I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in a family with limited financial means. In addition to their day jobs, my parents took on extra work at times -- my dad as a janitor at the church, my mom selling AVON. As a result, we always had enough. But we were never anything close to wealthy.

We lived in a small house -- two adults, three kids in a three bedroom house with one bathroom. When I was 13, my maternal grandmother died, and left my parents a significant but not extravagant sum of money. I remember well three major purchases: a new but sensible Toyota Corolla, a trip for our family to Disneyworld and most significantly, a new house.

Left to right: Me, my brother Steve, my sister Julie. 1984.

I remember feeling as if we had somehow won the lottery. My parents picked out a floor plan, selected a builder and began to make modifications to suit our family's needs -- two and a half bathrooms, a living room with a wood-burning stove, a workshop for my dad in the basement and of most interest to this teenager, a room of my own that seemed huge: I mean, I could open the door without hitting my bed!

I remember vividly our visits to the construction site and our excitement as the house took shape -- first the foundation and cinder blocks, then the framing. When the second floor was finally roughed out, I could actually stand in my new bedroom. I paced out measurements on the dusty plywood floors, and figured out exactly where my bed would sit. I remember lying down on the floor before there was even a roof, closing my eyes and imagining what it would be like to shut my door, turn on some music and tune out the rest of the world in my own private space.

I'm sure my parents were stressed about the money and about the logistics of the project, but I loved everything about the building process. I loved the smells, the sounds, the sights. Most of all, I loved what the new house seemed to represent -- we certainly weren't rich, but we didn't feel poor anymore. I'm sure that our overall financial situation didn't change much at all with the purchase of the home, but as a kid, my stress about our family's fortunes was allayed -- unlike our old place, where everything seemed to be broken, everything was new, and in good condition.

How much more exciting it must be for the kids of Asia's Hope to watch the construction of their beautiful new homes at our Prek Eng campus! Most of these kids can still remember lives of real, not just imagined, destitution. They remember the death of their parents, their subsequent dislocation and the terror of being alone in a big, scary world. Some of our children were themselves heads-of-household facing the impossible task of providing food and shelter for younger siblings after their parents were killed, deported, imprisoned or ravaged by disease.

We've worked hard to provide each of these children everything they need, and thanks to our generous supporters and the hard work of our staff, they've recovered miraculously from the trauma of their youth. The homes they currently live in really are just fine. No one has to sleep outside, and there are gates we can close and lock at night. Mothers and Fathers now tuck them in at night and kiss them gently when they're sick or scared. But for years, I've wanted to do better for them.

The unstable property rental market in Phnom Penh has meant that some of these new families have had to move three, four, even five times over the last decade. And every time we outgrow or break something, we have to decide if it's worth investing in a property we're likely to lose at the end of the year. 

By 2011, our long-held plans for a permanent neighborhood-style campus in Phnom Penh started to take shape: the board approved a capital campaign, and we began gauging key donors' interest in the project. In July 2012, my son and I stood sizzling under the Cambodian sun with a couple of pastors from partnering churches, a few potential supporters and a handful of staff looking out over a nondescript plot of land, completely undeveloped except for a copse or two of tropical fruit trees and some untended and unruly chili plants wilting in the summer heat. We made a bold request of God: "Would you give us this land as an inheritance for our orphan children, and bless us with the resources we need to build permanent, high-quality homes, playgrounds and a school?"

For the sake of the kids and to His Glory, God has answered our prayers! Not only have we purchased the land, but we've finished construction on the school, nearly completed three of the five homes and have started building the fourth! And the homes aren't just adequate, they're beautiful. Each home has separate levels for boys and girls, apartments for staff, generous multipurpose living spaces and lots and lots of bathrooms. There's room for a soccer field and for playgrounds, and there's even adjacent land available that we could purchase if God provides the funds.

