Out of the Cage

“Our soul has escaped as a bird out of the snare of the trapper; the snare is broken and we have escaped.” Psalm 124:7, NAS.

Kelly* was born into a poor Chinese-Thai family in Pattaya. Like many Thai men, her father had numerous wives and divorced her mother when she was very young. Her family had to work very hard, but before long their circumstances began to change.

Kelly’s uncle had great success in Pattaya’s hotel industry. He quickly became the owner of several hotels. The whole family was involved in his many businesses, including Kelly’s mother who worked in one of the hotels. When Kelly was just 11 years old, her mother was stabbed and killed by a hotel guest for her gold jewelry. Her uncle took over her care, promising to look after her, protect her, and give her a good education. Like her father, he had many wives. But there was no one to give Kelly the love and care she needed after her mother’s death. Within a year, her uncle took her to a Christian Academy where she studied for three years. The teachers there introduced her to Christ and tried to show her His love. They told her, “Jesus loves you. He wants to give you a new family.” They worried about this little girl that did not want to eat and who seemed so sad.

At 12 years old, Kelly accepted Christ, but she thought it was only something that she needed to be concerned about at school. When she visited with her family, she continued to practice their Buddhist and Chinese Tao beliefs such as idol worship. Her faith had been planted, but it had not yet taken root.

About this time Kelly and her uncle’s son were sent to study in England for a year. This was quite a privilege, and Kelly became proficient in English. However, when she returned to Pattaya, she was soon trained to work in her uncle’s businesses. Kelly’s education was interrupted in other ways. Her grandmother's legs were amputated due to the affects of diabetes, and Kelly was forced to quit school and take care of her grandmother for two years.

In the late 1990’s Thailand’s economy crashed, and Kelly’s uncle had to close his hotels. Ten people in the family fled to Chiang Rai and started a flower farm. They hired many Burmese workers, and Kelly worked with them, picking up a bit of their language.

At age 19 Kelly moved back to Pattaya with some members of her family.  Once again, her uncle’s  business ventures flourished.  Kelly had many material things, but she still did not have the love she so wanted in her life. She knew her life was missing something. One day as she was driving down the street, she saw a sign for Pattaya Baptist Church. She recalled the experiences she had had at the Christian Academy and the love that she had felt there. She thought perhaps she could experience that again.

Kelly was not disappointed when she went to Pattaya Baptist Church. The Christians there opened their arms and their hearts to Kelly. For the first time she fully understood what it meant to know God’s love and His Son Jesus. She renewed her commitment to follow Christ, but she soon realized that she needed to acknowledge Him before her uncle. She says, “I knew I had to accept Christ in front of people.  I couldn’t hide. I had to tell my uncle.  This was really scary because everyone had to obey him. He was a big man in town. We were all afraid of him. I was very scared, but I knew I had to do it.”

When Kelly summoned the courage to tell her uncle of her new faith, his reaction was not as bad as she expected. It seemed as though he was going to tolerate it as long as she didn’t go “too far” with her church-going. But Kelly wanted to soak in what she found at church. She went to every service she could, and soon she wanted to receive baptism. Roy Burson, a Baptist missionary working with the Pattaya church, baptized her in the ocean. She remembers that she lied to her uncle that day, saying she was going out with friends. She says, “I was so happy. I was finally baptized in front of many people. But then I had to go home, and everything was the same with my family.”

When her uncle found out about Kelly’s commitment to her faith, he was furious. He knew he was losing control of Kelly, so he decided to put her far away from Pattaya and her Christian friends. He sent her to Doi Hod, a village near Chiang Mai. For a month she had to stay in a hut with no electricity. Kelly knew she was expected to behave. There were people there, employees of her uncle, who were regularly reporting on her conduct. She felt terribly alone in this prison created by the person who had promised to protect her.

As Kelly began to contemplate what she should do, she heard something that sealed her decision to run away. One of her uncle’s wives took pity on her and told her of her uncle’s plan to have his son have sex with Kelly and then marry her. Kelly was horrified at this news and desperate to escape. She knew that her uncle would carry out this plan because it would further his goal of keeping his wealth within the family.

On the day of her escape from Doi Hod, Kelly flagged someone on the road to take her to the Chiang Mai airport. She believed God directed her escape because the car was covered with a black film, making it harder to detect her presence inside. Part of the way she cowered in the back seat, so no one could see her.

With the 4,000 baht (about $100) she had saved, she was able to buy a one-way ticket from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. A friend from Chonburi met her at the airport and eventually helped her get back to Pattaya. For a month she moved from house to house of her Christian friends on the run from her uncle.

One day she was hiding on the second floor of the Pattaya church when she heard her uncle’s big car approaching. She said she felt like a bat in a cage, flitting about with no means of escape. She heard her uncle approach and his angry voice when he demanded to know where his niece was hiding. Kelly says, “My Christian friends decided to be like Rahab when she hid the spies. They told him I wasn’t there. They lied to protect me.”

Kelly continued to move from house to house in hiding until she knew her uncle had given up on controlling her and getting her to come back to the family. Though her uncle had taken away many important things—her Thai identification card, her school certificates, her financial support—God had not abandoned his child. Kelly knew that God gave her a second chance because she was able to get a good job fairly quickly.

For the first time in her life, she felt free. She enjoyed being on her own. Although people in the church were encouraging her to go to seminary to get her degree, Kelly bargained with God. She wanted to earn some money first and then complete her education later. For six months, she worked hard and focused on being a good witness among her co-workers. It was a happy time, but God continued to call Kelly to surrender everything to Him.

One day as she was crossing the street in front of the church, a motorcycle crashed into Kelly. With a broken leg, she was bedridden for a month. She had long days to commune with God and seek His will for her life. She asked God to heal her and promised to leave her job and go to seminary.

A lady missionary at the Pattaya church encouraged Kelly’s decision with the words from Luke 18:29-30: “I tell you the truth. . .no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life.” At the time Kelly did not fully understand the promise of those words.

She moved to Bangkok to begin her studies at Thailand Baptist Theological Seminary in May 2002. God had his hand on her from the first day. As she approached the front gate of the seminary bearing her suitcase, she met Jim and Judy Redman, two missionaries who were working as English teachers. This proved to be a God-given meeting for Kelly. Jim and Judy soon enlisted Kelly’s help in teaching Bible English in their home adjacent to the seminary compound. Kelly began to catch their vision to plant a church, but she had many concerns about how it could be done. She says, “They just dragged us along. Everyone in the group thought we couldn’t do it, but Jim and Judy kept telling us we could.”

Kelly learned more than church-planting methods from Jim and Judy. God was faithful in His promises as these two loving servants became the Christian parents that she had wanted for so long. This love infused the new church they helped plant as well—Cornerstone Baptist Church. Like her, Kelly believes that Thai people are hungry for real love and meaningful relationships. Kelly knows that God spared her life for a reason. She knows that He is already using the struggles she experienced, and that He has even greater things planned for her future.

Kelly believes that God is calling her to mission work in China. Her seriousness about her call is reflected in the fact that she has started studying the Mandarin Chinese language. God has already changed her heart about Chinese people. She says, “In the past I thought that they were so selfish. All they thought about was making money. But now I want them to know that God loves them and can give them so much more in their lives.” Kelly wants all people to know the fullness of love that she has found in her Faithful Father.

*Name changed to protect the privacy of the Thai believer.

Pray that:

God will use Kelly’s experience of love and acceptance to lead many Chinese to faith in Jesus.

God will give hunger to the Thai people to know Him, the One True God.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.