In 1995 at the tender age of 13 years Sangwian Prakongcher (Wian) came to live with us. Wian was from an extremely poor part of Thailand. He lived with his parents and five sisters. In Wian’s village Buddhism was not very strong, instead the prime belief system was spirits and the word of the shaman. Wians dad was a village witch doctor.
He was a very shy and nervous little fellow when he first arrived. He had no spare clothes or possessions except a hunger to get ahead in life by getting a good education. We were told that he was a bright boy but that soon he would be sent off to work on a building site in Bangkok if we did not quickly admit him.
While the Bible was never forced down the throat of our children, each night we had a short meeting where we read the Bible and prayed. Over time Wian decided to become a Christian.
Because he had experienced how the Bible had helped him he asked us to pray with him so that his whole family would also become believers.
We did not have much faith for all of this but what could we say?
In the school holidays he went back to his village to visit his family. While there, he told his mum what he had seen and experienced about this new Christian God. His mum decided to become a believer. Three months later she was tragically killed. Wian was shattered. His dad said this was revenge from the spirits because she had turned her back on them.
Before dying Mum requested that her 15 year old son organize a Christian funeral for her. This he did in the light of strong opposition.
Two of Wian’s three older sisters were very impressed with the change that they observed in their little brother so the oldest sister decided to become a follower of Jesus. She in turn led the second sister to become a Christian. The benefit in all of this for them was that they felt a new joy and a lightness of spirit when compared to the past daily burden of having to be subservient to the village spirits. Now they were no longer fearful of the spirits because they had discovered that Jesus had greater power.
Later on their husbands also became followers. One is now a senior church elder.
Wian’s third oldest sister was stubborn and resistant to the whole thing. However over time she too chose to embrace Jesus and is now married to a pastor.
Some time later Wian’s dad was hit by a truck. This severely damaged his brain and unfortunately he became quite incoherent. He had to stay home and be permanently cared for. Eventually when one of his daughters turned her back, he walked off (he was now mentally unstable) and drowned in a deep fish pond.
Following this tragedy Wian orgainsed for his two younger sisters to find shelter at a Christian orphanage. Now they have both grown up and study at university.
In Wian’s last year of high school he was head prefect and dux of the school with an A+ average. He was then accepted into one of Thailand’s best universities on a full scholarship. He also received a scholarship from Japan.
In 2005 he graduated top of the university in his field of teaching/science. In 2008 he completed his masters degree and has been accepted into the Ph.D program.
Now he is 27 years of age. He is Head of the Mathematics Department at a big high school back in his province (we teach our young people to return back to their villages/communities when they have completed study). He is a church leader, has bought his own house and has a steady girl friend whom he hopes to marry once she has graduated university. He is an EMPOWER ASIA Thai board member responsible for the selection of children into the homes.
Wian was poor beyond the comprehension of most westerners. His life has been radically transformed. As a result of this he has transformed the lives of all of his family members. They will all jump up one economic class because we had the good fortune to stumble across a 13 year old diamond in the rough back in 1995.
It may well be that one day Wian will become our EMPOWER ASIA Thai director. Meanwhile there are many leadership and life lessons that he must first discover. So that is Wian’s story. A story full of both hope and tragedy.
Santi Watiroirum’s (Bawm) story: Bawm comes from rural Buriram province which borders northern Cambodia. Of Thailand’s 76 provinces it is the third poorest. At the age of 3 years he was bitten by a cobra. It changed his life. His foot and leg became severely infected, swelling up so that eventually the doctors recommended that they amputate just below the knee. But his parents would have none of it. Bawm writes, “Instead, they regularly cleaned and cared for my foot and leg. They cut a hole in our wooden floor upstairs next to my sleeping mat so that in the middle of the night I could maneuver myself over the hole and ‘go to the toilet,’ aiming into a bucket placed a few metres below me on the bottom floor. Each day my mum would clean up the mess. I could not walk. My parents had to carry me everywhere. Eventually I got better but I could never really play and run around like other boys. When I was 13 I was told about a boys’ home where I could study hard and have the chance for a brighter future, better than what I would have had living in my rice farming village. 
“So I left my village and moved to ‘Home of A New Dawn.’ While living there I became a Christian. After living there 6 years I finished high school (Bawm won’t tell you this but he was top of the school and graduated with straight A+ average) and gained entry into Khon Kaen University. Recently I graduated with a science degree and have now been accepted into the Ph.D program in biology. My thesis is about amoeba living in cave water. I think that it is interesting even though no one else does!”
