Bhogpur Children's Home

It’s a three wool blanket and one ski cap kind of night in chilly Dehradun. There’s no central heating at the Bhogpur Children’s Home, where we are spending the night as the guest of Calvin Taylor, whose family has served in India for three generations. Sam has a cold, and has warned me that he will likely snore like a freight train. I have headphones and Ambien handy, so I think I should do okay. I also have a pillow nearby that I can use to smother one or both of us if things get out of hand.

The home was founded in 1945 by Calvin’s grandparents, and houses 420 children, all of whom have parents who are suffering from or have died of leprosy. It’s an honor to meet the kids and staff, and to see firsthand such a legacy of commitment to caring for the poor in Jesus’ name. It’s always great to meet colleagues and to share ideas and compare notes. I’ll leave here with lots to think about, and with a new set of kids to keep in my prayers.

We’ll be here for another day, so I’ll have plenty of time to take pictures of the kids and the surrounding area. I decided to just be a guest tonight, and I left the camera in my bag. It’s early, but it’s dark and I’m a bit jetlagged. I will probably head to bed soon.

Sam is already snoring. Time for headphones and sleepy pills.

Good night.

Good morning.

Fast forward a day and a half, and we’re in the Dehradun airport. It’s still cold and cloudy. We spent last night at a hotel – Sam’s cold was sufficient to warrant a change of venue so he could enjoy a hot shower. It seems to have helped, as did a night of relatively warm sleep.

Our time in Dehradun and Boghpur has been great. I pray that, like the ministry we visited here, Asia’s Hope will still be serving kids in 100 years.

We’ll relax in Delhi this afternoon and evening and then head to Agra by train tomorrow to see the Taj Mahal. I’ll be sure to bring extra camera batteries. I hope to do the sights justice.

I’m sure I’ll love the Taj, but I’m already restless. I’ve been poring over the photos and bios of our kids in Kalimpong – I want to call as many by name as my aging brain will permit. I miss even the ones I haven’t met yet! I’m can’t wait to see Nandu and his family again and introduce Sam and the team to them. In the meantime, though, I’ll enjoy being a tourist.

John McCollum Comments
Old Delhi

According to our rickshaw driver, we experienced “the real India” today, bumping along narrow city streets packed with people and lined with shops selling saris and spices.

The day certainly started authentically enough, with Sam and I waiting for hours in queue at the “foreign tourist tickets” room in the Delhi train station. To have arrived at the room at all seems something of a miracle given the dozen or so touts who had set upon us to throw us off the scent. These hucksters stalk hapless tourists and waylay them with all manner of lies ranging from “you cannot buy tickets at this station – my friend will take you to another tourist office” to “the train no longer runs from Delhi to Agra – my friend can take you in his car.”

Eventually, we procured what we’re assuming are authentic tickets to Agra, the site of the incomparable Taj Mahal, which we will allegedly visit on Sunday, after we return from two days in Dehra Dun, site of an orphanage that Sam and his family have supported financially over the last few years. I’m looking forward to building relationships and sharing ideas with other colleagues and meeting those kids.

 After being released from the purgatory of Indian transport bureaucracy, Sam and I escaped by tuk-tuk to the Red Fort, a 17th Century Mughal palace. It was picturesque and red and fort-like. We then hired the aforementioned rickshaw driver who ferried us hither and yon through the back streets – and a few rooftops – of the old city.

As Sam observed, “This would be a lot harder in 100F weather.” Today’s temperature was mighty fine indeed – about 60F – perfect for jeans and jacket. I’ve only been here one day, but I can say with certainty that January is the ideal time to visit Delhi. I’m betting that it won’t be so pleasant when I return with the family this summer, but I’m sure we will have a great time nonetheless.

I can also tell you that I greatly prefer Delhi to Calcutta which, even for an experienced world traveler and extreme extrovert, was non-stop sensory overload.

I would love to write more, but that will have to wait. I’ve taken a short nap, and it’s time for dinner. I’m sure it will be delicious – everything in this country is. If I’m not too exhausted I’ll check in once more before leaving for Dehra Dun. Peace.

