Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Now I am 17 years old, and here I am again to share with all of you who love me and pray for me about what the Lord is teaching me and about how He keeps performing His miracles in my life.

Throughout the many years I’ve lived at CCAMS, I’ve been introduced to many ways to use my creative gifts to serve God. This year, I’ve been learning how to write and illustrate Christian children’s books. Not only that, but I’m also learning how to prepare the book manuscripts for publication on the computer.

Many Cambodians receive little or no education and often never learn how to read (like me until I came to CCAMS). That’s why the CCAMS performing team goes around telling Christian stories in songs, dances, and dramas that are specially designed for those who cannot read. But even for those who can read, there are not many Khmer picture books for children, and most of those are about death, curses, or evil characters.

I’m so thrilled to take part in this CCAMS book project, which will hopefully one day cover the whole country with original Cambodian stories based on the principles of the Bible! These books may also entice Cambodian children to want to learn to read. Please pray for the money needed for CCAMS to self-publish and distribute these books.

And now, speaking about my spiritual growth, we all know that no one follows God perfectly all the time. We all experience temptations in our lives, and sometimes we fall. But, as I explained in my testimony last year, my personal spiritual growth has seemed to be particularly bumpy for most of my journey. Romans 7:18-20 has explained the reason. Even though I myself always wanted to do what is right, I could not always do it, because a stronghold of ancestral sin inside of me blocked my good intentions, causing me to do the things I hated.

In addition, God has shown me that my main problem has been that I’m often lazy to keep watch over my own soul (1 Peter 5:8-10). Also, I do not always use the Word of God to protect myself, and often do not use the power of God to resist the devil (Ephesians 6:10-18). Therefore, I frequently fall to temptations, especially anger and rebellion against God and the school leaders.

But the Lord always convicted me through my teachers, Mommy Gioia and Auntie Noren, who love me and care about my soul. They don’t want me to be far from God and from them. That’s why they continue to sacrifice their time to pray with me, helping me confess my sins and kick out evil spirits from my life. Little by little, I’m being set free!

This year, we discerned that the root of anger, a spirit that has been with me from childhood, was becoming very aggressive during our prayer sessions. Whenever I began to confess my sins, that spirit caused me to stutter uncontrollably, even trying to squeeze my throat and choke me, so that I could not even breathe or form the words. Inside my mind, that spirit kept threatening to kill me if I didn’t stop confessing. So I would always stop because of fear of death.

Auntie Noren and Mommy Gioia encouraged me not to be afraid of that spirit’s scare tactics. They quoted from 1 John 4:4: “…greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” They also reminded me that, even if I should die, I would still be safe with God in heaven, but they didn’t believe that the Lord would allow that evil spirit to kill me anyway.

I was so confused inside my mind, partly agreeing with them and partly angry at them at the same time. But they kept counseling me so patiently to make up my own mind about who my God really was---the Lord Jesus Christ or the devil. They said that, if I wanted Jesus, the one true God, I must obey only Him and confess my sins, no matter what.

When I finally realized how wrong I was to obey the devil instead of God, so many biblical truths that I had memorized began to rise up in my mind, declaring to me that nothing was too hard for the Lord Jesus, and that He is King of kings and Lord of lords, and that He is the Creator of everything. Also, I remembered the surgeries and radiation treatments that I had bravely endured when I was only 12 years old because I was boldly trusting in my Lord Jesus Christ to keep me safe, whether I lived or died.

Suddenly that same childlike faith welled up in my heart, and I made a firm decision to trust God and stop being afraid of the evil spirit. As a result, I began boldly confessing my sins from my heart, while fighting to inhale each breath and to control my tongue to speak. I felt the Holy Spirit’s power being unleashed inside of me through my childlike faith. As I stubbornly refused to give in to the pain and paralysis in my throat and mouth, the tightness gradually relaxed.

Finally, my words commanding the spirit to leave in the name of Jesus Christ were triumphant, and every word was measured and clear. The pain in my throat was gone. Great joy rose up in my heart, as I finished praying my thanksgiving to God.

As a result of this experience, I have made two major commitments for the future: 1) to pay closer attention to resisting temptations when they first appear, instead of allowing repetitive sins to create major strongholds in my life, and 2) to cling to my Lord Jesus Christ just like a little child, no matter what happens.

Not long ago, I was invited to give my testimony at Russey Keo Church where Mommy Gioia taught the Word of God about being faithful to God’s calling. Before I shared, she told about her own calling to rescue the disadvantaged children in Cambodia, which also included me. No matter what happened to her, she never gave up following her calling. As I listened, my heart overflowed with a desire to be like that too.

Then it was my turn to share. I told about how God had rescued my life from the brain tumor in response to the prayers of my CCAMS family and Christians all over the world. As my words giving glory to God flowed out of my mouth, my eyes were also streaming with tears of gratitude. Then I described my own calling to follow in the footsteps of my two teachers, especially rescuing other desperate children like I used to be.

Please pray for me to continue growing spiritually, and to study diligently to prepare myself to serve God through CCAMS as a partner with my two teachers, and then to be faithful to follow God’s calling until the end of my life.

May the Lord richly bless all of you and protect you from harm.

Buntheep Chun (17 years old)

← Previous