Group helps Cambodian turn his life around
When Phorn Phalla was eight, his parents sent him to a Buddhist temple to live because they couldn’t afford to feed him and his three siblings, who were sent away separately.
When Phorn Phalla was eight, his parents sent him to a Buddhist temple to live because they couldn’t afford to feed him and his three siblings, who were sent away separately.
But life in the rundown temple in rural Cambodia was no better, and the little boy was forced to beg, sift through rubbish and steal to get by. Weak with illness, he was taken to an orphanage in Phnom Penh.
His life could not be more different now. At 29, Phorn Phalla is one of the top students in Chinese University’s theology programme. And he has started a small church back in Cambodia.
He says the huge turnaround in his life would not have happened without the help of a Hong Kong charity, Happy Tree Social Services, which recommended him to the university.
“Many Christian groups visited our orphanage, and I was touched when they shared their love with all the kids,” he said.
Phorn Phalla met the founder of Happy Tree, Jerry Wong Hak-kun, in 1999. Phorn Phalla was 14 at the time, but Wong still remembers him as a little child.