Archive: Escape From Cambodia

They prayed that God would help them flee the terrors of Pol Pot

During most of the 1970s, the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia was terrorized by a blood-thirsty Communist regime known as the Khmer Rouge. Headed by the dreaded Pol Pot, Khmer Rouge troops killed more than a million Cambodians, most in cold blood.

During this nightmare, a flood of terrorized Cambodians fled their country for the safety of non-Communist Thailand. Many thousands were eventually admitted to the U.S., where churches from nearly all denominations helped in their resettlement. This is the story of one such Cambodian family.

Huy clutched the side of the oxcart as the buffalo pulled it into the stream. The children sat quietly on top of the vehicle. Huy’s husband, Bun (Bun) Meng, and the others—ten in all—walked beside it, struggling to keep their footing in the stump-strewn mud and swirling water.

Suddenly gunshots broke the pre-dawn stillness. Khmer Rouge troops had discovered the escape attempt. Panic hit as the shots drew nearer, and everyone seemed to run in a different direction.

Huy got lost from her family as she struggled onto the opposite bank of the stream and started running across an open field. Moments later the soldiers had forded the stream and were only a few hundred yards behind her. Huy managed to reach the woods and hide in some brush till the gunmen passed, then she came out to search in wild desperation for her loved ones.

Everyone had disappeared into the darkness and, for all Huy knew, they might be dead. Not knowing which direction to go, she followed the stream. What am I going to do? she wondered, rubbing her swollen stomach. This baby will come anytime now!

Alone, Huy stumbled along in the darkness until, up ahead, she spotted an overturned oxcart. It was their oxcart! Everyone was there, struggling to right the vehicle—everyone, that is except Huy’s father, Kim Khauv.

With Huy’s help, the family managed to set the cart upright. “What shall we do now?” someone asked. There was nothing to do but go on. As the oxcart crept forward, everyone peered nervously into the darkness.

Meanwhile Kim Khauv had become so distraught at losing his beloved family that he thought, I’ll kill myself if I can’t find them! As he groped along, weeping, the oxcart overtook him. Again, all were reunited!

Huy was riding in the cart now, her discomfort increasing. Just ahead Viet Cong troops, who also occupied parts of Cambodia, had set up a guard station. But under shelter of the waning night, the family saw them first and turned aside. After awhile, in a field outside a small village, the travelers decided to make camp.

“Let’s stay under that tree. I am ready to have my baby,” Huy announced. It was not long before a baby girl, Bun Ly (“Lee”) was born. Miraculously, the family had escaped recapture. This was their second escape attempt, and it would not be their last.

The first escape try had been four years earlier, when the reign of terror had begun, forcing the Kims and Buns to flee from their home. Before the Communist takeover, Huy and Bun Meng and their two young sons lived with Huy’s parents, the Kims, and their six children. The family restaurant business was prospering. And in spite of a growing Communist threat, the presence of American troops in Viet Nam had given some hope that Cambodia’s peace might last.

Then the Americans left South Viet Nam, the North Vietnamese swept that country, and the Chinese-backed Cambodian Communists led by Pol Pot made their move. The wave of murder and destruction swept Cambodia like an avalanche.

Huy’s father, Kim Khauv, had called the family together to prepare a hasty departure. Some neighbors were loading furniture. Kim Khauv warned, “What can you do with that? It may be too late even to save our own lives!”

Gathering the family members, they walked away from a newly built home and everything else they had labored a lifetime to attain—everything except each other. Soon even that would be taken away.

This first attempt to escape Pol Pot came too late. The Khmer Rouge troops arrived just hours after the family left their home. The Communists held “planning meetings” for community leaders and murdered those who attended, then captured and enslaved others. When the Kims and Buns were captured, the family was separated.

The girls were to spend months in the forest with no shelter except plastic coverings to blanket rough hammocks when it rained. Children of six and older were sent into the hills to chop grass that would be plowed under as fertilizer. Two of the Kim daughters would never leave these camps. Kim Keung would die at age 23 and Kim Thaeng at age 4, from malnutrition and exposure.

Bun Meng was sent to a men’s camp to do field work. Huy was allowed to keep with her both Bun Chay, age 3, and Bun Houk, then 13 months old.

