by Sonata Wilson

From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, thousands of people were displaced by war in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Having served in Vietnam since 1911, Alliance international workers began reaching out to internally displaced refugees with food and other basic forms of relief. However, as the 1970s ushered in intensification to the conflict, The Alliance recognized that more needed to be done to address the growing humanitarian crisis. In 1972, discussions began at the C&MA Headquarters in New York about the creation of an organization that would come alongside those in need while keeping with Dr. A.B. Simpson’s vision to minister to the whole person through both word and deed. Thus, CAMA Services was born. CAMA would go on to do officially what Alliance international workers had already been doing unofficially for a century—caring for the sick, feeding the poor, and providing relief to those impacted by war and natural disasters. And for the past 50 years, CAMA has dedicated itself to demonstrating Christ’s compassion through immediate relief and long-term development to transform lives and restore communities. Why? Because this world is so utterly and undeniably broken.

The Need for Holistic Ministry in a Broken World

Because of the Fall, every aspect of our lives—our relationship with God, our interactions with others, our treatment of creation, and even how we view our very selves—has been bent away from its original intent by brokenness. Since that fateful day in the Garden, every area of life has been afflicted by sin as the enemy has actively stolen, killed, and destroyed.

Because of this, we now live in a hurting world where poverty and injustice prevail. This poverty is holistic in nature and goes well beyond a matter of money and physical need—it is fully spiritual, social, and emotional, as well as material. Today, countless lives and whole communities are stuck under the corroding influence of the evil one—entrapped by systemic poverty, subject to corrupt governments, constrained by warped cultural practices, enslaved to social injustice, and so much more—without help and without hope.

But Christ came to redeem.

Because the problem is holistic, the solution must be holistic too. Only Christ has the power to reconcile and redeem. To transform and restore that which has been broken, those of us who are waiting for the King must share the gospel while coming alongside others with both action and compassion. This is what the Kingdom of God is like. When we demonstrate and proclaim the gospel not just in word but also in deed, we powerfully proclaim the truth of the compassionate God who loves unconditionally. And by loving “the least of these” (as Christ calls us to do in Matt. 25:24-40), we love our Lord.

Responding to the Refugee Crisis in Southeast Asia

CAMA came into existence for this very reason—to love those in need through both word and deed. Having sent international workers in the decades prior to countries throughout Southeast Asia to share the gospel, The Christian and Missionary Alliance established CAMA in 1972 to respond to the needs of the thousands of refugees who had become displaced by the violence taking place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. In 1974, CAMA received its official status as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and The Alliance formally began establishing programs through CAMA in 1975 at the conclusion of the Vietnam War, when it became apparent that there was both great physical and spiritual need among the refugee camps lining the Thai-Cambodian and Thai-Laotian borders.

In those early years, CAMA served as a catalyst by helping resource others. There, in Thailand, CAMA international workers brought together representatives from the Royal Thai government, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Red Cross, World Vision, Food for the Hungry, and several other organizations looking to come alongside the displaced and created a committee for coordinating relief services to refugees within the country. Led by the CAMA director for five years of its 15-year life, the Committee for Coordination of Services to Displaced Persons in Thailand—or CCSDPT—pledged to share resources and to support one another with the goal of meeting the rising needs the best that they could.

With the help of this committee, CAMA was able to extend Christ’s compassion to those hurt by the regional conflict through the provision of food, clothing, medical care, and spiritual ministry. As physical relief was delivered, CAMA’s international workers shared about the hope of Christ in the refugees’ own languages. The Word was made accessible to refugees as Bibles were distributed in Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Lao and as CAMA invested in Christian radio broadcasts that reached across Asia. Short-term Bible training programs were also established within the camps to help refugees develop further in their faith journeys and to raise up local leaders. Timothy, a man who spent part of his childhood in one of the refugee camps assisted by CAMA, has this story to share about hope he came to know through these relief efforts:

I was born in Laos during the peak of the Vietnam War to an extremely poor family—so poor that simply surviving outweighed entertaining any hopes or dreams beyond making sure that our daily needs were met. In 1975, when I was about six or seven years old, my family fled the country to escape to Thailand. A few months after settling into our third refugee camp, I learned about CAMA after being told that their international workers were helping families by providing blankets, cooking pots, and canned food. I also heard that they were giving away T-shirts to children. One hot and sunny day, I went out to a building in a dusty field and got into a long, long line. After waiting for almost two hours, they gave me a T-shirt. This T-shirt became the most valuable thing I had, and this invaluable thing soon instilled in me the ability to have hopes and dreams—leading me and my family to move to America, to become U.S. citizens, and then, eventually, to me becoming a pastor. It wasn’t until 2017—when I became an international worker for The Christian and Missionary Alliance—that CAMA’s impact in my life came full circle. Who would have thought that, through a T-shirt, a seed of love and compassion would be planted inside a small, poor boy—leading him to go back and serve the Lord in the very place where hopes and dreams used to be nonexistent? Through CAMA’s efforts, true hope was shared with the hopeless—turning my life from meaningless to meaningful.

