by Emily Smith

This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander Month, the U.S. Alliance honors the storied history of Asia and the Pacific Islands, celebrating the significant ways God works in and through our Asian and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters throughout all the world. Among this family is Syna, an Alliance international worker originally from and now serving in Cambodia, who has traced God’s hand across her life through suffering, her calling, and the impactful work she is now a part of in her home country.

A War-Torn Childhood

Born in Cambodia in the late 1960s, Syna’s childhood was deeply marked by the terror of the Khmer Rouge. For three years, eight months, and twenty-nine days, she lived in the shadows of the Killing Fields of Cambodia. But God spared her life before she even knew Him.

After time spent living in concentration camps, Syna returned to 63 members of her family killed and no relief from the hardships of the terror that destroyed her homeland. Eventually, she and her remaining family members fled the war zone, seeking out refugee camps along the Thai-Cambodia border, where they spent three years waiting to be sponsored and taken to permanent safety.

While inside of the refugee camp, Syna’s pregnant sister was struggling significantly, so she was placed under the care of camp health-care workers and under Syna’s watchful eye. The nurses there—working to bring health care and relief along with the gospel—caught Syna’s attention. “This lady did something amazing, so I wanted to be like her,” Syna shares, explaining how one particular nurse’s position of servanthood struck her.

A New Kind of God

Soon, Syna’s sister came home and declared that she had met a new God named Jesus. And despite not knowing much about Him, she took the family to church inside of the refugee camp.

“I was young enough to be placed in the children’s program. We didn’t have a building, but it was in the shade of the mango trees,” Syna explains. “That Sunday, the children were encouraged to recite memorized Scripture. Whenever they said it correctly, they got candies. As the children shouted the verses one by one for candies, I was like a sponge. Those questions I had asked during my torture—Who created the heavens and earth? There must be someone that made the mountains and trees. And during my suffering time, I longed for my family, and nobody was there, and I wondered if there was someone that cared for me. That happened in the regimes with no answer. But that Sunday, I found an answer through the lips of children.”

After Sunday school, Syna approached her teacher, asking to hear more about who Jesus was. And after receiving the gospel from her, Syna was led to Christ. And as she continued her time in the camps and beyond, Syna prayed continually, “God, I’m only a refugee girl. I don’t know what my future will be like. I have no school, no education, no family connection. But if You’re willing, will You make me like that nurse?”

A Burden to Go Home

Following her and her family’s time in the refugee camps, they soon made their way to New York when Syna was 16. Lacking any form of education because of what the war had deprived her of, she was placed in high school, eventually graduated, and despite it taking many years, became a registered nurse.

While in New York, she met and married her husband, Soeuth, and the two of them shared a successful, comfortable life in the U.S., far from their war-torn homeland. “But something was missing in my life,” Syna shares. “I didn’t have to worry about landmines, or bandits, or being shot, or being separated like I did as a child. I had an apartment and a good job. But something was missing, so I looked to Scripture. God, what did You save my life for? Why did You spare me? Then Romans 10 shouted out to me.”

Syna recites Romans 10:14 with deep conviction in her heart, “How then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?” She continues on, “So, I felt convicted from that verse—that perhaps someone heard the same call, and she said yes, and she went to the refugee camp. She didn’t talk to me directly, but her yes was enough to open the door for me.”

As Syna and Soeuth grew a deep burden and desire to return to their homeland with the gospel, they sought to be sent with The Alliance. Despite the abundant reasons to be afraid and run from Cambodia, they leaned fully into God’s desire for their lives. Syna knew they were saved by God for something beyond their life in New York, “God, when two million were killed, You spared my life. When 63 members of my family were killed, You spared my life. And You know the plan You have for my life. So, I will go back.”

The Gospel for Cambodia

Now, 31 years later, Syna and Soeuth are still serving God with The Alliance in Cambodia.

And after some time serving throughout the country, they were eventually asked to go to Anlong Veng—the former headquarters for many top leaders from the Khmer Rouge—and a place where Cambodians, including Syna and her family, had suffered deep trauma.

But despite the initial shock, stress, and struggle with the ask to return there, they answered the call to go—returning to Anlong Veng and the site of the deepest suffering they had known.

“I always pray, God, give us opportunity to share what we have to share for this day. And I look for opportunity to meet people where they are,” Syna shares about her daily mindset sharing the gospel with Cambodians. “They may be dirt poor,” she says. “They went through decades of hardship. But the smiling, the radiance. That’s what I treasure. They have Jesus.”