Intended for Evil

A Survivor's Story of Love, Faith, and Courage in the Cambodian Killing Fields

by: Les Sillars

• Format

  E-Book

  ISBN

  9781493405428

  Pub. Date

  Nov 2016

  SRP

  $18.00

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About

How do you survive when everything you hold dear has been ripped away?

This is the question Radha Manickam asks himself during the three years and nine months he spends under the merciless rule of the Khmer Rouge. When Khmer Rouge forces take the city of Phnom Penh in 1975, Radha is a new Christian, passionate about living out his faith. Over the next years of his life, 1.7 million of his fellow Cambodians--including most of his own family--will perish due to starvation, disease, and unthinkable violence.

As he strives to hold tight to his faith, he finds that in the midst of hell on earth God has not forgotten him. Forced by the communist regime to marry a woman he doesn't know, Radha discovers that God has a plan for his life that he never would have imagined.

This compelling true story of survival against incredible odds shows that out of war, fear, despair, and betrayal, God can bring hope, faith, courage, and restoration.

"Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, Intended for Evil blazes with vivid detail."-- Lynn Vincent, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Same Kind of Different as Me and Heaven Is for Real


Les Sillars (ThM, Dallas Theological Seminary; PhD, University of Texas at Austin) has been a journalist for over twenty years, seventeen of those with WORLD magazine. He is a journalism professor at Patrick Henry College in Virginia, and his writing also has appeared in The Weekly Standard, the National Post, and Touchstone magazine.

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Endorsements

"Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, Intended for Evil blazes with vivid detail. Sillars had me at 'hello.'"

Lynn Vincent, New York Times bestselling author of Same Kind of Different as Me and Heaven Is for Real

"Single death: tragedy. Million deaths: statistic. Sometimes attributed to Joseph Stalin, sometimes to others, that formula certainly holds true for writing about the Khmer Rouge's murder of 1.7 million Cambodians. So Les Sillars was wise to tell the story of one man, Radha Manickam, and his journey through Communist hell during the 1970s. It's also a tale of coming to Christ and surviving through God's grace. If you want to understand that era, Intended for Evil is a great book to read."

Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World 

"The Khmer Rouge's murderous regime in Cambodia was one of the worst events in human history and perhaps the purest Communist revolution the world has ever seen. And yet we know very little about it. Intended for Evil is the remarkable and intimate story of a man who miraculously survived the Khmer Rouge and later returned to Cambodia as a missionary. His story of faith in the midst of suffering, torture, and the now infamous "killing fields" will leave you stunned."

William J. Bennett, former secretary of education, bestselling author, and host of The Bill Bennett Podcast

"Intended for Evil is one of the most compelling stories I have read of life under the tyrannical despotism of Cambodia's Communist rulers, the Khmer Rouge. From 1975 until 1979, when the Vietnamese invasion brought the downfall of the regime, Radha Manickam experienced the brutal public murder of commune members who displeased the Communist cadres, cynical political deception, constant surveillance--often literally by children--and a complete suppression of normal human relations.

Most extraordinarily, Radha experienced a compulsory marriage to another prisoner who might have caused his death had she reported his Christian faith to the authorities. In an astonishing example of God's miraculous providence, his bride turned out to be a Christian, and the two of them endured a harrowing few years surviving first the Khmer Rouge and then the brutal uncertainties of Vietnamese rule over Cambodia. 

In Intended for Evil, Les Sillars has drawn an astute and vivid portrait of a young man encountering one of the most wicked political regimes of all time. It is an exceptional book."

David Aikman, former Time correspondent and author of One Nation without God?

"Intended for Evil reads like a gripping novel--a thriller, a totalitarian dystopia, a horror story. But it's history, not fiction. Les Sillars's book is also an inspiring account of the resiliency of the Christian faith against the most extreme opposition."

Gene Edward Veith, provost and professor of literature, Patrick Henry College

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