I am Shan, but was born in northern Thailand in a town called Mea Sai. When I was 4 years old, my mother died and we moved to another small town on the border to Burma.


When I had finished high school, I was a Buddhist monk for two years.
After that I did nothing but stayed with my friends. At this point my father had gambled away all our money, and he had to sell our house. He moved in with some relatives. I did not want to move away, so I started to live with some friends.


I started doing drugs when I went to school, such as sniffing and smoking of hashish, but eventually I started taking heroin with my friends that I lived with, and I also started to do a lot wrong things.


My life became worse and worse and I felt that my life was very hard and difficult. Other people didn’t liked me that much either, because I stole money, sold drugs, was involved in gambling, etc. and I was a very bad man.

One day my father heard the news that I was a drug addict. He came to me and wanted me to go into the army. Since I myself did not know how I should be free from drugs, he thought that this would help me to be free from my addiction to drugs.

I was with the army for over nine months. This was a difficult time for me, for we had to move all the time.  This was during the rainy season, and I was constantly wet.  But it helped me to break the addiction for heroin.

After this I started here to use drugs again and was involved in illegal things. The police tried to arrest me, so I could not live with my friends anymore. I went into the jungle and lived in hiding for over a year.

It was not very easy to stay in the jungle, and I remembered my father and my family and missed them very much, but I did not know what to do anymore. I did not want my life to continue like this, but I did not know how I would change it.

One day my niece came to me in the jungle and gave me a Bible. Because I lived in the jungle, I had a lot of time to read the Bible, but I did not understand much of what I read.


One day I went to town and on the bus it was a man who gave out tracts. I started talking to him and he said he was a Christian. Then he asked me: What kind of work do you have? I replied that I had no job and lived in the jungle.

We had more contact after that and he shared about God to me, and I listened, but I still did not understand the gospel very well. When I shared about my difficult life, he listen to me. After he had listened to my story, he said: "Yes you have had a very difficult life." He went on to say that there is only one person who could help me to get a changed life.


After I had spoke a lot with him, one day he asked if I would come and stay with him. The place he lived in was part of a church and an orphanage.

He knew that when I lived in the jungle, I was not able to stay away from heroin and drugs. I moved to him, and one day he asked if I would accept this person who could free me from my difficult life. "If you want this!" He said. "You should pray with me now!" And I did. That day I accepted Jesus, the only person who could help me, and I let him into my life.

For two weeks I lived only in this my friend. I did not go outside, and all I did was to sing worship songs to God, pray and read the Bible. This was not an easy time, I was in pain because of the addiction. But after this I had no desire to take heroin anymore, and I was very happy.

I have a strong faith in God, and that he is really able to help us and set us free!

Another thing that God showed me was that I really had value, that I was loved by Him. After one year I went to a Bible school, where I learned a lot about God.


A two year's time after I became a Christian, I went on a Christian camp in the Chiang Mai area, where I got baptised. After the baptism, I felt that I was able to put my life in God's hands. I thank God that He has given me a new life and changed the old for new.

People in my village, and other people looked at me as a person who had no value, but God saw me as a valuable person, and he rescued me! I'm so glad that he did and that I matters to Him! 
I'm so glad that I am a person who has great value!


When I got baptised, God gave me a verse from Psalms.
Psalm 8:4-5
4 When I consider Your heavens, Your fingers work, moon and stars, which You have put there,
5 what is man, that You would remember him, and the son of man, that You would watch over him?

This verse I often quotes, because it always encourages me. When I think of this verse, I am reminded of God's love for me.