John McCollumComment
Hello, Delhi

After a long — almost 16 hours — but uneventful flight from Newark, I arrived in Delhi somewhere around 9pm, India time. Within a few minutes of disembarking, I began to experience the legendary bureaucracy that invades even international corporations like United Airlines in India.

After waiting for about an hour for my checked luggage to make its way onto the carousel, the baggage attendants and I agreed that it just wasn’t going to happen. That decision plunged me into another two hours of rubber stamps, carbon papers and forms to be filled (in triplicate, of course). Thankfully, I packed almost all of my essential items in my carry-on, so I’ll be okay for a couple of days. If I don’t recover my big suitcase, however, I’ll need to buy a new winter coat and I’ll lose many of the games and gifts I brought for the children. The suitcase will, allegedly, be delivered to my hotel by end of day tomorrow. That would be nice, but I’m not sure I’m counting on it.

After much ado at the airport, I rented a cab to take me to my hotel in Connaught Place, which appears to be the center of the city. At first glance, Delhi is about 50 year ahead of Calcutta in terms of infrastructure and cleanliness. Then again, it’s dark, and there was little traffic on the road. I will tell you, however, that this 30 minute cab ride was much better than last year’s hour-and-a-half deathmarch through Calcutta traffic sans air-conditioning, sans shock absorber.

The weather here is beautiful. I’d guess it’s about 40F at night. A light fog has descended over the city, and the whole place smells vaguely of incense. I am exhausted, but I can’t wait to get out into the city tomorrow morning to look around.

For now, however, I’m taking advantage of the 24 hour restaurant at my hotel, and I’m enjoying a plate of delicious mutton roganjosh and a basket of butter naan. So far, so good.

John McCollumComment
"In the darkness, there shined a light."

There’s a reason, I think, that as Christians we celebrate the birth of the savior at the darkest time of the year. The poignant juxtaposition of hope and despair, of darkness and light, is the very heart of the Christmas. The story of a people in captivity, barely holding on to belief in the promises of a God who seems to have forgotten them, whose rescue comes in the form of a baby born in a stable — this story resonates with all of us who fear, who doubt and who sometimes hope.

This Christmas has been for me a big jumble of darkness and light, of tears and laughter, of frustration and promise.

Last Thursday, after a full week of feeling buffeted by horrifying news stories of children my daughter’s age being massacred at school, of suicide bombings, hate crimes, drone strikes and fiscal cliffs, I was more than ready to leave the office, pack my up my wife and kids and head south to visit friends, family and Asia’s Hope supporters in North Carolina and Florida for a much-needed workcation.

As restless as I was to get on the road, there was no way I was going to miss my afternoon meeting with Mike Borst, pastor of NorthChurch (Lewis Center, Ohio). I’ve known Mike for years, and have long believed that NorthChurch would one day become an Asia’s Hope partnering congregation. On Thursday, we made it official: NorthChurch is now the sponsor of our newest home, Kalimpong 2 in Northeast India! In less than two weeks, I’ll be flying to India with a group of Asia’s Hope staff, board members and supporters, and I’ll get a chance to meet the 25 kids now living in our 25th children’s home.

I left the office buoyant – what a great way to end the year! I enjoyed a great evening with my family, finished packing my bags and went to bed only a little late. I woke up the next morning to a raft of Facebook messages and emails: one of our homes in Thailand had burned to the ground. As I pored over the pictures of stunned children and staff who, thank God, were not at home when the fire broke out, I felt sickened.

photo.JPG

Beyond the building itself, these kids lost much more. They lost all of the letters, photos and drawings from friends, visitors and sponsors. Worse yet, I suspect that some of the children lost the one remaining picture they had of a mother or father. All of it burned up. Only one boy, Pichai, was able to recover a small album of photos. Beyond all of that, the sense of security we work so hard to provide for these children had been jeopardized.

Much less important was the sense of frustration I felt as I watched helplessly the nice, tidy bow I’d wrapped around 2012 unravel and fall to pieces. So many people had worked so hard to help Asia’s Hope end the year in the black and with a ton of forward momentum on a number of capital and operational projects. Now, I was headed out of the office for a month and a half with a huge, unfunded and immediate need.

$75,000 is a lot of money, especially for an organization that operates in the U.S. with a skeleton crew and on a shoestring budget. What could we do?

