Christmas to unite the faithful [for the newlyconverted Cambodian Christians]

Top: Children look at a Christmas tree and (below) Chhun Savoeun (second left) and Dr. Seng Saman (second right) and their wives joined a Christian dinner in Phnom Penh.

By Alexis Lai
Friday, 23 December 2011
The Phnom Penh Post

On Christmas morning, Cambodia’s tiny Christian minority will hold celebrations in churches across the Kingdom, but while their numbers are small, the tight-knit community has a strong bond, says Seng Sovann, who has led the Phnom Penh Church of Christ for the past six years.

Like most Cambodian Christians, he was not born into the religion but converted.

The 36-year-old father of two describes his conversion as swift. After moving to Phnom Penh in 1993 for university, he was invited by a classmate to attend a church service. “I was baptised after two weeks,” he said.

His wife, Bin Pheap, was more reluctant. “I was frequently invited by friends to attend church, but I wasn’t really interested and was too busy with other things on the weekend,” she said. “One day I didn’t have anything to do, so I decided to go see what it was about.”

Her family’s reaction to her conversion was strong. “They thought I’d gone mad,” she said. She is the only Christian among her eight siblings.

Bin Pheap said those who converted ran into resistance within their families.

“While there used to be a lot of societal resistance against Christians in the 1990s, the greatest resistance now comes from within the family”, she said.

“It is not always easy [to be Christian],” said Chhun Savoeun, a 38-year-old father of two from Kandal province who was baptized in 1997. His parents, both Buddhists, were staunchly opposed to Christianity.

“If you go [to church], don’t come back home,” they warned him. When he married another Christian, his parents first refused to attend the wedding as they had arranged a marriage for him with a neighbour’s daughter. They have since accepted his faith, even joining him for Christmas Day services, but retain their own faiths.