Yesterday, my family visited the site with the children from Prek Eng 2. As we pulled up to the gate of our property, the kids let out a cheer. As we spilled out of our cars, they grabbed us by our hands and dragged us, running toward their new house. "Come see! Come see!" they squealed as they led us around. "This is my bedroom, and this is mom and dad's. And this is the kitchen. And here is where we will study!"

"No swimming pool?" I joked. "No, but we can use this," one of the boys laughed, pointing toward the half-submerged septic tanks out back. Soriya, one of the teenage girls hugged me and said, "We can't wait to move in! It will be so nice to have all five homes on the same land -- we can improve our friendships, have lots of fun and feel very good."

In less than two weeks, we'll be dedicating the new campus with a ribbon-cutting ceremony that will be attended by some of the people who helped fund the project. God willing, the campus will be finished and furnished by the end of the year.

But we still have work to do. We've raised more than $600,000 for this project in just over a year, and we haven't even really gone "public" with our needs. But we've seen before, the last dollars are often harder to raise than the first. And we still have about $170,000 to go before we can build Prek Eng 5, outfit the homes, church and school and get the campus ready for full occupancy. 

To be honest, I don't know where that money is going to come from. But I do know a couple of things. 

1. God will provide these funds; and
2. God will bless everyone who helps with this project.

I really believe this. I've already seen God work miraculously on behalf of these kids. He's used rich people, and he's used people of very, very modest means.

The stories of generosity will be told for generations on earth and in heaven. One of these homes was built with funds that came from a family who, along with their children, decided that their house was bigger than they needed. They sold it, moved to a smaller one and gave us the money we needed to provide a permanent home for 25 once-orphaned kids!

Churches have taken special offerings. Kids have done bake sales. Businesses have tithed profits. Families have given tax refunds. Young couples have given money they were saving for downpayments on first homes.

As Proverbs 19:17 says, "He who is kind to the poor lends to God." Matthew 19:29 says, "Everyone who has left houses...or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life."

At the risk of sounding like one of those crazy guys on TV, will you talk to your spouse, your kids, your boss and your pastor? Will you ask them to pray about joining us and finishing up this project for the sake of these wonderful children? 

We've set up a giving page on our web site. If you click on "Capital Project in Prek Eng," you can give via credit card. You can also send checks through the mail. And, of course, you can email me directly if you have any questions about this project.

Join with those who have already been blessed by their participation. Together and with God's help, we can do this! I look forward to celebrating with you as God continues to provide for the kids and staff of Asia's Hope.

As my trip winds down, I find that I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts into cogent, bite-sized chunks. The importance of the things I need to say seems to be inversely proportionate to my blogging ability. So today, instead of writing about, say, the progress on the new Prek Eng campus, I'm going to show you pictures of smiling kids. 

We spent the day hanging out with the Prek Eng 3 and Prek Eng 4 kids. I hope you'll enjoy some of my pics. 

5:30 a.m. and the Jumanji sounds are once again emanating from the bowels of this hotel. And there's apparently someone pulling cats backwards through cheese graters on my balcony. Oh, wait. That's the wedding party a block down the street. Judging from decibel levels alone, it seems they rented their sound system from the Rolling Stones' most recent world tour. And then shot it repeatedly and at close range.

Adding menace to the mayhem, government propaganda is blaring from the large and horribly bespeakered pickup truck parked just outside my hotel, courtesy Prime Minister Hun Sen and the Cambodian People's Party.

It sounds like Clara Peller being bludgeoned to death. With the AFLAC duck.

So let's just say that, while I like the sound of a live goat being eaten by a condor as much as the next guy, it hasn't been the most relaxing morning.

I was hoping to get a little more sleep, as we're planning our own noisy "people's party" tonight, a dance and ice cream extravaganza at the Asia's Hope campus. Perhaps some late-night Gangam Style or Cotton Eyed Joe will be sufficient payback for the aural affliction imposed on us this fine Cambodian morning. I'll throw in some Call Me Maybe if I'm feeling sufficiently retributive.

