Refugees: Off Sinking Boats into American Churches: Refugee Populations in the United States May Provide One of the Most Significant Home Mission Fields Ever Seen

It is difficult for Kamsan Phorn to discuss Cambodia’s withered, decimated society. He, his wife, and their toddler escaped Pol Pot’s murderous troops and Vietnamese invaders almost three years ago, and settled near Washington, D.C. Now, Kamsan chatters freely about his new Volkswagen, his job as a hotel houseman, and his second child.

But about Cambodia, he merely whispers in prayer. “I ask God to make my country peaceful and independent,” he says. “I am praying for God to forgive the Vietnamese government. They don’t know what they are doing.”

He recalls seeing Buddhist temples destroyed by the Communists, and he wondered why those revered symbols seemed so powerless. Then Christian missionaries in a Thai refugee camp introduced him to the gospel. “I studied the Bible and I’d been praying,” he says. “I had to test it. Everything I asked God for, came”—including passage to the United States. “It made me strong. It made me believe little by little. When I understood the Bible, I understood it as true. It was like God speaking to me.”

Thorough, basic Bible study and discipling at Arlington Memorial Church (Christian and Missionary Alliance) has sustained Kamsan’s fragile faith, and today he occasionally leads a weekly Bible study in Khmer, his native tongue.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.