Clench fists. Breath deeply. Close eyes. Pray. Open eyes. Unclench fists.

Send out emails. Post on Facebook and Twitter.

Breath deeply. Close eyes. Pray. Open eyes.

Within hours, I heard from a longtime donor who sent enough money to meet immediate emergency needs – mattresses, mosquito nets, blankets, toiletries. Other donors called and offered to help. Our Canadian board president called and let us know that they had money to contribute to the effort. Pastors from Doi Saket 1’s supporting church and two Asia’s Hope churches not directly affected by the fire called and let me know that they would be taking special Christmas Eve offerings to help with the reconstruction.

By the time I got on the road, my frustration had dissolved, and was being replaced by something like exhilaration. Stuff was happening. God was doing it!

A week after the fire, we are within spitting distance of being able to cover the entire cost of tearing down the old building and completing the new one. Thanks to the hard work, the sacrifice and the generosity of our board, our partnering churches and dozens of ordinary people committed to stepping up and delivering for the orphaned children displaced by this fire, we’re proving to our Thai staff and kids that they are not alone, and that their brothers and sisters around the world can and will respond to their needs.

So, once again the Christmas narrative plays out in our midst. Out of darkness and despair comes light and hope.

Thank you for playing a part in this drama. Thank you engaging suffering, for unleashing hope. It is a pleasure to serve with you all.

John McCollum Comments
When kids leave Asia's Hope

As we are all aware, our kids — those at home in the West and those living at Asia’s Hope — are growing up. In fact, over the next 10 years, we will see hundreds of kids at our homes in Cambodia, Thailand and India reach adulthood.

As each of these kids prepares to transition from childhood to adult independence, it’s important that we prepare our partners and supporters for this exciting, yet challenging phase. I hope that this letter will provide the context necessary to understand the choices our kids will be making as they leave home.

As you are probably aware, Asia’s Hope has committed to raise the money necessary to provide a college education or post-secondary vocational training course for any child willing and able to continue their education. We have already begun raising money for tuition, fees and other expenses through donations from our partnering churches and through individual contributions to our Scholarship Fund. We’re currently looking for partners to support a network of “student centers,” that will provide transitional housing for university-aged kids to live semi-independently while still under the guidance of Asia’s Hope staff.

It’s clear to us, though, that not every child will have the ability or desire to take advantage of these opportunities for continued education. In fact, some kids may not even graduate high school, and may pass directly into the job market before reaching age 18.

It’s tempting to see this as something of a loss, but I think that oversimplifies the narrative and fails to take fully into account the cultural opportunities and expectations at play in, say a country like Cambodia, where fewer than 15% of young adults are enrolled in tertiary education. Among hilltribe populations like those we serve in Thailand, many children in the villages receive little or no formal education, and marry shortly after entering puberty. In India, fewer than 50% of all kids finish high school. By local standards, every child at Asia’s Hope has been afforded extraordinary educational and social advantages.

It can be difficult for us as middle-class Westerners to not want for our kids in Asia something roughly equivalent to The American Dream: a college education, a white-collar job, a single-family dwelling with a continuous upwardly mobile career path. At Asia’s Hope we fully expect that many of our kids will aspire to and achieve that kind of life. We believe that we will see many doctors, lawyers, professors and executives among our graduates. However, we also expect to see — and will celebrate — kids who will work in factories, on farms, as laborers and shopkeepers, or who will get married and raise families.

Adding to the complexity is the fact that many of our kids entered our care far behind their peers academically due to their tragic life circumstances. We have a number of children who, as pre-adolescents, were their family’s primary breadwinner. We have some kids who have suffered emotional, psychological and neurological damage that will affect their academic potential.

Very few of our kids went to school on a daily basis prior to coming to Asia’s Hope. Thanks to the hard work of our staff and to ministry partners, many of those children have made amazing strides, catching up to their peers and in some cases surpassing them.

So what does “success” look like for our kids reaching adulthood? Certainly there is no one single outcome to which every child should aspire. We expect that every child will “graduate” from Asia’s Hope with a sense of security and with gratitude to a family and a God who rescued them from a life of poverty, loneliness and peril. We also pray that each of our departing kids will possess the education, the vocational skills and the confidence to live independently as productive members of the Kingdom of God and of their local community. Some kids may return to their villages and take up positions of leadership in their extended family. Some will enter the workforce directly, and others will go on to university before leaving our care.

