Gecko Tales

My name is Seila Uon and I was born on January 1, 1960. I was raised in a Buddhist farming family in Tong Neak Village, Baphnom District and Prey Veng Province in the Kingdom of Cambodia. I am the oldest in my family and I have five siblings. My village was very primitive and there was no pre-school therefore I was enrolled to the primary school when I was 8 years old.

In March 18, 1970 Cambodia was thrown into a state of civil turmoil because our King, Norodom Sihanouk, was overthrown by his defense minister, Lon Nol, while he was out of the country. This coup de tat was organized and encouraged by the United States in order to ensure an official invitation for an American presence in Cambodia during the Vietnam War era. It was a short lived presence as the American Congress pulled all troops out of Cambodia by the end of 1971, with exception of a handful of military advisors. My school was closed during this time for a while because most of the teachers went to Phnom Penh for a mass demonstration in favor of the return of the King. Some teachers went into the forest to join with the movement of the Sihanoukists. Cambodia was at war and school became irregular at best. In other word it was off and on. In Cambodia during the early seventies, factions and armies fighting in Cambodia were, FANK (Lon Nol Republic), Khmer Rouge, Khmer Vietminh, US Armed Forces, North Vietnamese, Viet Cong and the South Vietnamese

In January 31, 1971 around 2:00 PM two American Aircrafts roared over my village, dropping 24 bombs. My house was blown up into the air. Hundreds of chickens, dozens of pigs and other livestock were killed. My family’s rice paddy became smoking craters and then ponds.

I wondered why the Americans did such a thing to my village? From that moment on I became a refugee, though I was only eleven years old. Moving from the province to the city was hard for refugee families like ours, especially for my father who had to support my schooling. So my father sent me to stay and learn with the Buddhist monks at the Botum Waddei pagoda. I felt hatred toward the Americans because I was separated from my parents, brothers and sisters, and especially my home village where it used to be peaceful and pleasant. As a village boy I used to tend the cattle and sit on the backs of cows and sing happily. Now I found myself as a city boy—a Khmeng Wat, (pagoda boy)—who had to wake up a 4:00 a.m. to sell bread along the streets in Phnom Penh. These streets were sometimes deserted and quiet because of sporadic Khmer Rouge shelling. I was fearful, but my business went well because people feared the shelling and so stayed home. They did not venture out to eat Koy Teo (noodle soup) in storefront restaurants, so they bought my bread instead as I walked the streets yelling, “Nompang, Nompang, Pang-Pang, Sreuy Lahawe, Kadow!”

Life grew harder and harder. I woke at 4:00 a.m. to sell bread and had to return by 7:30 a.m. to attend school. Sometimes my business did not go well. I was late for school and got punished by my teacher. The more I suffered in the city, the more I missed my country life—and the more I hated the war and the Americans. I was looking forward to Khmer Rouge coming and liberating this city that was rife with the corruption of the American-backed Lon Nol regime. My family became refugees in my own country. Even though I had a father and mother, I lived my life as an orphan refugee-street urchin.

At last, on April 17, 1975, around 9 o' clock in the morning after intensive shelling and fighting from the two previous days, the Khmer Rouge invaded Phnom Penh. I heard the news in the radio in which Khmer Rouge broadcast saying that war is over but about the announcement did not seem quite right. They said the war was over and that they won not by negotiating but by the flowing of blood. It was both sweet and bitter. I was overjoyed that I could return to my home village and study in the school I used to attend, and I contemplated the hope of seeing all of my schoolmates there.

Before the Khmer Rouge invaded the city, they pounded it with artillery. At first, I was happy and looking forward to returning home. However, I lost my father in the artillery barrage. Hearing that he had been injured and suspecting that he had died, my mother turned back to look for him, leaving me in charge of my five siblings. At age 15, I was the oldest of six in our family, and so became I became the head of my family during the forced evacuation from Phnom Penh. I led my two sisters and three brothers on a trek from Phnom Penh to Kompong Trabek, Prey Veng Province. I heard nothing from my mother. One sibling cried for rice, another for water, and the smallest for breast milk, because when my mother left us she thought that it would only be for a short time. That is why she left my youngest brother with me. The evacuation from Phnom Penh was hard. I hated the Americans.

Finally we arrived at my childhood village. What I had looked forward to did not happen. The villagers labeled me a pro-American imperialistic betrayer of the village. Now it was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Life was excruciatingly hard under Khmer Rouge. We endured continual intimidation and verbal persecution. What I expect to be better living situation in my home village was even worse. In three years, eight months and twenty days under the Communist Khmer Rouge was brutal. The Khmer Rouge authorities that charged my family of escaping from my village to support the puppet government of American imperialists accused me. I was sent to the mobile camp where I was forced to work hard. There was no school for me to pursue my studies.

I slowly began to realize that the Americans had tried their best to save my country from the communists. I began to feel deep love for the USA. Every moment I thought about America. Deep down in my soul and my spirit, a kinship for Americans became rooted in my whole being. I longed to go there (Here our friend Seila is very deluded-Ed).

On January 7, 1979, the Vietnamese soldiers liberated Cambodia from the Communist Khmer Rouge. I hoped my country would be at peace but the war continued to rage along the border in the western part of the country. I was under yet another communist regime and I was asked to join the military, which was the last thing I wanted to do so I decided to escape to the Thai/Cambodia border camps hoping to be repatriated to the USA.

In 1981, I traveled to the Thai/Cambodian border to try to get to America. In the refugee camp people asked me if I would be willing to go to Australia, France, Canada, or some other country. I said, “No, the only one country I want to go to is America.” I ended up stuck in the camps in Thailand for 12 years, where I committed my life to following Christ as my Lord and Savior through YWAM’s (Youth With A Mission) ministry, and never got that chance to go to the United States.

In 1989 I decided to work with Campus Crusade for Christ as an evangelist team leader in Site 2, the biggest Camp in Thailand, where I was chosen to be a pastor of a church.

At last on March 10, 1993, I was repatriated to Cambodia and decided to stay in Phnom Penh ever since. I started working with YWAM again. I attended one of the churches in the city. I help the church as a translator for seminars, which are led by missionaries from Malaysia or Singapore. I served in the church as leader of the elder committee. I chose not return to my home village because I did not want to face the intimidation of 1975 all over again.

In October 1995, I was invited by Scripture Union to attend SU institutes and SU Camp. After returning from SU camp in Malaysia I start working as a council member for SU and was instrumental in calling together nationals and missionaries to organize Cambodia’s first National Youth camp under Cambodia Christian Service’s Youth Commission. I also pioneered the movement of teaching sexual awareness from a Biblical perspective to Christian Youth, encouraging them remain pure in the midst of a sexual revolution where many young people are dying of HIV/AIDS. Each year I led a workshop during youth camp about Boy and Girl Relationships. Using some of the material Scripture Union had given me, I wrote book on Sexual Awareness in the Khmer language and taught from this book in all the forums the EFC Youth Commission had such as Youth Camps, Sexual Awareness Seminars, Regional Youth Seminars and Provincial Youth Seminars.

In February 14, 1999, I was moved from YWAM to work as an Assistant to the Leadership Development Coordinator in Training of Timothies project in World Vision. I presently serve as the Director of the EFC Youth Commission of (Evangelical Fellowship of Cambodia). I am also a contributing member of the Committee of Children at Risk commission of EFC.

By Mr. Uon Seila, edited by Brian Maher