More Stories from Cambodia: What Great Love (Part 1)

On 25 Sept 2011, l received a call that a friend of ours named Pharom had passed away. We were first acquainted with Pharom in August when conducting the iAim program outreach in the slum area. There were eight people in his family: four young children, two men who were sick and thus unable to work, and two women who collected garbage to support the family.

When we met Pharom and his family, they claimed to be Christians. However, they had not been attending church for a long time. We found out no one in their church had visited them after the two men fell ill and as a result the family felt the church had abandoned them.

We then sent Pharom to the hospital but no doctor would treat him as his disease had advanced to a very critical stage so nothing could be done for his damaged lungs and kidneys plus a host of other diseases. The only thing our team could do was visit the family regularly to encourage and pray for them. We also brought along other short-term teams, including Ps Ong (COSBT), who had a burden for them.

Pharom died in his own house around 12 noon. Our team received the call about 1pm and immediately headed for his house to see how we could help. My team and I did not know what to do as this was the first Cambodian funeral we encountered, so we called Ps Vanna & Bro Lim from FWLC.

Praise God for friends who were willing to help even though it was a public holiday. What was more, the family did not belong to their church. On top of it, they (Ps Vanna and Lim) were leaving for Korea the very next day.

As both of them also do not have any experience in conducting a Cambodian funeral, they invited two other pastors to help. They came and gave some advice, but my two main concerns were where to get the money for the wake and whether there was a Cambodian who could co-ordinate all that was needed.

All GLORY TO GOD, HE provided through a member of COSBT, NHO children and the boys of Daniel’s center, who helped out in the whole event. In Cambodia, the custom is that if we want to help the family, one has to stay with them throughout the wake until the cremation, which includes the night watch...

Bro Chin Leong

(To be continued)