KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia – On its 30th anniversary, The Asian Center for Missions, CBN’s missionary training center in the Philippines, recently celebrated with its missionaries and the disciples they have made in the 77 nations they have reached so far.
One of them is Pastor Khon Khan. Born to a poor Buddhist family in Cambodia, Khan sought to become a monk in order to get a free education. That dream was shattered when his parents’ business went bankrupt. Then, due to severe depression, his mother committed suicide. He shared, “After my Mom passed away, I have no hope, I have no money, my dad remarried. My life became worse and worse.”
With ten siblings, Khan had to find ways to survive. In order to continue his studies, he lived in a Buddhist temple and served the monks. But after a few years, he left the monastery, disappointed at how the older monks treated him.
Khan told CBN News, “They always say bad words and revile all the children. Then I decide not to stay in the Buddhist temple anymore. From that time, I did not want to be a Buddhist monk anymore. I became a gangster, gambling and want to fight. I felt hopeless, no money, no food to eat. I really want to kill myself. While I was thinking like that, a voice come to tell me. If you want to have hope in your life, you want to have a good future, you should know how to speak English because your country need someone to translate for foreigners. I asked my gangster friend, ‘Friend, do you know a foreign teacher who teach English free of charge? He said, ‘Oh yes I know teacher who teach English free of charge. But one thing, the problem, it’s a Christian church’.”
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Desperate to learn English, Khan decided to join the evangelistic English classes led by Filipino missionaries trained by the Asian Center for Missions, ACM. Here, the students were required to tell people about Jesus.
“My pastor said every student should preach the gospel to tell people, ‘Jesus loves you, He died for you. If you don’t understand, come to church.’ If not you will not graduate. I just do that and after 5 months, finally, I realize Jesus is the Savior. Then I accepted the Lord. From that time I commit myself to serve God with my whole life,” Khan said.
Today Pastor Khan pastors a church in his province in Kampong Thom. He has helped plant 200 churches across the 24 provinces of Cambodia and disciples pastors. On Sundays, he conducts feeding programs in 25 villages around Kampong Thom. Not all of these children belong to very poor families but according to Pastor Khon Khan, the most important thing is for these children to be fed not only nutritious food but the Word of God.
After living the difficult life of an orphan, Pastor Khan also started a children’s home to take care of poor children who have no where to go.
God has expanded the pastor’s territory leading to his being named Undersecretary of Cult and Religion in Cambodia. This position allows Pastor Khan to protect Christian churches especially in remote villages where they are often persecuted. As a result, they can now freely spread the gospel.
Pastor Khan believes with God by his side, nothing can stop him from winning more tribes and villages for Jesus, a legacy that’s been passed on to him by ACM.
He said, “Without ACM, I might have been killed because I was a gangster or in the prison. But by the grace of God through the ACM, God called me out of the dark world. I used to be the boy who was hopeless and helpless, but now God is using me to bless the whole Cambodia.”