We will continue to invest in programs and strategies designed to prepare all of our children for successful adulthood, and we will continue to lift them up in prayer and place them in God’s hands and watch them — often with bittersweet emotion — leave the nest.

For those of you who are key stakeholders in our homes, we will keep you updated as children transition out of our care, and will work with you to think through budgetary and strategic issues surrounding recruitment and replacement of new children to replace those leaving.

John McCollumComment
Important message about Cambodian adoptions

Important information about Asia’s Hope and the resumption of International Adoptions from Cambodia

Many of you may have heard the news that Cambodia has agreed to resume international adoptions and rescind the ban on such adoptions that has been in place since 2009 (http://bit.ly/W2uja4). I’ve already heard from supporters, partners and board members who want to know if Asia’s Hope is planning to make any of its children available for adoption.

The short answer is “no.” But the reasoning behind that answer is considerably more nuanced. I’d like to take the time to lay out some of our thoughts on the matter so you can help us field these questions when they come your way.

First of all, I want to be clear that as an adoptive father of three Asian children, I am wholeheartedly in support of international adoption in cases where orphaned children have no feasible options for long-term success in their country of origin. I’m thankful for all the people who worked hard to care for my children despite limited resources, and for the agencies and organizations who allowed Kori and I to bring Chien, Pak and Xiu Dan into our family. I strenuously reject many popular broadside criticisms of international adoption and find some of the generalizations about the motivations of birth families, agencies and adoptive families to be personally as well as professionally offensive and uniformed.

All this having been said, I also acknowledge that international adoption in general — and Cambodian adoption specifically — comes with ethical, economic and practical baggage that would introduce the potential for multiple negative outcomes for Asia’s Hope and few if any benefits.

Finances and Funding

One of the biggest threats to any organization dedicated to the rescuing, raising and restoring orphaned children is the introduction of a profit motive into the funding model.

Almost every documented instance of corruption or deception in the world of orphan care or adoption has occurred because someone — an agency employee, a facilitator, a birth-family member or a government official — knows that there is big money involved in international adoptions, and that there’s a potential to benefit financially by gaming the system.

As it stands, Asia’s Hope is financially stable, is accountable and transparent, operates debt free, and lives within its means. Because our funding model provides generously for our kids and staff, no one in our organization is incentivized by the potential to profit from our processes, either in the identification and intake of children or in the facilitation of an adoption to a Western country.

Our family based model

Each Asia’s Hope children’s home is based on a family, rather than an institutional model. Asia’s Hope hires a full-time mom and dad for each home. These parents live at the home and raise their own biological children alongside the Asia’s Hope kids. When orphaned children are brought into the home, they are treated not as patients or boarders. They’re considered brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.

Because we work so hard to foster a real family environment for each child in our care, we’re extremely hesitant to consider introducing factors into our organization that would threaten family cohesion. By “adopting out” kids from our homes, they would cease to be families, and would function as waystations, where kids would be passing in and out, and where our staff would be temporary caretakers, not parents. Even if we maintained our high staff-to-child ratio, our homes would surely take on institutional qualities to which we are adamantly opposed.

Furthermore, we would inevitably create multiple classes of children within our homes: those who are likely to be adopted, those who hope they will be adopted before they reach the 8-year old age limit, and those who know that they have no chance of being adopted. This would erode existing sibling bonds that are essential for each child’s current and future wellbeing.

Other considerations

By opening Asia’s Hope to international adoptions, we would forever enshrine a negative perception among our kids that we’re working so actively to dispel — that ‘escape’ to the West is the ultimate goal for a Cambodian kid. Fundamental to our model is the fervent belief that we are preparing our children to thrive in Cambodia as adults, and that they represent hope for Cambodia’s future.

Finally, we recognize that entering into the business of international adoptions would fundamentally alter our excellent relationship with the government of the Kingdom of Cambodia, and with other NGOs operating in the country, and would open us to bureaucratic interference, competition for resources and potential for fraud at a level heretofore unimaginable.

