Yesterday afternoon Ming Ramy shared her powerful testimony with the 2024 Seek cohort. I wanted to share my summary of her testimony with you. This is based on my notes from listening in Khmer so I know I got a few details wrong – it’s often hard to know which ‘bong’ is being referenced in a sentence – and I left a few details out because I can’t write that fast while translating in my head.

Ramy, the longest serving staff currently working at MCC Cambodia, is a Khmer Rouge Survivor and a Single Mother who converted to Christianity in the 1990s.

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Ramy was born in Phnom Penh but the Khmer Rouge moved her to Battambang when they emptied the city in 1975. Ramy was one of nine children; five girls and four boys. Her older sisters worked in healthcare and she thought she would as well. Only her and one brother survived the Khmer Rouge. In the 1980s she worked as a Teacher for several years before moving to Steung Treng to learn to be a medical staff in the military. She wanted to work in healthcare like her older sisters’ had and the military offered the best way to gain those skills at the time. It was in Stueng Treng that she met her husband, a soldier, and got married. Later, she later moved in with her brother in Phnom Penh and worked as a nanny/tutor. During this time her husband would visit her every few months between deployments; there was still significant fighting between the government and Khmer Rouge forces. When Ramy was seven months pregnant her husband visited her for the last time and left a note asking her brother to watch over his child. Ramy never saw her husband again and doesn’t know if he abandoned her or was killed in action.

It was difficult for Ramy to provide for her baby as a single mother. She sold vegetables and fruit on the streets. She had some jobs at restaurants and shops, but they never lasted for more than a few days because the owner would complain that her baby cried too much. She once worked at a garment factory but she didn’t know how to use the machine and was let go. Then her sister-in-law asked Ramy to move out because they needed the space for their family and she moved in with a friend. Ramy continued to struggle to find enough work to provide for her and her baby. Many times she didn’t have any money to buy goods to sell and was left in desperate situations. Still she always found enough money to go the pagoda four times a month to get a blessing and continued to offer burnt incense with bananas to the ancestors for their blessing. Her life continued to get worse as she moved from friend to friend, barely eking out a living to support herself and her daughter. She once stole a metal garbage bin out of desperation and then reworked into a stove so that she could sell grilled bananas and earn just a little more.

One day a seller told her that many people gathered at a Christian Church on Sunday and she could sell her goods there. She had heard about Christianity before but had never thought much about it. Ramy went to the Church to sell her goods and the Pastor invited her into the service. She started going every time she had the money to travel there. When Ramy’s friend learned that she was sometimes going to a Christian service they kicked her out and told her that they would supported people who followed Buddha. Ramy moved in with another friend after this but kept her visits to the Christian Church a secret from them. She kept on struggling to earn money. One Sunday the Pastor asked Ramy what she had done before and she told him that she had been a Teacher. He then hired her as a Part Time Sunday School Teacher at the Church. It was a very small salary but it made it possible for her to come to Church regularly. Even at a young age Ramy’s daughter was very smart and was able to stay home independently while Ramy went out at 4AM to gather goods to sell during the day. Ramy started to earn more money by going out early this way and her livelihood improved a little. Then the friend she was living with became suspicious and started asking where she went on Sundays. When they figured out that Ramy was going to a Christian Church they kicked her out just like her other friend. Ramy managed to rent a small shelter. It wasn’t a safe place to live because of the very thin walls but it was better than living on the street. However, Ramy couldn’t leave her daughter completely alone here, at her friend’s house the family was still there, so she started to make less money. One day she cried out that she wanted to die because her life was so hard. She couldn’t make enough money to feed her or her daughter. Ramy’s daughter looked at her and asked her not to die, because then who would take care of her. She then asked Ramy to stop going to Church so they could move back in with one of Ramy’s friends. Ramy thought then that her life had not gotten better since she started going to Church but she decided that she still needed Jesus in her life and that she could not stop going. One day she was selling food at the riverside when a girl she used to tutor came to buy food from her. The girl didn’t even recognize her as her old tutor. Ramy felt like she had fallen so low in her life. Later Ramy and her daughter moved out of the shelter she had been renting and in with another friend. One day Ramy was burning incense to the ancestors in her room and the incense fell accidentally lighting her friend’s clothing in storage on fire. She begged for forgiveness from her friend who was very angry and then went straight to the Church where she prayed desperately for good work. That was the last time that Ramy burnt incense to the ancestors.

