Tough test became his testimony

The Rev. Sam Om, 57, was sent to the Cambodian killing fields. (Photo: TODD SUMLIN - tsumlin@charlotteobserver.com)

• Favorite Bible verse: Gospel of John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life."
• Where he'll be this Easter Sunday: Conducting the 11 a.m. service at St. John's United Methodist.

Sunday, Apr. 04, 2010
By Tim Funk
tfunk@charlotteobserver.com
Charlotte Observer (South Carolina, USA)

It was the mid-1970s. Sam Om had been sentenced to a slow death in a Cambodian work camp run by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge rebels.

As a soldier on the losing side of a civil war, he worked from sunrise until dark, digging ditches and planting rice. He had little to eat. And he slept in the fields wrapped in a rice sack.

The law of survival was to shut up and do what you were told. Those who violated it were forced to dig their own graves, then beaten to death with a bamboo stick.

One day, he refused to get up.

Why are you so lazy? the guard screamed. Others are working!

Sam cursed him, then said: Kill me now.

The guard walked away.

Sam was sure he'd be executed after dark. But the night passed. Then another, and another.

Days later, Sam, a Buddhist taught to believe in reincarnation, had an epiphany: If I'm going to die, let it be outside Cambodia. That way, in my next life, I will not return to these killing fields.

Accepting Christ in the Philippines

In late 1978, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia, hundreds of thousands of refugees - including Sam and his mother and sisters - made their way to camps in Thailand.

While there, Sam's sister visited a Christian church and brought back a Bible, translated into the Khmer (Cambodian) language, for Sam.

He ripped out some of the tissue-thin pages to roll cigarettes. But he also read a lot of it.

One passage in the Gospel of John changed him. "God so loved the world that he sent his only son ..."

This God, he loved me, Sam thought. He loved not just humankind, but me.

At a Baptist service months later in the Philippines, Sam stepped forward to accept Christ.

Listening to that inner voice

Sam reached the United States in 1981. His new ambition: Get rich.

But an inner voice whispered: I brought you here for a reason. Tell your people how much I have done for you.

Sam sensed the voice leading him - to Bible school in New York; to Syvany, his wife of 26 years; to the ministry.

Survivor preaching to other survivors

Now 57, he's pastor of St. John's United Methodist Church on Monroe Road, near some of Charlotte's Asian neighborhoods.

His 80-person congregation is mostly made up of Cambodians. Many of them also survived the murderous regime of Pol Pot.

[Cambodian-American] Man sentenced in wife's abduction

Saturday December 20, 2008
By FRED CONTRADA
fcontrada@repub.com
The Republican Newsroom (Massachusetts, USA)

NORTHAMPTON - A Springfield man who kidnapped his wife by stuffing her in the trunk of a car was sentenced to prison Friday after his wife pleaded for leniency.

Sort D. Thang, 35, of 47 Kosciusko St., Indian Orchard, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and violating a restraining order in Hampshire Superior Court.

He was arrested on June 21 after he fled from police on foot, leaving the car he was driving at a Northampton exit on Interstate 91. Police found Thang's wife terrified and sobbing in the trunk.

As prosecutor Michael A. Cahillane recited the evidence to Judge Mary-Lou Rup, the defendant violated the restraining order obtained by Carrie Thang when he went to her Springfield home on June 21 and shoved her into her car.

In Holyoke, Thang pulled his wife from the front seat and forced her into the trunk, Cahillane said.

Another motorist, Alfonso Rivas, heard the woman screaming for help and followed the car as it headed up I-91 to Northampton. Thang got off at exit 18 and drove into the Meadows area of city. Rivas, meanwhile, had telephoned the police and was still following the car.

Thang stepped out of the car but got back in when he saw Rivas and sped through downtown Northampton and back onto the interstate. He abandoned the vehicle at exit 18 southbound.

Police found Carrie Thang in the trunk, crying and clutching a screwdriver for protection. Thang hugged a female trooper and thanked her for saving her life, saying, "He was going to kill me," Cahillane said.

Northampton police arrested Thang a few hours later as he was walking on a footpath near Veterans Field. Cahillane asked for a sentence of 5-7 years in state prison.

In seeking a lesser sentence, defense lawyer Marissa L. Elkins told Rup that her client has developed post traumatic stress disorder from a life of violence. According to Elkins, Thang was born in Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and suffered from malnutrition at an early age. His family lived in a refugee camp before emigrating to the U.S., where they settled in a gang-ridden section of Los Angeles. Thang had a cousin die in his arms and suffered wounds from a gang shooting, Elkins said.

Because Thang does not have the proper immigration papers, he was ordered deported in 1998. However, he has been in limbo because Cambodia is unable to accept all the deportees from the U.S., Elkins said. Thang has been unable to get counseling or health insurance, she said.

Carrie Thang, who has two children with the defendant, told Rup that her feelings regarding punishment have changed since the incident.

"At first I wanted him to be locked up forever," she said. "This man asked for help but there was nothing I could do."

Carrie Thang said she wanted Thang to serve his time at the Hampshire County House of Correction, where he would be more likely to receive treatment for his problems than in state prison.

Rup sentenced Thang to 3-4 years in prison but said she would recommend to the Department of Correction that he serve the time at the county jail. He was also ordered to serve two years probation and to complete a program for batterers and undergo therapy while he is in custody.