‘I had the opportunity to read the Bible and that changed everything’

UBS Program Consultant Arun Sok Nhep as a young man

During a visit to the World Service Center, UBS Program Consultant
Arun Sok Nhep shared how reading his father’s Bible led him to Christianity
and helped him survive the terrible years of the Khmer Rouge.

CAMBODIA — “I was born into a Buddhist family like any other Cambodian and I was raised to respect our religion,” explains Arun. “I never heard about the Gospel or the Bible. But then Cambodia became involved in the Vietnam war and there was a lot of suffering. I was at that time a teenager of 15 or 16 years old and I was asked to enrol in the army. One day I became very depressed because one of my friends was killed during the fighting. We were talking together and the next day he was gone. So this helped me to reflect on life and on death.”

Some months previously, Arun’s father had become a Christian – something that Arun was completely against because he felt it was a Western religion.

Nothing good

“At that time, I believed that nothing good could come from the West, which I saw as responsible for bringing all this fighting to my country. So for several months I was strongly opposed to my father’s new faith. But one day, during my period of depression, I was on duty in the office and I borrowed my father’s Bible and started to read the first chapters of Genesis. This was the first time I had read about God creating people and the world, and somehow I knew I had found truth like I had never known before.

“The next night I jumped into the New Testament and read the Book of John and it was just as powerful, reinforcing the fact that the God who created people, loved people too, enough to sacrifice his only son. I found out that God is not only the creator of the universe but also our personal God. I got to know the Lord!”

And so, to his father’s delight, Arun became a Christian and read the Bible avidly. Many others, too, were searching for answers during these difficult years, and significant numbers of people were becoming Christians. But then disaster struck – Pol Pot marched into Phnom Penh in 1975, forcing everyone to leave the city and return to their home villages. Arun and his family travelled for six weeks.

Sweet fellowship

“My family set out with 10 other families from my church,” he recalls. “Each night we had very precious times of prayer and fellowship together. I would never again experience such sweet fellowship with God and other brothers and sisters in Christ. I believe it was a special deposit by the Holy Spirit… to get me through the difficult times ahead.”

When the family reached their home village, which was close to the Vietnam border, Arun’s father was arrested and put into a concentration camp where he was later killed.

Many lost hope

“My faith helped me to get through all this,” recalls Arun, “and that was because I had had the opportunity to read the Bible, and that changed everything. Many Cambodians lost hope but those of us who had faith were strengthened because we knew that God was with us.”

Arun eventually managed to escape from Cambodia. He ended up in France where he enrolled in a seminary and became pastor of a Cambodian church. In 1985 the French Bible Society asked him to help in the translation of the Khmer Standard Version New Testament, and he readily agreed.

Grow in faith

“I noticed at that time that young Cambodian people in France were able to grow in faith because they could read the French Bible, whereas older people could not read French and therefore had to read the old Khmer Bible, which uses outdated language. As it was so difficult to understand, they felt discouraged from reading the Bible. So I saw how important it was to provide a new translation of the Khmer Bible.

“When I began the translation work, Cambodia was a closed country, so I thought we would just be translating for Cambodian people living in exile. But in 1992 the country opened up and we went back to Cambodia and completed the work in 1997. It was a very special time.”

Today, Arun lives in Singapore and works as a Program Consultant for UBS, travelling in many countries in Asia-Pacific. But his own country remains close to his heart. He has watched the growth of the Cambodian Church, and how Christian principles are helping people to improve their lives.

Brighter future

“Christians believe that God saves us now, in the present, and that although we are waiting for a brighter future in heaven with God, we can work now to make a better life for ourselves and others here on earth. Many Cambodian Christians are embracing this, and are seeing an improvement in their quality of life.”

Literacy is a key area of development in which Christianity is playing a key role.

“The Bible Society in Cambodia’s literacy projects are changing many lives,” says Arun (see also). “They have helped people come to God, and removed the shame that many feel at being illiterate. It’s amazing to see their excitement when they can read and write their own name, or read a newspaper.”

Looking back at his desperate search for meaning during his teenage years, Arun firmly believes that it is vital that young people have access to the Bible story.

Make sense