Ly and Elizabeth met in Cambodia in 2010. She had moved from South Korea to work at a school in Phnom Penh, and he had just been deported from the U.S. after 26 years of residing in Philadelphia as a refugee from the Khmer Rouge. Elizabeth had lived with Ly’s extended family in Florida, so she was excited to meet him and for them to adjust to the country and culture alongside one another. Little did she know that God had prepared this relationship for much more!
Ly and Elizabeth were married a year to the day that they’d met. They moved to South Korea and welcomed their daughter, Kathleen, a year later. As an international elementary teacher, Elizabeth’s career took the family to Myanmar, Cambodia, Moldova, Thailand, and Bahrain. When living in Myanmar, in the midst of Covid and a coup, Elizabeth was pregnant with their rainbow baby, Marguerite. After taking an embassy flight out and giving birth to Marguerite in Mexico, the family reunited in Cambodia for a short stint before continuing on their international journeys to Moldova and Thailand.
The last stint, in Bahrain, ended three weeks into the Iranian bombing. Elizabeth had already felt the pull of surrendering to a serving position in a Christian teaching context, and had fortunately had three life-giving interviews with Hope International School in Phnom Penh. The Kol family departed the Middle East toward the end of March, knowing that Elizabeth would be serving at Hope in August.
As God has opened up these doors and has softened Elizabeth’s heart toward living in Cambodia long-term, peace has begun filling in the cracks of monetary worries, fear of culture shock frustrations, and concern over the future.
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” —Matthew 6:26
Ly has consistently served with Streams in the Desert, an NGO that provides medical care to rural areas in 12 partnered provinces proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, and has been an active member of Hope Now Cambodia, serving Cambodian deportees. Elizabeth will now be moving into teaching 1st grade to the children of missionary workers in Cambodia, giving them the peace of mind that their children are being raised up in the faith while they are on the field fulfilling their callings.
“He told them, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field'”. –Luke 10:2
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