by Forrest McPhail

Through Faith, He Yet Speaks

Aun’s body was covered with scars—permanent souvenirs accumulated over years of delivering wood in his rickshaw while drunk. Aun also had bullet wounds in several places from his wartime experiences. Home for him was Pursat, a western province in Cambodia. He was illiterate, and many of his family were functionally illiterate. They were truly at the bottom of Pursat’s economic and social community.

Aun professed Christ when Inheritance in Christ Church formed a Bible study with Cambodians led by fellow missionaries Chris Seawright and me in 2006. Later, Aun was disciplined from the church for unrepentant drunkenness. Over the next several years, he was in and out of church as he tried to turn over a new leaf—often hiding his sin for a time. I pursued Aun, striving to show him the love of Christ and urge him toward repentance and faith. When he knew I was coming, Aun would hide in his backyard and tell his children to say he was not home. When I surprised him, he’d invite me in to talk. Many in the States were praying.

One day in June of 2010, Aun anxiously received me up into the wood house on stilts to talk. He wept as he related that sin had ruined his family, that he was a terrible testimony to everyone around him, and that he needed to repent and lead his family. He wanted to do away with beer, rice wine, and gambling and follow Jesus.

Victory Through Christ

Aun had spent the last night praying and weeping over all the people God had brought into his life to confront him about his drinking and to pray for him. He listed people who had visited the country—interns, other missionaries, mission teams, and those who had emailed messages to tell him they were praying.

After praying for some time, Aun jerked awake in holy fear. He said the realization overwhelmed him that God had done all of this to call him out of his sin, using people from all over the globe, and he would most certainly face stern chastisement if he fell into sin again.

It was not only the absence of Aun’s drunkenness but his exuberant love for his family and the body of Christ that indicated real victory. He made sure his family heard the Word from his son-in-law each day, and he led his family in prayer each night. He told me that “he was so happy that it did not matter if he had food for the day or not—the joy is enough to live on!”

Determination to Put Away Sin

Aun was so determined not to fall back into drunkenness that he chose not to go to work for a time, since the other men sat and drank and gambled all day while waiting for customers. He would rather suffer, dry out, and keep himself from temptation. His body shook. He experienced pain and insatiable thirst. He drank soda, chewed gum, listened to sermons, and sang hymns as he worked around the house. By God’s grace he stayed sober.

Aun waited at home for customers, and God provided. He took his teenage son on deliveries for accountability. His son saw Aun turn down alcohol time and again. His repentance was real!

Briefly a Pillar in the Church

Aun’s testimony of change was powerful in the assembly. For more than two years he was a real “shot in the arm” to the congregation. Though illiterate, he prayed and gave counsel.

He was hospitalized for tuberculosis in 2012. After months of poor care, Aun died of infection from bed sores and a wound to the head after falling out of his bed in the night. What a loss!

Ten Years After His Death

Aun’s wife, Powe, has remained faithful to the Lord, but her weak mind and ignorance made growth slow. However, what God did in her husband’s life seems to be the thing that clarified the Gospel for her. She continues to thank the Lord for that miracle whenever praises are shared in the services.

The rest of the family has evidenced both faith and failure with much strife and contention. Aun had five children, two sons and three daughters. All experienced terrible parenting and some level of abandonment. Four of them spent years in an “orphanage.” One was put in a monastery at a temple to become a monk. From a human perspective, their upbringing was very much against them.

Yet, four of the children as young people, followed their parents in attending church and making professions of faith. They witnessed Aun’s transformation as they grew into adulthood. After his death, some fell away and evidenced a rejection of Christ, but one daughter married a godly man who became a deacon in the church.

Aun’s youngest son, Tong, has shown fruit slowly, largely due to the context of his family. He married a strong, Christian woman.

10-Year Anniversary Remembrance of Aun

Our co-worker, Michael, a coworker at the church, became burdened to find a way to make a loving, but earnest appeal to Aun’s family through hosting an official dinner and time of remembrance of his life. The dinner was held at my house on March 10, 2022, and Aun’s four children who live in Pursat attended. A handful of the grandchildren came too. We had a pleasant time conversing and savoring Khmer cuisine. Michael framed a large picture of Aun for everyone to see; Cambodians often do this to remember deceased parents. The church family also spent a long time reflecting on Aun’s life and conversion—the serious as well as humorous aspects of his repentance. Michael then seized the moment to lovingly urge the three wayward daughters to repent and find new life in Jesus as their father had done. The message emphasized 2 Corinthians 5:17 about having new life in Jesus, and Ecclesiastes 7 and 12 about the need to look forward to death and realize the necessity to live for the Creator now.

All the children were deeply moved. One of Aun’s daughters decided that night to make changes in her life, not knowing that the Lord would take her little boy to heaven in just four days. The son committed himself to the Lord in prayer to be a man as his father was. “Through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.” The ripples of God’s work in Aun’s short time as a true believer will be known in eternity. His story was definitely a conduit of grace to all who heard it.