Conclusion

We at Asia’s Hope do not believe that we offer the only model of care for orphans, much less the only solution for the problems facing orphaned and destitute children. We are, however, convinced that we are called and equipped to continue on our current path and to continually invest in innovating and improving our existing funding and care models which have proved so beneficial to our kids and staff. We will, therefore, not be entering into the world of international adoption, and we will continue to raise all of our children in the families they’ve grown to love and depend upon.

Please feel free to contact me directly via phone 614.804.6233 or email john@asiashope.org with your questions or comments.

John McCollumCambodia, Adoption Comments
A few of my heroes

My wife, Kori, and I took some time on Monday to get out of the house and enjoy the holiday. The kids spent most of their morning enchanted by the glow of their various rectangular electronic devices while Kori and I hung out at a local coffee shop and wandered hand-in-hand along the streets of Columbus’ Short North arts district.

After doing a little shopping, we stopped in at home and made sure the kids were still respirating properly and then headed to the Asia’s Hope office for a nice antipasto lunch — olives, cheese, cured meats — the whole shebang. Seth was in South Dakota playing some rock festival, so we had the place to ourselves.

I pulled out some old hard drives from the cabinet, put on some Rich Mullins tunes for old-times’ sake and we took a leisurely stroll down memory lane. Kori is working on putting together a “life book” photo album for Xiu Dan, our seven-year-old daughter, and there are a few pics we couldn’t find on any of our home computers. I found the correct drive on the first try (a minor miracle in itself), so we had plenty of time to look through the thousands of photos I took on our 2006 adoption journey to China. 

Most importantly, we located a dozen or so photos we’ve never published anywhere, and which have seen only by close family members. We found the pictures of the orphanage where Xiu Dan spent the first year of her life; we found the pictures of the tiny apartment where her nanny cooked and cleaned for Xiu Dan and three other babies, the pictures of her tiny crib. We also found some sobering images, most notably the piece of sidewalk where Xiu Dan was found lying, wrapped up carefully and, I imagine, kissed goodbye by a mother she’ll never know.

Most precious to me, however, are the photos of my daughter’s nanny — whose name we never learned — and of the orphanage director, the man Xiu Dan called “Ba Ba,” Chinese for “Daddy.” I don’t know anything about these people. I don’t know their marital status, their religious beliefs, their political convictions, but they’re heroes to me. I owe them an incredible debt. They fed, washed, protected and cared for my daughter when I could not. When she was an orphan, they took her in and gave her what was, from everything I can tell, a loving and safe temporary family.

Xiu Dan's "BaBa," the orphanage director who cared for her for her first year.

Kori, Xiu Dan and Xiu Dan's nanny at the orphanage in Zhangshu, China

Xiu Dan and Kori resting at the hotel in Nanchang, ChinaI feel the same way about the workers at the underfunded, overcrowded state-run Vietnamese orphanage who took such good care of my son Chien while he waited for his forever family to arrive. May God bless them today!

What an honor it is for me to work for an organization filled with caring men and women who have dedicated their lives to caring for orphaned kids at risk of sexual and economic exploitation. Our Asia’s Hope home parents have given up other, easier careers and have sacrificed most of their privacy and a lot of their independence. They never “get the house to themselves.”

Parenting is never easy. But imagine adding 20 kids to your home — 20 kids with 20 different tragic life stories that led up to them joining your family. It’s not just admirable, it’s heroic.

A few of Asia's Hope's many wonderful parents.

It’s a joy to wake up every day and head into the office knowing that I’m working not only for the kids of Asia’s Hope, but for the staff. Please say a prayer today for all of the wonderful staff of Asia’s Hope — almost 150 in Cambodia, Thailand and India — for the home parents, the cooks, the teachers, the nurses and our country and regional directors. Pray that God will continue to bless and encourage them and reward them for their hard work and dedication.

May God bless all of our families and all those who care them.

John McCollum Comments
Heaven on earth, we need it now.

It’s 9:45 p.m. and I’m sitting in the Phnom Penh airport international departure terminal. I’ve been struggling with composing a post for almost a week now, partly out of busy-ness, partly out of melancholy.