It is estimated that between 1975 and 1993, when the camps finally closed, roughly 100,000 Khmer, Lao, Hmong, and Vietnamese refugees came to Christ. Through the work that was done to meet both physical and spiritual needs, many received aid, and many came to experience hope. Many came to know the love of the Lord, and many chose to accept His gift of salvation.

As a new refugee crisis unfolded after the Vietnamese army’s invasion of Cambodia, CAMA was asked by UNHCR to begin special border operations to provide medical services to civilians in the Khmer Rouge areas. CAMA responded, and its first teams entered Cambodia on the backs of elephants. At a refugee camp known as Site 8, CAMA established a camp hospital and provided the refugee residents there with nursing and health-care training—all while providing presentations of the gospel. When the camp closed in 1993, a number of these health-care workers returned to Cambodia and became a part of the leadership core of new churches.

By the end of 1979, over $4.7 million had been given through CAMA to care for those in need. As relief programming took place within the refugee camps, CAMA began to pioneer development projects—initiatives such as CAMACrafts, which created opportunities to earn an income through the sale of handicrafts—to help others get back on their own feet by supporting themselves. Job training became a part of coming alongside the displaced in addition to relief. Over time, CAMA would transition from providing just relief to also promoting development and from providing aid inside the refugee camps to also serving within the same countries from which the refugees had fled. As initial needs were met through relief, development work would begin to empower the hurting to meet their own needs by enabling them to utilize their God-given talents and local resources. The suffering and impoverished were pointed to Christ as they were fed, clothed, and cared for and as they took their own steps forward out of brokenness.

Opening Doors Through Relief and Development

By 1983, CAMA had sent international workers to serve in Europe and other parts of Asia to continue assisting Southeast Asian refugees. The skills and strategies learned in Thailand would be used to help other refugee crises in places such as Lebanon and Jordan. In 1984, as starvation threatened to kill thousands in Burkina Faso and Mali, CAMA developed and implemented a famine response plan. In 1990, CAMA began one of its largest relief projects as it came alongside refugees in Guinea who had fled from the Liberian Civil War. During the 1990s, as local relief and development agencies associated with the Alliance national churches within Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and the Republic of Congo began to emerge, CAMA international workers partnered with them in their desire to share the gospel in both word and deed by providing training and mentorship.

CAMA kept growing as it continued to extend Christ’s compassion through relief and development work. In 1999, CAMA began assisting war-affected families with relief in the Balkans. After the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, CAMA sent international workers to serve the hundreds of thousands who were left to rebuild their lives. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina became CAMA’s first major disaster response in the United States, marking the start of a nearly two-decade-long partnership with local Alliance churches to serve those in need of relief stateside. During the Syrian refugee crisis, CAMA began providing relief in 2012 by partnering with a local Alliance church and by establishing a community center for refugees and a school for Syrian children. In 2019, CAMA started meeting the needs of both Venezuelan and Rohingya refugees as international workers arrived in Colombia for the first time and as international workers in Southeast Asia began providing medical aid and discipleship. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, CAMA responded in partnership with the Alliance World Fellowship by providing food packages, cash vouchers for living expenses, employment opportunities such as producing face masks and selling hygiene products, and other forms of assistance to those who had been left in need. In 2022, CAMA helped Church Ministries of The Alliance hire a disaster response coordinator to equip the U.S. Alliance for overseeing stateside relief responses. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, right at the start of the conflict, CAMA partnered with local pastors throughout Ukraine to empower the local church to share the gospel and provide relief.

Time and time again, relief has opened doors to areas and people in desperate need of Christ’s redemption. As people have dreamed of a better life, CAMA has come alongside them by listening to and initiating conversations about the struggles they face. CAMA has helped communities to assess what strengths and resources are already at their disposal and then empowered them to solve the problems that they’ve identified through development—all while encouraging local ownership through investment in local solutions guided by local leaders and local churches. By pointing to Jesus all along the way, CAMA has given people the chance to recognize and respond to the value God sees in them, leading to lives being transformed and communities being restored.

Committed to Extending Christ’s Compassion

Now, in 2024, CAMA is celebrating 50 years of relief and development ministry as a nonprofit organization. In total, 62 CAMA international workers and 12 global partners are currently running over 30 projects in 19 different countries. Through their work, CAMA is coming alongside the broken with disaster relief and community development, and the Lord has been faithful to transform lives and restore communities throughout the world. Because of the compassion and generosity of the Alliance family, we are serving as your hands and feet to “the least of these,” reaching into the hard and hurting places with holistic gospel presence and responding to poverty and injustice—turning relief into belief and bringing about eternal and lasting change.

However, this world remains utterly and undeniably broken—and will be until Christ’s return. Poverty in all its forms will persist. People will continue to cry out for justice each day. The needs are overwhelming and will only keep growing. But Christ came to redeem. As we step into the next 50 years, CAMA is committed to partnering with our Alliance family to keep extending Christ’s compassion to the hard and hurting places through proclaiming the gospel in both word and deed. Together, we will continue to see lives be transformed and communities be restored through the power of the gospel and the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Watch CAMA’s documentary here.

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