Huy had to leave the two children alone during daylight hours and walk miles to work in the fields. She gave careful instructions to Bun Chay: “When the mealtime bell rings, take Bun Houk by the hand and lead him to get rice. He must not grab more than is offered, or cry.”

Huy sewed little pockets inside the children’s trousers and into these she fastened plastic bags. “They won’t let you bring home rice from your bowl, so be careful nobody sees when you put some of it into your pocket.” Huy taught little Bun Chay how to boil the rice in water to provide food for the evening. With plenty of water, stomachs would not feel quite so empty.

As Huy left the children each day she prayed, “God, keep me safe. Who can care for my babies if I am killed?”

She tried to do her work and avoid the Khmer Rouge troops whenever possible. One evening she was walking back to camp with some other women when they spotted soldiers waiting for them. The women scattered in different directions. Huy was running across an open field when she made a horrifying discovery. Under her feet were the corpses of people murdered by the new regime and lightly covered with dirt and leaves. Unwittingly, Huy had stumbled onto one of Cambodia’s “killing fields.”

“Every day, about everything I did, I prayed,” Huy recalls. At this time she knew little about God. Her father had never read a Bible, yet he had always taught her, “Believe in God and do good things for others. If you only believe in God, that is not enough. If you only do good and do not believe in God, that is not enough. Do both,” Huy believed, did whatever she could for other people, and she prayed.

Meanwhile Huy’s husband, Bun Meng, also had opportunities to pray.

The men’s camp was set up in an open field, with no shelter at all. Guns ready, guards patrolled the area seeking an excuse to execute “uncooperative” individuals. Meng was assigned to raise vegetables for his group of ten. A committee of Khmer Rouge officials carefully monitored all activities, assigning spies to report any “aberrations.”

One day someone reported, “Bun Meng is secretly taking extra food. He should be shot.” An informer was assigned to observe him closely and return a recommendation. “Meng is not taking more than his share,” the spy said later. And Meng’s life was spared.

Another time, the usually unobtrusive Meng refused to eat his bowl of rice. “It is spoiled,” he explained.

The leader heard of Meng’s objection and decided to kill him in two days. When a friend heard of the plan, he reported it to the unsuspecting Meng.

“It is impossible to escape,” Meng said. “I am not afraid to die, but I don’t want to.” As usual, he prayed.

Shortly afterward, the leader called together Meng’s group of ten. “Was the food spoiled?” each man was asked. When everyone admitted, “Yes it was,” the charge against Meng was dropped.

Though separated, the Kims and Buns lived in camps less than a mile apart. Family members managed to stay in contact with each other. And in 1979, after four years of enslavement, they joined about 500 other prisoners in an escape attempt.

That is when Huy had gotten separated from, and later was reunited with, the rest of her family. They camped near the village where Huy’s baby, Bun Ly, was born and then, several weeks later, they managed to reach Battabomba, their earlier home. They were allowed to live underneath the house of a relative there. But they knew Cambodia no longer held any hope for them.

Since the Communist takeover, two Kim daughters had died, Huy’s parents had nearly succumbed to illness, and Huy’s grandmother had been shot in 1975 during the early days of Pol Pot’s uprising. Plans were carefully made for a third escape attempt. Fifty miles through jungle, past Pol Pot and Viet Cong troops to peaceful Thailand was “an impossibility.” But the Kims and Buns decided to make a try for freedom.

On November 27, 1979 the family had completed final preparations and with 200 others were ready to leave. They had heard that bombs were hidden as booby traps, that pits had been dug concealing spikes of bamboo covered with branches and leaves. The family knew of the many Communist outposts and sharpshooters. But freedom would be worth the risk.

On November 28, 1979, children and some rice were loaded onto a cart to be towed by Meng on a bicycle. Huy carried four-month-old Bun Ly. The boys Kim Tri (age 9), Kim Ah (7), Bun Chay (5), and Bun Houk (3); the girls Kim Chu (16) and Kim Kieu (20); and their parents walked into the jungle. Only two miles out, rapid shooting punctuated the silence and all found cover in some tall grass. When the shooting stopped, the group went on, sometimes retracing steps, hiding in the hills, sleeping some during the days, and walking interminably at night.

