May 7, 2016
Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,
Joseph, a Hebrew slave who became Vice-Regent of Egypt, was eventually able to comfort his repentant brethren who had sold him into slavery long before: “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place (to judge you)? And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.” (Genesis 50:20)
The CCAM leaders are already witnessing signs of God’s intentions to bring good out of the evil which caused the exodus of students and staff back in December, some of whom continue to persecute us. First we will explain about their evil intent, and then we will report about how God is bringing good out of it.
When half of the CCAMS family suddenly separated themselves from the rest of the family in December, those of us who had been abandoned suffered greatly. And yet, God strengthened us during that time, encouraging us from His Word and empowering us to adapt to the difficulties through the presence of His Spirit. Also at that critical time, God comforted us by calling a new staff member, Youda, to assume the very important job of shopping for and cooking our food.
Then, when those who had departed spread false accusations against the CCAMS leaders as the reasons for their leaving, a few of our partners and friends believed the lies and turned against us. But the majority of our partners and friends pledged solidarity with us and reached out with their encouragements, prayers, and practical helps. So this was a time of rediscovering and celebrating the authentic spiritual connections with many members of the Body of Christ.
When those who had departed learned that we were trusting God for the restoration of the CCAMS ministry through the recruitment of new students and the training of the remnant, some of them decided to sabotage our efforts. First, they successfully intercepted a former student who was planning to return to CCAMS and persuaded him to perform with their dance team instead of ours. Then, they decided to distract and discourage the remnant from cooperating with the restoration. One of our former male students secretly passed a telephone to one of the remnant boys through a crack in the gate in order to facilitate ongoing communication with the remnant, hoping to influence them to leave CCAMS. This began to erode the enthusiasm of the remnant students, but it still did not cause all of them to leave as hoped.
And so the former students had to devise a more drastic plan. Four or five of them went so far as to make false accusations against the CCAM leaders to the Cambodian Government! Their intention was to officially shut down the CCAM School and send the leaders to jail! Even in ancient Egypt, Joseph was thrown in jail because of the false accusation of Potiphar’s wife! You may think that this sounds a bit bizarre to be happening in our day and age, but in this country such scenarios do occur.
A few years ago, the government began investigating complaints about alleged abuses of children by the leaders of some private orphanage centers. Apparently, some of those cases turned out to be true and the guilty parties were punished. However, ever since then, all private residential care facilities have come under suspicion. Knowing this, disgruntled employees, students, or relatives associated with such facilities have often seized the opportunity to vent their frustrations by “suing” the organization and its leaders to get revenge. And so, apparently that is what is happening to us now!
However, God always seems to stay two steps ahead of those plotting evil against us! He caused a Christian in the government agency to be assigned to investigate our case. Then he called a Christian human rights activist (who is also a musician, having been a frequent partner with CCAMS ever since our inception) to be the mediator between the government and us. The result of their fair investigation, through conferring with the CCAMS leaders and interviewing the remnant students, has vindicated the CCAMS leaders of wrongdoing, so that the whole ministry has not been shut down nor the leaders sent to jail! Praise the Lord!
As a backlash against the true cases of child abuse in the past, the government is in the process of phasing out all private orphanage centers involved in the residential care of minor children, and phasing in a community-based program where students live in their own homes, foster homes, or student dormitories and attend classes at various schools or centers. Therefore, CCAMS is now being required to close our residential care and academic home schooling of students and adopt the community-based model where students live outside CCAMS and attend our classes integrating Biblical studies with the five art forms, as well as participate in our performing arts team.
The government is facilitating the repatriation of our remnant students to responsible relatives. When the children were rescued by us many years ago, there were no suitable caregivers, but fortunately now the situations of their extended families have improved. Please pray that God will protect the children and provide for them according to His perfect will. We will continue to monitor their welfare during and following this transition.
One of the remnant boys who is almost 18 years old has asked to remain with CCAMS as a staff member. Please pray that the government authorities will agree. Sokchea has been trained in academics and the arts at the CCAM School for the past seven years and would become a residential staff teacher of the arts. However, he would also continue his academic education at a local school, with private tutoring provided by CCAMS teacher Borany to prepare him for his government exams.
Basically, the CCAM ministry will continue to function as before, once we reorganize ourselves, except that our new team of students and performers will not “live” with us anymore. We have willingly sacrificed our lives for the past 20 years to rescue and nurture hundreds of disadvantaged and at-risk children and youth to live with us in our home, introducing them to Jesus and training them to use their gifts in the Kingdom of God. Through our new community-based program, we will no longer be responsible for the day-to-day care and academic education of younger children. However, this change will allow us to focus our attention and energies on training disadvantaged teens and young adults who are already Christians called by God to invest their gifts to proclaim the Good News through the five art forms.
Therefore, our future ministry can become much more outreach-driven than has ever been possible in the past, ministering more frequently across Cambodia (or wherever else God calls us to go) through evangelistic performances accompanied by preaching, teaching, testimony, workshops, and book-CD-video distribution in the ghettos, the countryside, at prisons, state-run orphanages, churches, schools, organizations, conference centers, theaters, etc. We could even maintain our outreach to younger children through neighborhood kids outreaches, a Creative Arts Kindergarten, and a CCAMS Junior Performing Team. Outreach possibilities are endless!
And we want you to know that these threatening events shared above only started to unfold a few weeks ago, and they are still very much in progress. Kelsey herself only heard about them when she returned to Cambodia from her trip, arriving in the middle of the government investigations! However, now that we have a better understanding of the outcome of the situation, we have decided to notify all of you, so that you may pray more effectively!
Even though our enemies have plotted evil against us, we see that God keeps turning all of that evil into good! Please join us to pray that He will continue to “show us signs for good, that those who hate us may see it and be ashamed (leading them to repent and seek reconciliation), because Thou, O Lord, hast helped us and comforted us.” (Psalm 86:17 paraphrased)
The Remnant Staff of CCAMS,
Gioia, Noren, Tikhia, Borany, Kelsey, Youda, and Sokchea