The Story

Three and half years ago, when I first moved to Cambodia, I started attending a small Khmer church lead by three young Khmer men. Though all three of them led the church with grace and humility, one in particular stood out as a kind and gentle young man eager to serve the church and pastor those in his care. He graciously welcomed everyone who came to the church and made a point to try to chat with everyone every week. During our little chats, I found that he was very easy to talk to despite the language and cultural differences. We became casual friends over the next two years, only chatting on Sundays after church over a cup of coffee; though, those chats became longer and longer as time went on. Until one day we decided maybe we should be more intentional about getting to know each other to see whether we might like to become something more. (Actually, I told him that I was interested in him and his jaw dropped to the floor.) We started asking each other harder and harder questions, and I found out how truely patient and easy to talk to he was. We began calling each other “songsa” (boyfriend/girlfriend in Khmer) and by Christmas last year, when my parents came to visit, we were ready to take them to meet his family in his home province.

Even though we were still not quite ready to make anything official, it gave us both a lot of peace to see how happy and supportive both of our families were about the relationship. We then soon descended into the chaos that was a global pandemic, and had to put pause on some of our plans and ideas about the future. During this time we learned to support and care for each other in new ways and from a distance at times. 

Thankfully, the case count in Cambodia remains low, and we are now slowly emerging from restrictions. Many parts of society are returning to normal, the future looks a little brighter, and we have decided we want to weather all future storms together just as we have this one. 

On July 9th, Sdam asked me to marry him (what we consider our American engagement) and on July 25th, we took the photos to prove it and celebrated with his family and our close friends (what we call our Khmer engagement). As we begin to research what our governments require to legally recognize the marriage, we look forward to setting a date for the wedding before the end of the year. After that, as soon as we are able, we will begin the long process of obtaining visas to travel to America when we will have a celebration there also.

Sdam Say

[sdom saw-ee] ស្តំ សយ

Sdam was born in Khampong Cham on June 13, 1985 to Say and Keang. He has an older brother and sister and two younger sisters. He will be the fourth sibling to get married. Today, Sdam works full time for a Christian NGO as the lead social worker for one of the communities they work in. In addition to his job, Sdam is one of three elders at our Khmer church here in Phnom Penh. He was anointed elder in 2016 along with 2 other young Khmer men. He is passionate about righting the injustices he sees happening to the poor and disenfranchised and also for seeing people know the same freedom he has found in Jesus. He also enjoys coffee, ice cream, and his sweet Anna, but not in that order.