Kanya grew up in Bangkok, the third generation of a Chinese family that had settled in Thailand decades before she was born. Growing up, she remembers a photo of Guanyin hanging on the wall of their home. Her mother taught her to pray to it for wisdom.
Ironically, she was also enrolled in a Catholic school from kindergarten through high school, where she recited, “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” every lunchtime without ever being told what the words meant.
Two faiths, side by side, and neither one had yet become her own.
Years later, life in Chiang Mai would lead her to Jesus.
Kanya moved from Bangkok to Chiang Mai after reconnecting with a man she had known for years and becoming unexpectedly pregnant. His family accepted her, and she stepped into a new home as a wife, mother, and daughter-in-law—roles that, in her culture, come with their own quiet expectations: honor family traditions, participate in ancestral rites, uphold Buddhist ceremonies, and keep the peace.
But peace was hard to come by.
Not long after her second child was born, two betrayals surfaced almost at once: her husband's long-hidden unfaithfulness and a secret her own father had carried for thirty years. This came in the same season she was grieving her mother and helping untangle her father's debts.
Later, a financial venture she trusted with her whole heart collapsed within months, taking with it money that wasn't even hers to lose.
Through all of it—the grief, the loneliness, the betrayal, and the hurt—Kanya began searching for something to fill the emptiness in her heart.
She started listening to a faith teacher online—someone speaking about love, spirit, and the different frequencies people live at. She was trying to make sense of everything happening around her: different religions, different worldviews, all claiming to hold the answer.
But her life in Chiang Mai remained lonely. She was also deprived of time with her son, while her life revolved almost entirely around her husband's family.
Then, unexpectedly, she met Lorna.
It wasn't at a church service or an outreach event. It happened by coincidence.
Kanya's father-in-law ran a business on the first floor of their house. Kanya rarely went downstairs, spending most of her time in isolation. But one day, somehow, she went down, and Lorna was there.
Lorna was translating English into Chinese for the customers. That same day, they went to lunch together.
Before eating, Kanya watched as Lorna prayed over the food.
It reminded her of the prayers she used to recite in Catholic school. But this felt different. They weren't simply repeating words because they were supposed to. The prayer seemed personal. Alive.
After lunch, Kanya asked Lorna to be her friend.
That friendship opened a door. Lorna, a believer in Christ, began sharing the gospel with her. And not long after, in 2023, Kanya accepted Jesus.
It did not make her life easier.
But for the first time, she knew she wasn't walking through it alone.
Eventually, she received an inheritance from her mother. She was able to invest it in a business that she still runs to this day.
Still, family problems continued to arise. But this time, she had her faith.
She began praying through every trial that came her way. And, over time, she began to see many of those prayers answered.
Out of her newfound conviction, Kanya began saying no to things she no longer believed in. She gently but firmly declined to burn incense or bow to ancestral idols during family ceremonies.
Her choices created tension at home. Her husband eventually forbade her from speaking to their children about God.
And more than once, her faith cost her more than words.
There were times when her husband turned on her. Kanya quietly began keeping records—a visit to the police station, photographs, a message sent to her brother in case anything happened to her.
She has never told most people this part.
But she kept praying anyway.
Not because it felt safe, but because prayer had become the ground beneath her feet.
She prayed for her marriage, her children, her husband, her family, and his family.
Recently, when her husband's doctor warned him about hypertension, Kanya received the news differently than most people might have.
Just a day before, she had experienced another incident of abuse and had prayed for God to keep her safe.
When the diagnosis came, she saw it as an answered prayer—a reminder that God had heard her and was watching over her, even in a situation she could not control.
She watched a man who had hurt her begin to change for the better.
That is not a resolved story.
It is a survived one, still being written one prayer at a time.
Kanya still gets up every day and chooses her faith over fear.
And she carries it quietly.
Prayer by prayer.
Through rooms where she has often felt alone.
None of it looks dramatic.
All of it is costly.
And somewhere along the way, Kanya found what she had been searching for all those years—not simply another faith to practice, but a faith she could finally call her own.
For her safety, Kanya’s identity has been protected and her name changed. Her story is one of many quiet, costly acts of faith happening within the families Within Reach Global walks alongside. If her story moved you, would you consider praying for her this week—for her safety, her children, and her husband’s heart and for many more like her.