Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,

We at CCAM join with those of you who find it hard to believe that all of this could have happened.   And yet, we are the main ones now faced with the inevitable daily reality that it HAS indeed happened!

All during the month of December, tensions escalated, false accusations against the leaders materialized, the leaders’ pleas for reconciliation were rejected, and our accusers’ threats about leaving, as well as about many other things, intensified. 

In response, the CCAM leaders continued to shower blessings upon those who were bent on returning evil for good.  For evidence of some of those blessings, click the following links to view our illustrated newsletter, “The Inheritance of the Remnant,” and photo albums “Farewell” and “Soriya Mall Outing.”

As the situation continued to deteriorate, it became clear that our accusers’ hearts were closed to our pleas and wide open to their own plans.  By the end of December, they had all departed!

We began getting emails from our supporters and friends, reporting that Sophun had contacted them about his leaving CCAM because he couldn’t get along with the leaders, asking our partners and friends for financial donations to support his family, especially to send his children to school, even though we had told him that we would still welcome his children to study at CCAM free of charge! 

Some of our supporters and friends have contacted us to request clarification about the situation, and we have discussed things with them by email or Skype.  [If any of you reading this would like clarification concerning any of your concerns, please email us.] 

Others reported to us about the negative statements that they had read about CCAM on social media, asking us to comment on their truthfulness, which we did.  We also read for ourselves the lies and misrepresentations about us posted on social media.

One of those lies is that Sophun worked for 20 years at CCAM and only received canned fish and noodles at his departure!  The truth is that when Sophun first came to CCAM in 1995, he volunteered to teach dancing part-time in return for free food and education.  Later he became a full-time resident student.  He continued to teach dancing as a student teacher until 2000, when we appointed him to direct the CCAMS Performing Arts Team.  After graduation in 2006, we promoted Sophun and his wife Reaksmey to be full-time staff teachers, giving them a cash donation of $170 per month, in addition to providing all of their ministry and living expenses free of charge.  After the birth of their first child, from 2009 until the end of 2015, their monthly cash donation was increased to $300, and we provided a three-room plus one-bath apartment for their growing family!

At Sophun’s departure the end of December, we refused to give him the CCAM car and computer that he rudely demanded, but we did give him additional cash donations of $400 (Gioia) and $500 (Noren).  Adding these to the $300 monthly donation for December, Sophun received $1,200 cash!

We also gave him two baskets of fresh fruit, 50 kg of rice, drinking water, and boxes of canned fish and noodles to get him started.  We gave Christmas gifts to his children, Isaac and Grace, and to his niece, Hannah. And to cover the cost for his family to enjoy the CCAM Soriya Mall Outing, we gave them an additional $30. 

We might also mention just a few of the many other benefits that Sophun and his family have received during their 20 years at CCAM.  First of all, Sophun and Reaksmey met each other when they first came to CCAM in 1995.  We paid for them to participate in two CCAM performance tours, one to America in 2001 and another to Europe in 2006.  We paid for their elaborate Khmer-style engagement ceremony, followed by their equally elaborate wedding ceremony a year later.  We paid for the birth expenses of both their children at private clinics, including the additional costs for Grace, who was born prematurely.  We covered the cost of Reaksmey’s surgery at a private clinic.  And we also received as CCAM students Sophun’s siblings, Kunthia and Sambath, as well as his niece, Hannah.  Therefore, CCAM has provided everything free of charge for seven members of Sophun’s family for many years.

CCAM is a non-profit ministry functioning as a family.  We are not a business.  All of us who serve as staff here are volunteers who either raise our own financial support (as in the case of Gioia, Noren, and Kelsey) or receive love offerings from CCAM donations or from the personal funds of Gioia or Noren (as in the case of Sophun, Reaksmey and Tikhia).

As we gradually became aware of what was going on behind our backs, we felt that it was necessary to write a second newsletter, “We Have Strengthened Our Hands,” to tell a few more details about the severity of the situation, asking people to pray more specifically for us during this trying time.  And now, based on further communications with our partners and friends, we have decided to add this “Explanatory Note” to provide even more clarity.

Before coming to CCAM, most of our children had been abused and abandoned by the people in their lives.  But at CCAM, they finally found the only love and stability that they had ever known.  Now, once again, the nine remaining children have been greatly traumatized observing the abusive words and actions against the leaders by the two teachers and the older students, who subsequently packed up and left, abandoning them and taking with them their children and younger siblings who were the closest friends of the nine remaining children. 

So please pray for those nine children, as well as for us four remaining leaders, who must now comfort and reassure the children and shoulder extra responsibilities for day-to-day survival in addition to our normal work load. 

Pray also for the very youngest children, Isaac and Grace, who were taken away from us against their will and are now missing their CCAM family, just as we are missing them.  CCAM is the extended family into which they were born and among whom they had begun to grow up.

And, of course, please pray especially for all of our accusers, who have left CCAM to seek after whatever the world offers.  The opportunities here in Cambodia are minimal, so they are out there now facing the reality of few jobs, low wages, and high living expenses.  Whatever meager salaries they may be able to find will not be able to pay for the same free benefits that they previously enjoyed at CCAM (free rent, utilities, food, drinking water, education, supplies, toys, musical instruments, computers, CD players, TVs, medical/dental care, transportation, recreational outings, etc.) while also having lots of quality time to seek God, to pursue higher education, to fellowship and play, and to create and present music, dance, drama, visual art, and literature for the glory of God.  Please pray that God will call those who have left to repent and seek reconciliation with Him and with us, so that His blessings may be restored to them (Luke 15:11-32).  

And pray especially for Sophun, whose testimony committing his life to serve God at CCAM has been posted on our website for many years: “My Testimony”

We remnant leaders know that God has called us to do His work at CCAM, and we will not give up!  He has already rescued CCAM so many times in the past 20 years, so we have faith that He will come to our rescue again!  We will keep persevering no matter what trials we have to endure, because we know that our God already has everything worked out for our good and for His glory in the end!

We are very grateful for your spiritual encouragement, prayers, financial support, and many kinds of practical helps.

May God bless you!
The CCAM Remnant Leaders

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