Most people are a little confused when they first learn about CCAM, because God seems to be raising up a large ministry here using mostly female full-time staff. "Where are the men?" they often ask. We answer that either God hasn't yet called many men to join us or else the men He has called are refusing to come! For whatever reason (and the passage below may give us a glimpse into that reason), God has chosen to do this particular work at this particular time in this particular way.

First Corinthians 1:26-31: "For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the FOOLISH things of the world to shame the wise, and the BASE things of the world and the DESPISED, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that just as it is written, 'Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.'"

Who would ever have thought that two broken, middle-aged, single-again women (one widowed and one divorced) would--or even should--be called to such a work? But how much easier it is for God to get the glory for what He is doing here, because few people would entertain any illusions that we are making all this happen.

And who would have thought that our team would be comprised of this unlikely group of foolish, broken souls, one or more of whom have already been participants in just about every sin known to man at some time in their young lives? Yet now we are all here together in Jesus Christ, receiving wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. All of us--the foolish, the weak, the base, and the despised--called to be partners together as servants of the Most High God. Praise His Holy Name!

Many of our students are orphans, either having no parents, or having only one parent or the other. When they join CCAM, they join a loving family, with two mothers on earth and a Father in heaven and lots and lots of brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles! The team is made up of about the same number of boys and girls. Perhaps God is growing up all those men everyone wants to see right under our noses, along with about the same number of equally valuable women. Hopefully, from this group will come the leaders to inherit CCAM after Gioia and Noren have gone to heaven.

From passages like I Corinthians 1:26-31 we have come to understand aspects of God's heart that are often overlooked. The message that comes through so strongly to us is this: No one can ruin his or her life beyond repair. There is always hope in the forgiveness, restoration, and calling of God. In fact, God prefers to heal and transform the broken and call them into service, so that the glory belongs only to Him.