Sleep-deprived snarkiness aside, we're having a pretty great time here in Battambang. Our little piece of heaven in Battambang, Cambodia really is one of the happiest places on earth. Inside the gates of our community, the sick get healed and orphans get families. It's really extraordinary, and if you haven't been here, you really can't get the full sense of what it's like. If my photos and stories convey even half, it's a minor miracle.

We've spent hour after joyful hour with our kids and staff, and are really going to miss them when we say good bye after tonight's party. Tomorrow morning we will pack up the car and drive to Phnom Penh, where we'll spend a week with our friends and family there. 

I can't wait to see the new campus taking shape in Prek Eng -- just one year ago it was an empty field. Today it's something quite different. There's a church and a school and homes being built. We still need more funding to finish the project, but it'll be amazing to see in person the progress I've been following through emails and Facebook all year.

So, be encouraged. I am. There's a lot of bad, bad stuff going on this world. But there is also profound good. It's a privilege to be a part of what God is doing here.

Even though I'm 8,000 miles from Columbus, Ohio, returning to Battambang always feels like coming home.

After church on Sunday in Phnom Penh, we packed all of our bags and all six of us into the car Savorn graciously lent me, and we drove to Battambang. I made the five hour trip in just four, but we were still too tired to make it out to the campus. We relaxed at our hotel for the evening, and had a nice breakfast in the morning.

We ran some errands, grabbed some lunch and headed out to Asia's Hope Battambang in the early afternoon. What a joy to see old friends and family! Many of our BB1 kids are already grown, and I had the chance to see 24-year old Phearum, who was visiting from Thailand and spend time with 23-year old Chhem, who is finishing her undergraduate degree at a local university. We also had the pleasure of meeting the 25 new kids from Battambang 9! They are still a little apprehensive, but they're getting more comfortable with their new families every single day.

The campus is looking great. It's been two years since Kori has been in Battambang, and she was amazed to see the progress. At her last visit, we had only four homes on the campus. Today, we have nine.  We've expanded Hope Fellowship Church, built a learning center with three classrooms and a silversmithing lab, and added a sewing center where more than 30 of our girls and a handful of our staff are learning the art of tailoring. The footers have been poured for BB10, and construction pace will pick up as the rainy season subsides.

Our campus is taking shape as a safe and affirming neighborhood for our Asia's Hope families. When BB10 is complete, we will have almost 300 children and 50 staff living there full time! It's like a little preview of heaven, where the poor are fed and clothed, and the orphans are placed in families. Amazing stuff, and an honor to be a part of it.  

We played in the hot sun for about 6 hours and finally headed back to the city for a late dinner and bed. 

We drove this morning about a half hour outside the city to ancient Banan temple for some sightseeing and a picnic lunch with our Battambang home parents. I love these guys. They work so hard. They welcome and care for the children as if they were their own. Theirs are 24-hour a day jobs, and it was an honor to be there guests for a traditional Khmer meal -- grilled chicken, wild boar, rabbit, dried fish and rice. 

We're taking a quick break at the hotel before heading back out to the campus for some more fun and games with the kids. We probably won't push ourselves as hard as we did last night, as we're hoping to stay healthy so we can enjoy the next two weeks with our Cambodian family.

Enjoy the pictures -- they can't adequately capture the beauty of our experience here, but maybe they can give you a little taste. 

Well, I finally have a computer. I don't have the correct cables to hook it up to my old one to transfer files, but I'm thankful that I can pull photos off my camera, access Dropbox and write blog posts and emails. 

My status as a technology "have not" has kept me from posting a wrapup from India, and now I'm not sure where to start. We're in Cambodia right now. We arrived late last night, met up with our good friend, Peter Shumaker, and got to bed at about 1:30 a.m. At 8:30 a.m., I preached a short and hopefully coherent sermon at our church in Phnom Penh. Afterwards, we said goodbye and drove to Battambang, about 5 hours outside the capitol. We're safely at our hotel, and we plan on having some dinner and hitting the pool. We considered visiting the campus tonight, but everyone is pretty darn tired. We'll relax this evening and be fresh for tomorrow.

