January 9, 2016
Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,
This past week, my mother, Carolyn Thigpen, left this earthly life to join my father, Hank Thigpen, in heaven. While growing up, my parents encouraged me to develop my God-given gifts and talents, and they were overjoyed when God called me to be a missionary. My parents had already set the example for me, because they served as pastor and wife of a church for many years before answering God’s call to found Children’s Ministry International. For a while, I served with them in CMI, writing and illustrating the children’s column called “The Joy Letters” that was published in their newsletter.
But later on, God called me into cross-cultural missions. Starting in the 1980’s, when I began working with church mission programs reaching out to Cambodian refugees around the United States, my parents faithfully supported me with prayer, monthly financial donations, and practical helps. Whenever God called me to a new location, my father rented a U-Haul truck and came to help me move. And my mother often enhanced my creative ministry by providing sewing and craft projects and unique teaching aids.
In 1995, God expanded my calling to establish Cambodian Christian Arts Ministry School (CCAMS) in Cambodia with my ministry partner Noren Vann Kim. Since then, my parents never wavered from their faithful support of prayer, monthly financial donations, and practical helps.
I will truly miss the internet Skype chats that my mother and I frequently enjoyed from opposite sides of the world, thanks to the faithful coordination of Laura Long. And I will also miss my mother’s partnership with me whenever I came to speak in the U.S. about CCAM at local churches in her area. She would always come to help me set up and take down the display table and hang around to share with people about the ministry and answer their questions.
I am especially grateful for the quality time that I spent with my mother during my 2015 trip to the States, even getting to celebrate her 94th birthday. Ever since she has been at the nursing home, my prayer for her has been that she would have quality of life until the end, and God has answered my prayer. During her time there, she ministered to the spiritual and emotional needs of her fellow residents, led a knitting guild to provide sweaters for the disadvantaged kids around the world, and even represented the nursing home and her Lord Jesus at the 2014 state beauty pageant as “Ms. El Reposo”! Click here to view pictures.
Even though I am happy that she has gone on to her amazing reward in heaven, nevertheless, I will surely miss her down here. But I’m eagerly looking forward to being with her again one day.
So until we meet again,
Joy/Gioia