Living in Camps

Khath Ourng serving the Lord in Cambodia

Dependence and obedience to God: Joseph's Story

MY BOOK

Part 1
Our Wedding
My Beautiful Wife
Escaping Cambodia
Uncle's Plan
Uncle's Prayer
Uncle's Dream
Living in Camps
Education

Part 2
First Mission
Uncle's Testimony
Uncles Death
Second Mission
Third Mission
Ourng Family Ministry
GOD's Power

International Teams
Website

Email: Khathourng@hotmail.com

Webmaster:
Janicemeindl@aol.com

May the Lord be with you

Living in Camps: Experience and Friendship

We had lived through various obstacles from the end of 1979 to January 22 1982, in two different Camps: Kao E. Dung in Thailand and PRPC in Philippine. Before we arrived in the United States, our family had been enlarged by three members while living in the Kao E. Dung Camp: my brother had escaped the Cambodia border to live with us and my uncle adopted two more girls to live with us; so six of us had arrived in the United States living in Washington State. Living in Kao E. Dung Camp was first like heaven since we had just escaped the political turmoil and poverty. We needed freedom and food. And in the Camp, we got just enough food to survive, but not for taste. We felt safe for awhile but not too long. We were sensing that we were living in a cage with some type of fear. During the night we heard guns and the sound of robbers robbing people. As time went by there was a shortage of water and wood to burn to cook our food, and we couldn’t walk out of the camp to gather wood. If we went we would be shot by Thai soldiers. I remember one time when my cousins and I went carrying water from a Thai village, and on our way back home we had a confrontation with Thai soldiers. They came with big long sticks wanting to beat us up. But thank God for one of my cousins who could speak a little bit of Thai, he had talked us out of beating; they let us go, but with a warning not to come out carrying water off from any Thai village again. There were many stories about Thai soldiers shooting our Cambodian friends to death, who went out of the camp for certain needs.

I think I can understand a little bit by now about the situation that was happening back in Thailand and why the soldiers acted the way they did. Thailand is connected to Cambodia and our country was at war with itself and fought against the Vietnamese soldiers. And Thai did not want war flowing into her land. She wanted to keep herself safe from any inflow of soldiers and she tried to keep regulations in the camp and to keep those in the camp safe from outside invaders. Well! Things did not go the way we people wanted it to. And it did hurt us a lot in those days. I think most of all, if we were able to contact some Thai people, they might have been as kind and friendly as other human beings. Thank God that we had not lived there too long. We were transferred to the Philippines sometime in 1981. We were so happy living in this PRPC camp. We had electricity and plenty of water to cook and wash our stuff. Off the hill or mountain side of the PRPC camp, we had a stream running off the mountain so that we could swim during the hot day. I liked swimming there many times during our stay. We had a chance to contact people along the mountain. We ate, talked, and swam with these wonderful people. They were kind, gentle, and cheerful people. I wished I could have stayed there much longer. Thank God for their comfort and friendship. After staying there for about 6 months we were flying to the United States. We first got off the airplane in Oakland, California. Then we got on a bus, and the bus took us to one of the Camps near San Francisco. I think it was an army camp. We stayed there a couple nights, and then we were busing to San Francisco Airport. We flew from San Francisco to Oregon State. We stayed at our another uncle’s house for about half of a month, then Pastor Joe Kong came to pick us up and took us to Olympia, Washington. And we stayed in Olympia since then.

Kindly send any donations to: International Teams, Khath Ourng Fund, 411 West River Road, Elgin IL 60123-1570, Please make your checks payable to: International Teams, Khath Ourng Fund

Thank You for your support and prayers

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