November 16, 2015
Dear CCAM Partners and Friends,
Thanks to all of you who have taken time to write to us, pledging solidarity and prayer support during our current time of testing! May God miraculously fulfill the encouraging scriptures that He has led you to share with us and to pray on our behalf! And may our God bless you along with us!
Of course, we are all troubled by the current situation. Maybe it would help those of you who are new to CCAM to understand better what is going on, if we explain a little bit more about how our ministry works.
CCAM is both a school and a home. Our students live with us full-time and are homeschooled according to their individual learning levels which, due to their disadvantaged backgrounds, do not always coincide with the age groups of students in normal schools.
Our students are mostly orphans or abandoned kids, who have no parents (or if they do have a living parent, he/she is unwilling, unfit, or unable to care for them). Before coming to CCAM, they were poor, abused, neglected, uneducated, and malnourished. At CCAM, their food, lodging, education, medical and personal needs are all provided free of charge through the love of our Lord Jesus Christ demonstrated by the donations of His people.
When the children first come to us, whoever is responsible for them signs a form giving parental authority to the CCAM leaders to care for and educate them until they grow up and graduate. These forms are also binding before the local magistrates. CCAM could be prosecuted if we allow students to leave without fulfilling the desires of their relatives or previous guardians who signed those forms. In the case of rebellious students, the very least we can do is to call those who signed the forms to personally receive the students back, or in the case of those who run away, to notify those people.
Our counseling is designed to help students weigh their life options, as well as to help them deal with any wrong attitudes and actions against their teachers, peers, and God. Besides, they won’t get very far outside if they continue to repeat such bad behavior in relationships with relatives, friends, or future employers!
There are few opportunities in Cambodian society for people to “get ahead in the world.” But at least with a graduation degree one would have an advantage over those who are uneducated. So it is to our students’ advantage to stay at CCAM long enough to graduate, earning our liberal arts diploma.
But being integrated back into the world outside is still a challenge for our students who decide to leave, whether they leave before or after graduation, because Cambodian society does not provide many good job opportunities, and also because most of our students do not have a viable family support system outside of CCAM.
The fact is, we CCAM leaders are their true parents, providing their only safe and nurturing home. Although no student is ever forced to stay at CCAM, no student is ever required to leave either (unless they have become a threat to the peace and safety of the family). Actually, we desire that many of our students will decide to remain after graduation, like Sophun and Reaksmey Ty have done, making career decisions to become staff to help rescue and train future generations.
So even though some of our children may occasionally choose to rebel against the ones who have done only good to them, we hope that all of you will continue to partner with us to pray for them and for the repentant ones who remain, as well as to help us rescue and care for more hopeless children who are still out there.
“Vindicate the weak and fatherless, do justice to the afflicted and destitute,rescue the weak and needy, and deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.”
Psalm 82:3-4
Still persevering in tribulation,
The CCAM Family