On Friday, Sreyhem Roberts shared her life story and testimony with the Seek cohort. Sreyhem was five years old when the Khmer Rouge took power and was an early convert to Christianity through an underground House Church in the 1980s. She told us about her life, what it was like to be a Christian at that time, how the Cambodian Church has changed over the decades, and what it was like to marry Michael Roberts, a MCC service worker from Alberta.

I won’t summarize her life story for you here because you can read about it directly from her. Sreyhem published a memoir, I picked up diamonds along the way: A memoir by Sreyhem Roberts, that can be found in ebook format on Amazon.

Beginning with a little girl growing up in the midst of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1970s Cambodia, Sreyhem’s story is woven from four decades of intimate moments. From harrowing dangers to innocent joys, the memoir captures the complex relationship between a fatherless child and her mother; ideological clashes among superstition, communism and Christianity; courtship with a peculiar foreigner; immersion into new cultures and motherhood. Paralleling the country’s turbulent transition from destitution to modernity, each vignette evokes the sights, sounds, and emotions of the times in rich detail. Ultimately, this is a hopeful tale about an ordinary Cambodian life made extraordinary by circumstance and her gentle insistence on finding the good in every situation, the diamonds along the way.

I picked up diamonds along the way: A memoir by Sreyhem Roberts

I’ve talked to many people and have studied a good amount about the Church in Cambodia but Sreyhem shared so much that I had never heard before. Her perspective, wisdom, and insight were really meaningful.