The 50-mile trip took three days and nights. Finally up ahead, the travelers saw lights but no guns or troops. It was a Cambodian border tradepost. Safe at last!

A bus carried the escapees to the Thai refugee camps where American Red Cross personnel provided vegetables, chicken, pork, and salt fish along with rice. Christians from the United States provided opportunity to hear more about the God who had brought the family to safety. For the Kims and Buns, it was the beginning of a growing involvement with Christian people and understanding of the Christian faith.

The family applied for a permit to go to the United States and was accepted. In a resettlement house in Houston, Texas, the family joined about 30 other such escapees being provided for by the International Rescue Committee. However, social workers were almost non-existent due to fund limitations. There was nobody to keep up with the needs for clothing, language, schooling, or medical care beyond the barest essentials.

A few days following the family’s arrival, Huy wakened in the night knowing that her fourth child was due immediately. It was on this very morning that two young American women had agreed to meet and take Huy for a prenatal checkup. Unaware of the nearness of her delivery, they arrived at the house at 6 a.m. to discover that Huy was ready to have her baby. Shortly after arrival at the hospital, baby Catherine was born.

Huy had prayed before leaving Thailand, “God, send us friends we can trust. We don’t know what to do about anything in a strange country with different people and customs. ”

With the reassurance of God’s exact timing in answering her prayers, the dauntless Huy tackled the English language, traffic, and customs. She got jobs housekeeping, babysitting, and sewing. And she purchased a car and learned to drive it. Bun Meng and the Kims gathered freeway trash to earn extra money, and the children enrolled in school. Within a short time the children had learned English well enough to be placed in regular classes where they soon excelled and qualified for accelerated course work. This year Bun Chay, now 11, is making straight A’s in the advanced curriculum.

Shepherd Drive United Methodist Church in Houston is one of ten churches involved in ministry with the Kim/Bun family and other refugees. The churches care for spiritual as well as physical needs—not only helping children get started in school, helping adults get driver’s licenses, and helping with other social and medical needs; but also providing a Bible study class for the refugees.

Through the ministry of such Christians, the Kim/Bun family has embraced the Christian faith. Huy had attended evangelistic meetings at the Thai refugee camp and, while there, placed her faith in Jesus Christ. Other family members have followed her lead since coming to the States.

Huy’s sister, Kim Chu, was only 15 when her family escaped from Cambodia. She is 21 now, and has started a Cambodian Bible study to teach her countrymen the Gospel and how to be born again.

For this Cambodian family, new life in a new country has meant many changes, but not all of them have been happy.

A year ago, on the last day of the Chinese year, Kim Chu cooked a special dinner for her family and friends. The mood was one of celebration, for no one knew it was to be a farewell occasion-unless perhaps Bun Meng sensed it.

Before the guests arrived, he presented a gift to every member of the family and said to each one, “God bless you.” Then he reminded the children, “Listen to your Sunday school teachers. I can’t teach you the Bible but they can. ”

A night or so earlier the young man had confided to his wife, “Huy, I had a strange dream. I was standing on the shore of a wide sea with all of you gathered around me. Then I found myself on the opposite side of the sea, but none of you were with me over there.”

“Don’t talk like that!” Huy protested.

“I’m only telling you what I dreamed. Huy, I was facing a place brighter and more beautiful than anything you can imagine!”

The morning following the New Year celebration, Meng was reluctant to leave Huy. On the way to her job, a while later, Huy passed Meng as he worked on the freeway. Each waved and smiled at the other, for the last time. Less than an hour had elapsed when a trailer came unhooked from a passing truck and struck Meng, wounding him fatally.

Bun Meng’s journey on earth had been a difficult one, but during it he met Jesus Christ, who said “I am the Way … I go to prepare a place for you … and will come and receive you unto Myself. ” Because Christians cared for strangers and in love pointed them to the Way, Bun’s journey ended in that beautiful, bright eternal land. He is Home.

Catherine Weinaug is a free-lance writer and author of three children’s books. She serves as a volunteer social worker for resettlement homes for Cambodian refugees.