We received a call at 5:00 a.m., an unusual hour to receive a call from our brothers. We knew the news could not be good.
A few weeks earlier, we had met Yey when we were invited to visit her home because of her health condition. Her daughter, Khmuei, had heard the message through our Adventist brothers in a nearby village and joined our group just a month before. She had heard about God’s power to heal and had seen the testimony of those who were healed through prayer. Now Khmuei wanted us to pray for her mother and for her mother to know Christ, too.
When we arrived at Yey’s house, it was clear that she had tremendous influence within the community. She had five children, all with respectable jobs, and her Pnong home was larger than most. In the same yard was another house, the property of one of her sons who lived there. Even her believing daughter, Khmuei, though married and with children, was still living in the family home. Over a dozen children were playing around the property, looking at us curiously as we arrived. If Yey were healed, her testimony could have a profound impact on the community.
We ascended the wooden stairs and saw Yey sitting on the floor, very thin and weak. The empty medicine packets, buckets, and clothes piled up around her showed that she had been unable to move from that spot for some time.
We sang, we prayed, we read the Word. We told her about Jesus and explained the biblical reason why people get sick. She listened carefully. I did not see much reaction on her face or in her eyes, and I was surprised that she agreed to let us pray for her.
I was even more surprised when, after the final prayer, Yey asked: “How do you pray? Could you teach me so I can pray to God, too?”
Our brothers spent another half hour explaining to her, in her native language, how to pray to the Father through Jesus and the importance of exercising faith while praying. It was powerful to see how the Holy Spirit was working in her, despite her condition. Meanwhile, Khmuei watched with a face full of emotion as she saw her mother becoming interested in Jesus.
It was sweet how Yey asked, “How do you say the ending of the prayer? Amen?”
“Exactly! Yes, amen,” they replied.
Yey sincerely desired to learn.
Something beautiful was growing in that home. I could see that Yey would not take long to join her daughter in the Body of Christ.
Two weeks later, Khmuei called me asking for help to take Yey to the hospital. The prayers had not brought a healing miracle. Yey still had intense stomach pains, and her condition had worsened. Now she was just skin and bones. We took her, hoping the hospital could give her medical help that we could not provide. But after a week, we brought Yey back. Sadly, the doctors had said there was nothing more they could do. Yey’s condition was irreversible.
Honestly, I could not believe that this would be the end. I felt like God was preparing a turn in this story. I believed it was time to pray more intensely. While our missionary team was gathered, I suggested we start praying for her every day, specifically for healing.
Every day at 7:00 p.m., we prayed for a miracle. I thought that if she were healed, it would be such a powerful testimony that the whole village might come to know Jesus. I even pictured a new worship group forming in her home. I was convinced that this story was not over, that through her healing, Jesus would be glorified throughout the Manhe region.
But it did not happen.
It hit hard. At five in the morning, just when we thought we would see a miracle, the call came, “She died at midnight.” Right after our week of prayer ended.
I truly believed Yey would be healed. It was hard to understand. However, there was not much time to process everything—we had to travel to the village to be with the family.
When we arrived, I slowly began to see our prayers answered—but in a way I had not expected. The leader of our churches said, “Teacher, they want a Christian funeral.”
I was stunned. It had only taken one month after hearing about Jesus for Yey to decide that she wanted a Christian funeral. That is a miracle! When had this woman begun to believe so deeply that she would make such a radical change?
After nearly 80 years of animist beliefs—sacrifices to forest spirits, ancestral rituals—in her final month, she chose to give her whole being to Christ. In that last month, God sent messengers to her home to pull her from Satan’s hands and claim her as His. And although I wanted to see the healing miracle, I was looking in the wrong place. God did not restore a sick body. He renewed a soul through the miracle of transformation and salvation.
Her testimony did not die with her. At her funeral, where dozens gathered, we spoke of Jesus. We explained why there would be no sacrifices this time, why no buffalo would be killed, and why no fermented rice would be offered to the spirits. Because in her final days, Yey had decided to follow the true God, a decision that went against centuries of tradition.
I am not saying there was a village-wide revival, or that everyone now believes. But the seed was widely scattered. Every villager now knows that a Christian family lives in that house.
We stayed for the funeral and spent the night. My wife and I could sense the spiritual battle unfolding. In that village, Christianity is almost nonexistent. They are used to death involving sacrifice, loud spiritualist chants and more. Although the atmosphere was heavy, this time, sacrifices were not made. Yey’s sudden conversion had not gone unnoticed. What an impact on the village!
Now the story shifts to Khmuei and her unshakable faith in the face of all this adversity. She received all the questions, doubts and criticisms:
“How will you protect yourselves from the spirits without sacrifices?”
“Bring a shaman to do the ceremonies!”
“How can she die in peace if her things are not placed in the coffin?”
“What about us? Will we not be attacked for attending a Christian funeral?”
“You Christians do not know how to die!”
And so, while mourning her mother, Khmuei defended her faith.
Let us imagine Khmuei’s mind for a moment. She had only believed for two months. She was not even baptized yet. When she prayed for her mother, there was no healing. She still knew very little about the Bible. Honestly, she had every excuse for her faith to shatter. And yet, Khmuei never doubted her decision.
Khmuei was present for the entire funeral, all three days, from the moment her mother took her last breath to the final nail at the gravesite, praying by the body, receiving guests, answering questions and enduring criticism. At one point, with sadness in her voice, Khmuei told me, “Many people from the village will not come. They do not want to attend a funeral that is not Pnong.” Because for a Pnong, community is everything. Khmuei’s decision did not just affect her. It affected her relationships, her bonds and her social identity. She was challenging deep structures.
This is what it means to be a Pnong Christian. It is not just learning doctrines. It is resisting rejection. It is continuing to believe even when things do not yet make sense. It is living in constant tension.
Satan does not wait for you to be spiritually ready for his attacks. But we trust the promise that God will not allow us to be tested beyond what we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13). Khmuei endured a trial that many believers of years might not withstand. What courage!
The time for burial came. Cries and screams from loved ones were indescribably heartbreaking. That final moment, the moment before closing the coffin, breaks anyone.
Then we built the grave, a kind of burial niche typical of this culture. At the end, some non-Christian friends come forward with a wooden cross. They wanted to place it on the grave. A simple act, but it spoke volumes.
That cross became a testimony to everyone present: our sister had a hope that went beyond the grave. Khmuei remained until the final prayer, until the last person left, possibly to ensure no pagan ritual would be performed—a true example of faith.
When Khmuei told us what her relatives said—“You Christians don’t know how to die”—I was deeply moved. And in a way, I think they are right. We don’t know how to die, because we do not believe death is the end.
The Christian does not die. The Christian sleeps. Yes, the body decays, the breath returns to God. But it is all temporary. One day, a voice will awaken it —a voice so powerful that even the dust will answer—the voice of the archangel Michael, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
This is the hope we share with our beloved Pnong brothers and sisters—those who already believe, and those who, as Jesus said, “will believe in me through their word” (John 17:20). And when they take that message and embrace it, like Yey’s daughter did, we see true faith, faith that holds, faith that transforms, faith that endures even the deepest trials.
