food because if the children felt they didn’t have enough, they might tell their parents I ate too much. If that happened, the parents would hit me. Sometimes we didn’t have any food to eat, so I went to a restaurant and waited for people to finish eating so I could collect the leftovers.
I cried day and night. I always asked myself, “Why is life so difficult? Why don’t I have parents like the other children?” I prayed for someone to help me, but I didn’t know who to pray to then because I didn’t know the Lord.
One day, I stopped to listen to children singing. They were singing songs I didn’t recognize. As I stood there, I met a woman named Mane Mai who was a pastor. I asked her what the children were doing.
“These children have come to worship the Lord, and they sing songs to praise Him,” she said.
“Where is your God?” I asked. “Why can’t I see him?”
“My God is in my heart,” she said. “Jesus Christ is my God, and He is always with us.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “If your God can hear you, why doesn’t He hear me crying everyday? If your God is a powerful God, tell Him to help me.”
The pastor told me to go home and pray to God. I lay in my bed that night, but sleep would not come. So I sat up and prayed: “Dear Lord, if you are a powerful God, please send someone to help me. I want to go to school.”
That night, I had a dream. I was in the river being pushed by the water, and I saw a bridge. A man was standing on the bridge and stretched his hand toward me. He pulled me out of the water to safety.
Two weeks after I prayed to God, I was walking down the road when two men stopped to talk to me. One was Cambodian and the other was a “barang,” or white man. They asked me about my family, and I told them I was alone. The Cambodian man asked me, “What do you want to do?” I immediately replied, “I want to go to school.”
The next day, the men came to the refugee camp where I lived, bringing school supplies and a school uniform and took me to school. I finished high school in a refugee camp and later went to work for a medical non-governmental organization (NGO).
I decided to return to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city, and enrolled in university to study accounting. In 2000, I decided to go to the United States to pursue work there. Although I met many wonderful people in the U.S., I knew the Lord was calling me back to my country. Since returning home, I have been able to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with those who are suffering from HIV/AIDS. Samaritan’s Purse has helped me to bring the Gospel to my own people.
This work is often dangerous, but I know the Lord is protecting me. I am thankful for His compassion toward me. I feel His love for me and am happy that I can serve Him by helping my people.
PROFILE
Im Hai
Church Mobilization Program Manager
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
As a child, Hai was separated from her family and endured hardship under the Khmer Rouge regime. While in a refugee camp, she came to know the love of Jesus Christ. Hai now works with the HIV/AIDS ministry of Samaritan's Purse, where she provides church leaders with the resources, training, and support they need to teach their communities about the disease and care for those who are infected.
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