Despite the computer problems, the India trip finished well. The Scarlet City Church team was wonderful, and they took a ton of great photos and video that I can't wait to share with you soon.  I have lots of pics of my own, so many in fact that I can only post a small portion of them here. 

We enjoyed a church service with our Kalimpong staff and kids, and also had the privilege of baptizing some of them. We then took all of the older kids to Darjeeling to visit the zoo. It poured down rain most of the day, and was quite cold. Nevertheless, it was a great time. We said our goodbyes to the kids after a great day, and spent the night in town before heading down to Siliguri. 

We spent most of the day driving through heavy fog. We zigzagged back and forth across the India/Nepal border, but were unable to see much of Nepal. I can say that I urinated in the country along the roadside. Too much information, I know. But I was happy to step foot in Nepal and add it to my list of countries visited.  And I had to pee. Again, too much information, I know.

Along the way, the rain stopped long enough to allow us a short hike into the tea fields. To call them beautiful would be an understatement, and I have neither the talent nor the equipment to do them justice in photographs. I will cherish the memories every time I drink a cup of Darjeeling tea.

We visited a plot of land that we would one day like to buy -- if we could swing the whole piece, we could put at least 10 homes there! But more on that later. We still have to finish our project in Cambodia; let's not get ahead of ourselves... 

We all flew to Delhi, and the Scarlet City guys left for home. My family and Adam hit the city to do some sightseeing. Delhi is an amazing place, everything you can imagine in an ancient Indian city and more. We stopped at a perfumery that has been in business since 1816, and bought some custom scents. We ate more naan than you'd think possible, and may have had closure on tandoori chicken. At least for a week or so. 

I miss India already, especially the staff and kids. Please keep praying for church partners; we desperately need at least two new churches to take over the sponsorship of homes in Kalimpong.

Thank you for making all of this possible through your prayers and financial support. Together we're changing the world. 

Well, today has been a day of both frustration and joy. Frustration? My laptop is broken beyond repair, or at least beyond the kind of repair I can get here. I've ordered a replacement, which will be coming via a friend next week, but I'm frustrated. Aside from the money I've had to spend, I have no access to some of my important files and no way of editing photos. I have meetings this week that require, at least theoretically, some of those files.

Sigh. First world problems, right? 

So I'm trying to take things in stride and not stress too much about things I can't control. I am praying that when I do get the new one, I'll be able to transfer all of the files. There was no impact damage, so I'm assuming the data is fine. 

For now, I'll try to relax and thank God that I have an iPad to keep up with correspondences and put up some posts, rudimentary as they may be. I'm thankful that we have another -- and better -- photographer on this trip. I'll try to post links to Danny Jackson's photos so you can see what's going on in India.

Other than catastrophic technical failure of the ol' MacBook, today was pretty great. We took some time in the morning to explore the town of Kalimpong, wandering its crowded and somewhat chaotic streets. We bought a couple scarves at a local textile shop, and spent an hour or so in the produce market marveling at the sights, sounds and smells.This is truly a remarkable country with many extraordinary experiences to be had. 

After lunch, we joined a large group of our kids and staff at a swimming pool a couple miles from town. The water was quite cold, as the temperature here has been in the 60s and perhaps 70s for weeks, but I had the privilege of baptizing six people -- one staff member, two staff children and three of our teenagers. What an honor to share this important milestone in these people's lives.  

Tomorrow morning we'll join all of the kids and staff for church. Gabe DeGarmeaux will preach, Adam, Janelle and I will sing, as will all of the Asia's Hope kids. It's a long service -- at least two hours, so I hope my own kids emerge with good attitudes intact. But I can't wait. Who knows? Maybe God will heal my laptop while we're in the service. Stranger things have happened.