Soon after that, the Pastor at her Church approached her and told her that a Christian organization was looking for a housekeeper. She went to the MCC office and interviewed for the position. She was hired as a live-in housekeeper with the MCC Representatives but was heartbroken when she heard that her daughter couldn’t come with her. MCC advanced her pay so that she could hire a friend to watch over her daughter. MCC paid her $50 USD a month, which was a good salary at the time, and she paid $20 USD a month to her friend to watch her daughter. Ramy worked hard but her mind was always on her daughter and she often cried. After two or three months, the MCC Representatives told Ramy that her daughter could come live together with her. She was happy for the first time since her husband disappeared. She came to feel like her and her daughter were part of the family. She learned to cook Indonesian food and was happy during this time. One day, the MCC Representative asked her if she wanted her daughter to go to University and Ramy could only answer, “I don’t know.” The idea of her daughter attending University was just so farfetched compared to the life Ramy had been living the last few years.

Then, after about three years, the MCC Representatives finished their term and went back to their home country. Ramy wasn’t sure what would happen now. Would she go back to the life she had been living before? Fortunately, she was kept on as a housekeeper and she worked with the next MCC Representative, and the MCC Representative after that, and the MCC Representative after that. At this point in her testimony Ramy – who is the longest serving staff at MCC Cambodia currently – laughed that the MCC Representatives come and go but she is always here.

Ramy shared that the children of the MCC Representatives were like siblings to her daughter and she loved working while listening to them play together. MCC helped Ramy enroll her daughter in primary school and supported her. Ramy already knew how to make Khmer food but continued to learn how to cook more kinds of food. When Indians came to visit she made Indian food. When Koreans came to visit she made Korean food. She was always practicing making Canadian and American food. She said that many of the MCC Representatives asked her that same question, “will your daughter go to University”, and she always answered, “I don’t know.” How could she possibly send her daughter to University? She shared about a time her daughter challenged her demanding that she wanted to go to the soothsayer at Wat Phnom like her classmates. Ramy refused at first but eventually related after her daughter kept on asking and said that while she would not go but that if her daughter wanted to go so much that she could see the soothsayer. Ramy’s daughter went to see the soothsayer and when she came she accidentally knocked a book off the shelf. A booklet called “A letter from Jesus” fell out of the book and Ramy’s daughter read it solemnly after picking it up. After finishing, she was quiet for a long time, then she told her mom that she was wrong to have gone to the soothsayer and that she only needed Jesus in her life.

One time, Ramy decided to leave MCC and go to work as a Youth Teacher at World Vision. She said that the interview went well but that the World Vision supervisor then said she couldn’t do the job because of her stature. She was too small for the rowdy children. Ramy thought it was funny that they thought she had the skills but were turning her away because of her size. Ramy went back to work the next day and felt glad that she was still with MCC. Every time there was a MCC Representative transition Ramy worried that she might not get to keep on working at MCC. One time she went without work for three months after the MCC Representatives left and one day went to the MCC office to visit the staff she was friends with there. The new MCC Representatives came out to greet her and immediately invited her back to work when they heard she didn’t have work. She smiled saying, “I didn’t think the new Representatives would even know who I was.” Ramy calls the MCC Representatives មេ in Khmer, which is one of the Khmer words for Mother and is the word used for Village Chief no matter the gender – man or woman, the Village Chief is the Village Mom.

Ramy’s daughter eventually graduated from High School and was able to attend University not once but twice. She also did a term of service in Colorado with MCC’s IVEP program. Ramy said that her and her daughter’s lives were transformed by working at MCC. It’s been far more than just a job for her. Without this job at MCC she doesn’t know how they would have continued to survive. She told us, “I can only imagine us dying before I got to work at MCC. I am so grateful to God that I came to work at MCC and with so many wonderful Christians. My life was transformed. I have my own house and my daughter went to University. I am grateful.”

After she finished sharing, we gathered around Ramy and prayed for her as a group. Ramy thanked God for bringing her to MCC and we thanked God for bringing her to MCC. Ramy’s attentiveness, care, and love have been such a blessing to generations of MCC volunteers. Ramy no longer works at the MCC Representatives’ house but is now the Office Cook preparing wonderful, safe lunches for the team and our guests.