Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,

All of us at CCAMS pray that your Thanksgiving holidays will be blessed. And we thank God and you for your participation in this ministry through your prayers, financial donations, and many kinds of practical assistance.

We are excitedly preparing for our own Thanksgiving celebration to be held tomorrow. All of the students and staff will dress in new Khmer traditional-style clothes, sewn by volunteer seamstresses Bunnan Kann and Sodany Phin. The CCAMS traditional orchestra will provide accompaniment for Khmer-style thanksgiving songs. Dancers will present "The Offering Dance" in Khmer classical style. And students will perform a drama called "The Leper Who Said Thank You," based on Luke 17:11-19.

Guest preacher Oung Rien from Open Gate Church will deliver the Thanksgiving message. The time for bringing offerings will include opportunity to place money in a decorated offering box, and also for students to carry colorful folded paper decorations filled with written thanksgivings to hang on a wooden cross.

Special foods served will be traditional-style spicy chicken and rice with coconut juice sipped through a straw from the shell. Desserts will be crispy rice mixed with shredded coconut and fresh fruit.

You may have heard from the news that a terrible accident occurred here in Phnom Penh on Monday. Thousands of people celebrating the end of the Water Festival got trapped on a bridge, and hundreds of them were suffocated, trampled to death, electrocuted, or drowned as panic ensued. Hundreds more are now recovering from injuries in local hospitals. The prime minister has declared Thursday a day of mourning for the dead.

Since we have been preparing our Thanksgiving Celebration for a long time, and since one of our special guests, Salatha Yost, will be returning to America Thursday night, and therefore unable to attend if postponed, we have decided to go ahead with our program. However, we will fly the Cambodian flag at half mast outside and pray especially for the injured, for the families of the dead, and for all of Cambodia too. Please pray with us. Our thanksgiving offering will be used to buy rice to help feed some of the survivors of this tragedy.

Since moving into our new side-by-side houses, both buildings have experienced rain water leaking from the roof, internal seepage from cracked pipes, and also flood waters flowing in from the street. However, the landlord has replaced the roof and patched the pipes, eliminating some of the problems. God protected us during the most recent flooding (which flooded all of Phnom Penh), by causing the rain to stop before the water could flow over the top step and across the porch into the house. At the same time, the flood waters were also rising up from the drain holes in the ground-floor bathrooms, but CCAMS students formed relay teams to bail water into the toilets for 48 hours until the flood waters receded. So please join us to thank God for our two reasonably priced houses that are next door to each other and for His continuing miraculous protection from flooding disasters.

During the time of flooding, Dr. Sandra Yee's dental team (from South Bay Presbyterian Church in the U.S.) was spending a week at CCAMS, cleaning, drilling, and performing surgery for students and staff. This is the sixth year this team has donated their time and services free of charge. Praise the Lord!

Please continue to pray for the completion of two important projects: our new CCAM Website and our new CD-DVD Album, "Garlands for Ashes." Please pray for God's blessings upon the volunteers working on these projects, and that He will provide them time, wisdom, and strength.

Trusting God Together,
Gioia and Noren