The clouds started rolling in over my spirit about a week ago in Thailand, as I discussed with our national director the special medical, psychological and spiritual attention required for one of our children, an 11-year old girl. Starting when she was age 5 and ending only when she came to live with us three years ago, this young girl had been raped by a series of adult men in her village. Today she remains broken in spirit and in body.

Recently, I’ve reacquainted myself with the bios of the hundreds of kids we’ve placed in permanent, loving families over the past few years. Taken together, they read like an encyclopedia of sorrows – abandonment, abuse, death, homelessness. The suffering these kids have dealt with is unimaginable. So many have watched both parents die. So many others have endured being passed around as domestic servants or cheap laborers. It’s heavy stuff.

The clouds began to rain a couple of days ago as we said our goodbyes in Thailand and prepared to return to Cambodia for one last full day in Asia. This trip felt like a whirlwind. It seems like we didn’t have nearly enough time to really connect with the kids and staff we love so dearly.

This morning, I woke up at about 5:30 a.m. and resisted initially the temptation to check my emails for fear that I wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep after doing so. Something inside me said, “But what if someone has died? You should check.” Really. That was the thought that crossed my mind. I couldn’t shake it, so I picked up my iPhone and clicked on the email app. 

I noticed immediately the message from my wife titled “Very Important News.”

The rain turned to a hurricane, a flood, a tornado of horror and sadness as I read that my son’s friend Noah had been shot – accidentally -- and killed by another classmate.

Noah was a sweet, 14 year old boy who had latched onto our family over the last year or so. He had spent many nights at our house, and was Chien’s constant companion after school and at the pool. Noah was the kind of kid that really seemed to need the calming influence of a stable nuclear family; he probably enjoyed hanging out at our house more than any of Chien’s other friends.

Just hours before his death, he had been with Chien at our community fireworks display. And now he’s dead? It just doesn’t make any sense. None of the pat answers we tell ourselves and our children about God’s sovereignty and this fallen world seem to help at a time like this, much less the shallow greeting-card-platitudes that get bandied about inevitably when tragedy strikes.

None of that stands up very well against the poignant and excruciating reality reflected in a thousand Facebook posts from a bunch of shocked, dazed and heartbroken 9th graders: “OMG. I can’t believe I’m not going to see you any more!”

Oh my God indeed.

It’s only July and I’ve already had two friends shot to death this year. I’m beginning to hate these damned guns as much as I already hate cancer. What in God’s name is wrong with this world?

So today, I’ve walked around in some sort of a fog, carrying around this horror like some sort of disease. Nothing really tastes good, and I’ve got a throbbing behind my eyes that crying won’t wash away. My heart is broken for Noah’s family, for his girlfriend, for his classmates, for his friends who watched him die, for the boy who accidentally pulled the trigger. And for my son.

I feel completely helpless. All this happens and I’m 9,000 miles away. Trying to parent via Skype is difficult even in good times. It is most definitely time for me to go home. Time to hug my wife and all of my kids.

So what are we to think about all of this suffering? How are we supposed to reconcile the rape of a five year old girl in Thailand and the death of a 15 year old boy in Ohio with the idea of a loving God?

I’m not sure.

I mean, I can give you page after page of textbook answers. But the only comfort I can receive from my theology today comes from Jesus himself. I’m beyond grateful that God revealed himself to us not as some aloof celestial deity -- detached from all pain, all desires, all earthly attachments – but as a man of sorrows, closely acquainted with grief, a man who loved, who lost, who wept and who suffered an unfair, undignified death in a real country on this same earth we walk today. The One I pray to understands injustice and pain. I’m not sure I could be comforted by any other kind of god.

What other kind of god could offer any solace to an orphan or to child who has lost his best friend?

So I leave you with this prayer of lament and supplication, written by Bono. May God have mercy on us all.

 

Heaven on earth, we need it now.

I’m sick of all of this hanging around.

I’m sick of the sorrow, I’m sick of the pain.

I’m sick of hearing again and again

That there’s gonna be peace on earth.

 

Jesus, can you take the time to

Throw a drowning man a line?

Peace on earth.

We hear it every Christmas time

But hope and history don’t rhyme

So what’s it worth, this peace on earth?

John McCollum Comments