ABOUT US

Vuthy Chhay, founder of Village of Hope, was born in Toch Village to a family deeply rooted in Buddhism. At the age of 8, due to violence at home, he was forced to leave his village to live with his aunt in Phnom Penh. After leaving Toch Village, the thought of moving back was never an option in his mind. To Vuthy, Toch Village was home only to violence, bitterness, anger, and bad memories.

In 2005, a seemingly insignificant event took place that would lead to abundantly more than Vuthy or anyone else could have imagined. Vuthy, looking for a way to earn a living but limited in his choices due to education and English skills, purchased a tuk tuk and became a driver in Phnom Penh. Through his job as a driver, Vuthy met Chris, a missionary working with a Christian organization, Youth With A Mission. Their relationship brought Vuthy an opportunity to drive and interact with the outreach teams visiting Phnom Penh, and this continued from 2005 to 2007. During this time, Vuthy was intrigued by the love and kindness the teams showed. The teams invited him to partake in meals and treated him vastly different than any of his other customers. Curious to why they would travel across the world to Cambodia to volunteer and love on Cambodians and street children, Vuthy began asking many questions about this love that seemed so unfamiliar. When they answered that it was because of Jesus, Vuthy was puzzled. Subsequently, he began to ask many more questions about who Jesus and God are. In search to find more answers, Vuthy attended church with the YWAM group.

Three months after his first visit to church, Vuthy made the decision to follow Christ and was baptized, making him the first Christian in his family. Following his acceptance of Christ, he felt called to pursue God deeper and learn what it meant to be a follower. He sold his tuk tuk, gave up his main source of income, and left his job in order to pay the fees to attend the YWAM Discipleship Training School, the very thing that introduced him to Christianity and led him into a relationship with Jesus. The training school was six months of intensive lectures, communal living, and practical training that helped him procure a better understanding of God, discover his passions and purpose as a follower, and delve into a more intimate relationship with the Lord.

After graduating from discipleship training school, he asked God where he should go next. Vuthy received a vision of a multitude of youth gathering together, but he couldn’t understand where it was or how he could make a thing like that happen. He committed the following six months to pray for God to reveal direction for the vision he received.

Unexpectedly, a girl, whom he had never met, spoke to him about a building she saw in his home village. Although God answered his prayer through this girl, he still thought the idea of going back was crazy. Hoping this wasn’t what God intended, Vuthy continued to pray for more guidance and clarity. Again, God answered his prayers and showed him a picture of a small bridge. God was asking him if he was willing to cross this bridge. By the end of 2008, God called him to return to Toch Village full-time to teach English Monday through Friday to the children and youth.

Vuthy’s obedience to follow Christ at whatever the cost was the start of a ministry that would reach the unreached and bring hope to the hopeless. Now in 2019, the last ten years are a testament to the goodness and faithfulness of God as he has continually provided for Vuthy to spread God’s Kingdom in Toch Village.