Narrator:

Remembering their time as young missionaries in war torn Southeast Asia, GT and Ivy are in Vietnam, where they were evacuated.

GT:

Ho Chi Minh City used to be called Saigon during the time of South Vietnam. It was the capital city of South Vietnam. This is the city where we were evacuated to the first time. Ralph Watts, the president of the Southeast Asia Union, ordered all student missionaries and both of us to get out of the country.

Good morning Pastor Watts. How are you doing?

Ivy:

Good morning Pastor Watts.

Ralph Watts:

I’m doing fine. How are you doing?

GT:

Great.

Ivy:

We’re fine thank you.

GT:

We are right here in Saigon. What a privilege it is to talk to you while we are still in Saigon.

Ralph Watts:

I’m holding in my hand right now Ivy and GT, a picture of a very handsome young couple. It was taken in March of 1974, and it’s a picture of the two of you with your bicycles in Phnom Penh. You were able to get some Bible studies going weren’t you?

GT:

Yeah many Bible studies came as a result of the ministry of the English language institute and out of that we baptized many of them. Before we left the country there were 33 believers in that church.

Ralph:

And there were virtually none when you came there.

Ivy:

That’s right.

GT:

Very few.

GT:

We did a lot of refugee relief work because the population of Phnom Penh in the 1970s was about 700,000. And during the war when we were here it was easily more than 2 million people.

And so this hotel had become a refugee center where they were housed. We visited some of the rooms and there was no electricity at that time. We saw many people crowded in rooms. It was dark, it was filled with smoke. Women, men, children; Maybe 15, 17 people in a small room.

They did the best they could by providing refugees bales of clothing and rice, but the situation continued to get worse. GT, Ivy, and the student missionaries were evacuated several times to Vietnam; but each time they returned to Cambodia, only to have conflict resume.

So we had the F-111 bombardments during the day and during the night it was a B-52 fighter bombers. Many times we would be sleeping, we were shaken out of our bed. It was more than a bad dream. So we just prayed to the Lord that even though a thousand may fall by your side, ten thousand on your right hand, but God will spare our lives for some reason.

So after Sabbath was over, as per our usual custom, one of us, either the missionaries or us would cycle through the central post office about three kilometers away to pick up our mail. That evening one of the student missionaries went and he came back with a bunch of letters plus a telegram. The telegram was sent from Bangkok.

And the telegram said all five get out immediately. There were three missionaries left, plus two of us, so there were five. It was sent by the education director of Southeast Asia Union mission. Pastor Milton farming. Milton farming was in Bangkok visiting and he had the impression all day Sabbath that something ought to be done for those missionaries in Phnom Penh.

So on his own accord without committee action from Singapore, he ordered us out.

At the airport we had to hide ourselves in bunkers. So we would run from one bunker to the next until we got close enough to the aircraft. Then we will run to the aircraft.

We landed in Bangkok several hours later. Whenever there was a thunderstorm in Bangkok we hit the floor because instinctively for two years we had trained ourselves to do that.

Narrator:

Two weeks later, the Khmer Rouge marched in and took control of Phnom Penh and Cambodia. Under their brutal regime, an estimated two million people died in prisons or in the killing fields.

GT:

Many of our believers were killed as a result of their walking experience from Phnom Penh to the border with Thailand or to the border with Vietnam.

Ralph Watts:

That is a sad chapter in the history of not only the Adventist church, but it’s a sad chapter of society over the last 60-70 years.

GT:

I received this letter from one of our former church members who managed to escape from Phnom Penh.

I am praying day and night not asking God to grant me any selfish request, but simply pleading with Him that somehow every single member in Cambodia may gather together. What a joy it’s going to be.

What a rejoicing it’s going to be when Jesus comes again. We’ll be able to see all 33 of our members who were baptized and remained faithful to Him until the end.

And so a new church emerged from that tragedy. And today we have a strong Cambodian church. We even have a mission with school with many activities. We thank God for the opportunity of serving Him.