Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,

In July 2008, after eight months of medical treatment in America, Mommy Gioia brought me back to CCAM, my home and school in Cambodia. I was so excited to see everyone again. Auntie Noren and the whole CCAM family welcomed me with open arms. I can’t tell you how happy I was to finally be home ALIVE!

My two spiritual mothers gave me a “Beary Happy Coming Home Party,” with lots of special food that I had been missing in America. They also gave me the honor of presenting a Build-a-Bear from America to each and every CCAM student. Later, they let me and my girlfriends dress up in princess outfits that I brought back, and then take pictures of ourselves. I’m very grateful to my new friends in America who sent back with me many gifts like these to share with the other kids.

However, mixed in with all the happy times, I often experienced headaches, itching, nausea and vomiting, because I was still recovering from radiation and wasn’t yet accustomed to the daily injections of Calcitonin that I would need to take for the next two years. Another problem was the weakness and pain in my legs, causing me to fall a lot, especially when going up and down the three flights of stairs in my school. Later on, another problem showed up---a transparent yellow liquid started leaking out of my nose, and some of my forehead bone disappeared. However, in answer to everyone’s prayers, those symptoms have miraculously resolved themselves over time.

For a few months after returning, I had to continue physical therapy exercises every day to build up my stamina. I also had to be tutored in academic subjects to make up what I missed being absent so long. I’m grateful to Roslyn Darr, who came from America to help Mommy Gioia take care of me those first weeks after returning home.

Little by little, my body and my mind began to catch up, so that I could rejoin my class. And, one at a time, I was allowed to play group games requiring physical strength. And finally, I was able to return to dance class, although I was still limited in the types of dances I was allowed to do at first. It felt so good to be able to participate in more and more activities with my friends, but it was also frustrating that there were still a lot of things that I wasn’t allowed to do yet.

Somewhere during that first year back home, I became very impatient with my slow recovery and started kicking against the remaining restraints. I became rebellious against the rules of the school and resisted any correction of my bad behavior. At one point, I angrily announced that I wanted to leave CCAM! But how could that be, since I was only 14 years old and my biological mother was a homeless widow who could not take care of me. Besides, I knew that I needed to continue taking the Calcitonin injections for one more year, or the tumor might grow back and kill me! And Mommy Gioia said that she had promised God to finish giving me ALL of the Calcitonin, so she could not allow me to leave. And that’s how God locked me in His box so that He could discipline me in there!

During that time, the Lord showed me how selfish and ungrateful I was, never satisfied and always greedy for more. He showed me how lazy I had become, never wanting to serve God or others. And He showed me how following my own way was leading me farther and farther away from Him and from everyone who loved me at CCAM, especially my two spiritual mothers, who kept on caring for me no matter how badly I treated them.

Now I realize that I was so wrong, and I understand that my two spiritual mothers always did what was best for me. I am so ashamed of myself for rebelling against them and my Heavenly Father. Please anyone reading my testimony do not follow my bad example!

When I began to see the truth about myself, I confessed my sins to the Lord and to my spiritual mothers. They joyfully forgave me, and God cleansed away that evil from my heart and mind (1 John 1:9). After that, the Holy Spirit living inside of me helped me to change, as I listened to His advice and renounced all of those sinful attitudes in the name of Jesus (Philippians 4:13). Then I began to grow up spiritually, through the Bible teaching of Mommy Gioia, Auntie Noren, Teacher Tikhia, and Big Brother Sophun, as well as through their continuing correction and encouragement to submit to the Lord’s ways, not my own.

Now my heart is so full of peace and gratitude. I thank God that He has never abandoned me, even though I was so ungrateful to Him. I thank God because He loved me so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die on the cross to pay for my sins and save me from spiritual death. And I thank Him for performing many amazing miracles to rescue me from physical death because of this tumor.

I thank God that he has provided everything I need here at CCAM---a comfortable and safe home, good friends, toys to play with, plenty of nutritious food, medicines, electricity, clean water, all kinds of supplies for my life and education, and money to pay all of the bills, even for my expensive MRI and blood tests. But most of all, I thank Him for my two very good spiritual mothers, who always love and take care of me no matter what.

I thank God that He provided eight months of medical treatment (including tests, therapy, medications, surgeries and radiation) at Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Baptist Medical Center in America, where we often stayed at the nearby Ronald McDonald House---all free of charge. I also thank God for the very expensive Calcitonin drug that He caused to be donated to help shrink the tumor. I’m so grateful that Mommy Gioia was faithful to finish all of the two years of daily injections, even though I was so mean to her. And, hallelujah, it was finally finished on Thursday, April 29, 2010, at noon.

Even as I’m experiencing great victory over my difficult circumstances through God’s power, I’m also learning to be on guard against slipping back into old ways of dealing with problems. While waiting to do the MRI, I became so shaky inside, worrying what the test would show about the tumor. Sometimes when I was alone, I started to cry, filled with fear. I wondered if I was going to live or die. What if the tumor grew back again? The doctors didn’t have any more ideas about how to cure it. Maybe there was no hope for me.

But then I remembered the question the newspaper man had asked me when I was in the hospital back in America: “What advice would you give other children who have a brain tumor similar to yours?” And I answered, “Trust God!” And that’s exactly what I had done back then to survive those difficult eight months.

So what’s the matter with me now, I thought? Why don’t I take my own advice and just trust God like I did when I was 12 years old? So I confessed my lack of faith to the Lord and immediately He restored my hope. Now I am again confident that God will heal me one way or the other, either here on the earth that I may serve Him the rest of my life, or over there in Heaven, where I will serve Him for eternity.

On Wednesday morning, May 12, 2010, I went to do the MRI. Praise God! He has answered our prayers! The results show that the tumor is melted! No one can even see it anymore! And even though that cyst remains over my left eye, at least it did shrink a little bit. I keep praying that it will soon be melted too!

Because of God's miraculous healing, I am now able to do just about everything the other kids do. To look at me, no one would suspect the medical ordeal that I have lived through. But I often consider that, if the Lord had not brought me to live at CCAM many years ago, I probably would have died from that tumor at age 12, while living out there on the streets---homeless, helpless, and hopeless.

Through all of these experiences, God has continued to confirm to me my life’s calling---to gratefully serve Him through CCAM for as long as I live, especially using the five arts that I love so much. And I invite anyone reading this to consider helping me and CCAM however the Lord leads you, so that we can continue rescuing more disadvantaged children like I used to be.

And please don’t forget to pray for me, especially that I will be faithful to follow my calling until the end of my life. So here ends part three of my testimony about God’s love, mercy, and faithfulness to me and about His power to do great miracles. Blessed be the name of my Lord Jesus Christ!

Buntheep Chun (15 years old)

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