Yesterday, Nandu and I left Kalimpong extra early to pick up the team from Scarlet City Church -- just in case. Over the last week or so, there have been numerous landslides and boulder bounces along the road to Siliguri, and we knew there was a chance we'd be delayed. 

Not far outside of town, Nandu noticed that there was no traffic coming from the other direction and correctly concluded that the road must be closed somewhere down the line. He made a phone call to confirm, and we pulled off to take the "scenic" route. The route was indeed picturesque -- soaring mountains and plunging valleys, pine forests draped in prayer flags and hillside tea plantations shrouded in fog. It was also twice as far. Instead of going directly to Siliguri, we went first to Darjeeling and then cut over, adding at least two hours to the journey.

Not far from Darjeeling we stopped at a little town and ordered momos -- the local version of pork dumplings -- and tea. Once again, our breakfast proved that the very best meals can be found in the simplest establishments. No New York chef could have improved on any facet of the meal, and we ate our fill for only a couple of dollars.

We arrived at the airport just in time. The team's plane arrived on time, and they stumbled out onto the tarmac and into the tiny Bagdogra airport. Relieved but slightly rumpled from more than 30 hours of travel, all five of them -- plus my good friend and board member Adam Heath -- gathered their bags and exchanged tired greetings with Nandu and me before grabbing a bite to eat with us and heading on up the mountain towards Kalimpong. We encountered heavy traffic and some sketchy pavement conditions on the way up, but were able to take the main road which had been cleared from the earlier landslides. 

Four hours later, we arrived in Kalimpong, ate dinner at the hotel and headed to bed. Overnight my oldest son, Chien, developed some stomach trouble, and spent most of the hours between 10pm and 3am vomiting. He stayed at the hotel all day, while the rest of my family and the team joined the kids and staff for a 3 hour dance and music recital, an hour or so of games and freestyle disco madness. We then enjoyed a wonderful lunch made by our staff and members of Nandu's church.

The kids were awesome. They've been working for months on their songs and routines, and they were just radiant. All of us were moved by their performances and felt the love of God just wash over all in attendance. 

Tomorrow we will spend the day playing with the kids, most of whom have finished school for the term. Saturday, we're doing more activities and having a baptism service. Sunday, church. Monday, we'll be taking about 50 of the kids up to Darjeeling with us to see the zoo, have a picnic and play games. And so on. And before we know it, the trip will be finished. The Scarlet City team will return to Columbus, and my family will head to Cambodia.  

I hope you enjoy the pictures. They can't begin to convey the beauty and the joy we're experiencing here. But at least you'll have a little taste. 

Executive Director John McCollum with 3 year old Anjela

At three years old, Anjela faced more danger than I have seen in my entire life.

Her mother had committed suicide and her father, an alcoholic, went on blinding benders for days at a time. When he ran out of money for drink, he would sell one of his children, usually for less than $100. When he finally sobered up, he never knew what happened to his now missing child. 

All of Anjela's four older siblings had already been sold as slaves. Only Anjela remained. Her father, drinking again, was on the brink of handing Anjela over to traffickers in exchange for a few dollars when she was rescued by a local pastor in her hometown of Jaigon, near the India-Bhutan border.

When she came to Asia's Hope just a few short months ago, she was emaciated and traumatized. Today, she is healthy and happy, and shares a home with loving parents and other children like her. 

Unfortunately, Anjela's home does not yet have a sponsoring church to provide permanent funding. Of course we will never let a child go simply because we do not have a church partner, but we are taking funds from other places to support this home, and we cannot rescue any more kids until we can sustain funding for those already in our care. 

Please pray for Asia's Hope. Pray that we can find church sponsors immediately for two more homes in India.  In the meantime, will you consider giving or asking your church or company to give where most needed so we can continue to provide Anjela and the kids without a sponsoring church the same great care we give all of our children?

Contact me directly if you have any leads on a partnering church!