Bawm is the youngest Ph.D student in the program and is being groomed to be a future faculty staff member at his university.
Above: Bawm (14) standing at the rear
Later this year he will travel to Slovenia to further his studies. “When I have my Ph.D I want to teach at a non-prestigious university so that I can help poor but capable students to learn about biology“.
By 2015 this poor rice farming boy – poorer than most – will be strongly middle class and because of his level of education will inevitably become an influential person. This is all the more poignant when we realize that Khon Kaen University was initially hesitant to accept him for the Bachelor’s program because he was considered to be crippled. Below: Goong (20), Bawm (23) and Gop (19) 
Meanwhile back in Buriram Goong, Bawm’s younger sister was unhappy. Why should Bawm get to have a nice quality high school education while she lives back in the village? “Year after year I waited for my opportunity to study at Esther House. But I was never invited! I too wanted to follow in Bawm’s footsteps.” Finally after 3 years of impatiently waiting Goong came to live with us. On graduating high school with us Goong commenced study towards a 5-year teaching science degree at university. She has now commenced her third year of study.
Just three months ago their youngest sister, Gop, similar to Goong became a Christian and is in tertiary training.
To Empower Asia these three young people are gold. They are why we do what we do. They are smart, balanced and educated and at the same time have not forgotten the humble background from whence they came.
Would you consider supporting other young people like Bawm and Goong? If so, kindly click on to : http://empowerasia.org/donations/
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Below is Bik’s story. It is different yet similar to Bawm’s story. Photo right: Bik (12) on the day he applied to join us.
“Hi, my name is Bik. I come from Seesaket which is Thailand’s poorest province. It borders Cambodia.
“I was just 3 months old when my parents split up. As a result I had to go live with my paternal grandmother. When I was 10 years old she passed away. This was not only a terrible shock for me but also I was left somewhat financially destitute. It was a struggle for me to attend school because I had no money. In fact when I was 12 years old, just about to finish elementary school, I was informed that I could no longer go to school and must start working instead. At about that time, out of the blue a school teacher told me that I would be able to carry on my studies via some organization from overseas that gives scholarships to poor kids. I was very happy about this and immediately applied. It took me a while to adjust to living in this new situation because the house parents were white people! I was brought up in a strong Buddhist tradition and so the whole Christian thing was quite different for me. In Grade 8 it was my decision to begin to become a follower of Jesus. As a result I found that God really helped me with my studies and even with sport. I was in the school basketball team and would often represent our high school.
“Then in grade 10 the biggest thing in my life occurred. The oldest kids and the leaders of our home made plans to travel into the city. I was the last one to get in the vehicle (it was a Toyota 2 door utility with an aluminum roof on the back where all of the passengers sat). As we approached the first bend in the road I remembered that I had not prayed asking God to protect us as we traveled in. So at the first red light that we came to I got out of the vehicle and prayed.
“Ten minutes later we had a huge accident on a 6 lane highway. Our vehicle turned over three times with about twenty of us in the back. I awoke to the conversation of a policeman agreeing with the insurance agent, who had both arrived at the scene, that there should have been at least three people killed in this accident. Thankfully nobody died. He had answered my prayer.
“If anybody was going to die in that accident it was going to be me because I was the most severely injured. A lot of money was spent trying to get me healed. A businessman on two occasions paid for operations on my shoulder and arm. I would have been crippled had it not been for the specialist care that a particular generous person paid for. Instead now I have 80% use/strength in my left arm. When I graduated high school I went on to study at university but there was not enough money to support my study. Also at that time I got a bit rebellious and got involved with a bad crowd of people. I studied in the mornings and worked in a hotel from late afternoon until 2 a.m. each day. Eventually I got tired of this lifestyle and some years ago decided to return to living a Christian life again. Up until very recently I have been working for an organization based in Bangkok that cares for people with leprosy. Now I am 26 years old. In January 2008 I came back to live at our boys’ house again. I am going to minister full time at the house where I will be responsible for all of the accounts and administration for both the boys’ and girls’ work, represent the work with the kids’ guardians, schools and government and be the head of the boys’ ministry which includes leading the team that cares for the boys. All this so that we can raise them to become people who display God’s love by caring for other poor people in their communities. So that is my story!”
