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LOWELL -- From the killing fields of Cambodia to his joyful ordination last Sunday as a Presbyterian minister at Eliot Church -- from Buddhist monk to Christian -- the Rev. Thysan Sam's story is one of courage, faith, persistence and bettering the lives of others. It's also a story of a difficult past that shaped a promising future, with perhaps a little divine help along the way.

Sam, 49, vividly recalls the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover of his country, in which several million Cambodians were ultimately killed. Among them was Sam's older brother, Tho Sam, a student whom Sam saw bound and led away to his death.

Sam, then 18, and the rest of his family were sent to different labor camps. He recalls massive slaughter, and his grandfather, a chief of Buddhist monks, dying in his arms of starvation.

When the Vietnamese forces broke the Khmer Rouge four years later, Sam was allowed to return to his home, but Cambodia was never the same. He married Yasaly Sou in 1979 and seeing no possibility of change, the couple took their infant son in 1981 on a treacherous escape toward a refugee camp at the Cambodian border. Before making it to camp, their son died of disease.

Compared to the labor camps, Sam says the refugee camp was more like "heaven." A Buddhist monk until 1976 when he was forced to abandon his faith in the labor camps, he was introduced to the Bible by Seventh-day Adventist missionaries at the camp. Intrigued by the story of creation, Sam spent his days eagerly studying the Bible and attending the Temple of Christians.

"Then I believed in the Lord and Jesus Christ," he said. Just months after picking up the Bible, Sam was baptized a Christian. Appointed a lay minister by the missionaries and referred to as "teacher," Sam helped about 500 Buddhists to "get to know God," he said.

This "settled" life took a drastic turn on Christmas night 1985, when the Vietnamese came in with tanks and destroyed five refugee camps, including theirs.

"The noise was like an earthquake. Some people were killed," Sam said. Sam knew that his family, which now included 2-year-old son Joseph, would have to escape once again.

Under a veil of darkness, a paid guide leading them, the family embarked on another treacherous escape toward a refugee camp over the border in Thailand. Cautioned to move in complete silence to avoid alerting Thai soldiers at the border, Sam ran with his son in his arms.

Exhausted and emotionally battered, Sam stumbled into a ditch, where Joseph "flew out of my arms." Sam searched frantically for the toddler, fearful he would cry and alert the guards. Amazingly, he didn't. Sam found Joseph, and they made it to the camp, where the guide cut the barbed wire and the family got past a sleeping guard.

For nine months, the Sams were considered illegal refugees. They hid in a hole covered by bamboo during daily rounds by Thai soldiers. Their hiding place, Sam said, rested beneath the table of a Christian family who offered to feed and protect them.

They stayed at the camp, eventually legally, until 1988 and in 1989 immigrated to the United States through a Lutheran sponsorship. They settled in Lowell with their two sons, Joseph, then 5, and Benjamin, 3. "It felt like I was born in a new world," said Sam of freedom in the United States.

When they were settled in their new life, Sam learned that Joseph, too, held a vivid memory of their escape. "He remembered the darkness, the big field -- that I threw him away. He said he was going to cry, but then someone in white came to him and said, 'Don't worry, son, your father is coming '" Sam said.

"If he had cried, they probably would have been shot," said the Rev. Ted Zaragoza, pastor of Eliot Presbyterian Church, where Sam has felt at home since 1996. Sam believes the figure in white was divine intervention.

Sam went on to earn several degrees in the United States, joined numerous community action groups, and has made a difference in hundreds of lives -- both in the refugee camps and in Lowell, where he is a social worker and is now married to Saneth Sam.

As a minister at Eliot -- where Zaragoza says Sam is adored and considered a "great gift" -- Sam aims to continue helping others. His long-range goal is to complete his doctorate and open a pastoral counseling center for Asians who have found life difficult after enduring the same ordeals that he has.

He jokes that at 49 he's "too old" to continue going to school. But he's also aware of something more important: "Other people still need my help."

 

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