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Children at the Asia's Hope School in Kalimpong, India

A couple of years ago, one of our partnering churches had printed up some t-shirts to give to the kids in the home that they sponsor. The shirts read, "I Am Asia's Hope."

The staff offered me one, and I accepted it to be polite, but I knew I could never wear it. In fact, I really don't want any of our Western ministry partners, U.S.-based Asia's Hope staff or any of our donors to ever wear one of those shirts.

You see, the "I Am Asia's Hope" is a message that only our staff and the kids in our homes in Cambodia, Thailand and India can and should carry. 

It's for them, not us, that our organization is named. On occasion and in retrospect I've second guessed the naming of our ministry. I'm not sure what else we would have called it, but I regret that it's caused misunderstanding once or twice. I remember, for instance, when someone asked me, "Don't you think it's a little arrogant to suppose that a bunch of white guys in America are Asia's Hope?" Oy vey. As if.

We spent a few hours this afternoon at the Asia's Hope school here in Kalimpong. It's a wonderful landing place for our younger kids who are often not ready to be mainstreamed into public schools, given their rough and often traumatic early years. Our teachers are so patient, so kind to the little ones. It's an honor to serve with them.

I told the kids that they're same age now as their older brothers and sisters in Cambodia and Thailand were when I first met them. And now, those same kids are graduating from high school, heading to university, getting married, starting jobs and preparing to take leadership positions in their society. Among our students, we have future physicians and physicists, preachers and teachers, barbers and tailors. We'll have judges and legislators, moms and dads. 

I'm not joking or indulging in hyperbole when I say that the kids in our care really do represent the best hope for their community, their country and even their continent. These kids are growing, as the Bible says, "in favor with God and with man." So many of them are passionate in their faith and diligent in their studies. If my own kids grew up as well as some of the Asia's Hope kids have, I'd be the happiest dad on the planet.

So while I pray for things like political stability, improved infrastructure and economic development, the real hope for Asia is a generation of Godly children. Sure, their number is small. But God changed the world with 12 dudes from a backwater in a dusty corner of the Roman empire. Imagine what he can do with 750 former orphans...

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Darjeeling. I'll post more pictures later, but the internet is very slow up here...

Variety is one of India's most beguiling attributes. Mark Twain is reputed to have written of her, "Anything that can be said about India is simultaneously both true and false." The subcontinent is home to myriad languages and ethnic groups, customs and clothes, religions and gods, climates and topographies.

It's boiling in Delhi (118F today), simmering in Siliguri and nearly freezing here in clammy, wet Darjeeling. Of the three cities, Darjeeling is my clear favorite, despite the abysmal early-Spring-in-Ohio weather we're having here tonight.

We arrived in India two nights ago around midnight. By the time we cleared immigration, retrieved our bags and reached our hotel, it was almost 2am -- and the next day's morning's was scheduled to depart at 7:05. That meant about three hours of sleep after nearly 12 hours of traveling. We could have probably slept at the airport and saved a little money, but it was probably good that we got at least a little real shut-eye in a real bed. 

We got to the airport in time for our morning flight, and after about four hours, we arrived in steamy Siliguri. We had planned on having lunch in Siliguri and driving anywhere from three to 11 hours -- it all depends on the road conditions on any given day -- to reach Kalimpong by nightfall. Our host Nandu, however, had a much better idea. Let's stay the night in Siliguri, sleep in late and drive to Darjeeling for a couple days of fellowship and recreation before going to Kalimpong, where Asia's Hope is headquartered.

After enjoying a pretty decent night's sleep, we did just that. Despite consisting of hundreds of perilous hairpin turns along steep mountain paths, the road to Darjeeling from Siliguri is in much better condition than the one to Kalimpong. We stopped along the way in Kurseong to enjoy freshly-made Tibeten momo dumplings and tea.

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Delicious momos in Kurseong.

The closer we got to Darjeeling, the worse the weather became. The temperatures dropped, the spattering of rain turned into a steady drizzle and the light fog that had clung to the distant mountains for the first portion of our drive now enveloped us. Having visited Darjeeling before in January, when the monsoon rains make way for blue skies and Himalayan vistas, I'd agree that it's much nicer other times of the year; you really can't see much right now. But what you can see is beautiful nevertheless.

We checked into the preposterously charming Cedar Inn which, I've been assured, usually offers stunning views of the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. This hotel is a mix between a Swiss ski resort and a Wes Anderson movie set in the late 1970s. After a couple hours of rest, we headed into town to tour the shopping district. In the past, I've bought tea from Nathmull's or a Pashmina shawl from one of the many fine purveyors of woolen delicates. This time, it was raining so hard, the only thing I bought was an umbrella.

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Nicholas and Apphia, Nandu and Anu Gurung's kids; My daughter Xiu Dan.

I don't know if it's the altitude, the travel or some sort of bug, but I'm feeling kind of lousy. It's difficult to breathe and I'm not sleeping well. Thankfully, we're spending another day in Darjeeling with Nandu's family, so I won't have to endure another long road trip this morning. I'm hoping to recover quickly -- I'd like to enjoy some quiet time with my family (Indian and American).

Anyway, my mild discomfort excepted, we're having a good time in India. Thanks for your prayers and your words of encouragement.

Well, our brief time in Vietnam is coming to an end. It's been a good experience for us. By stringing together all of our "days off"  and putting them at the beginning of the trip, it's allowed us to ease into our time in Asia and get over jet lag before jumping right into ministry and work time. It also means that we're pretty much going non-stop from here on out, and that we won't be enjoying any buffers between the various legs of our journey. It's a bit of a gamble, but we're betting that it will work out okay.

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Pictured left to right: Pak, John, Kori, Xiu Dan and Chien McCollum in Hanoi, Vietnam

In the past, we've gone almost directly from the last day of school to the first day on mission with no time at all for adjustment. This year, we've enjoyed the opportunity to spend a few days as a family, and I think it's been healthy. Vietnam is a special place to us, the birthplace of our love for and commitment to Asia. 

On our way back from breakfast this morning, we paused briefly in front of the former Claudia Hotel where, 16 years ago, a rust-red Chevy Suburban rolled to a stop and produced an old Vietnamese woman who, without a word, handed a tiny sleeping infant whose name, Chien, was written on his arm in blue ballpoint pen to a couple of mostly-clueless kids from Ohio who really had no idea what they were getting themselves into. It's almost unbelievable that Chien is almost an adult, ready -- at least in theory -- to navigate the world without us to guide and protect him. I'm not sure who's more unprepared for our oldest son to leave the nest, him or me. 

Ugh. Ouch.

But I digress. Tomorrow afternoon we head off toward India to spend a few weeks with our Asia's Hope family in India. Our travel schedule will be pretty intense until we reach Kalimpong -- Bangkok, Mumbai, Kolkata, Siliguri -- I think we miss a night's sleep in there somewhere. After a week by ourselves, we'll be joined for a couple weeks by Addison Smith, Asia's Hope's project manager and Jared Heveron, a videographer from Columbus, Ohio. Later, we'll be joined by other friends, colleagues and co-workers for various portions of the summer.

While in India, Cambodia and Thailand, we'll be interviewing, photographing, documenting. We'll be consulting, planning and strategizing. We'll also be laughing, singing and playing. If all goes well, we'll leave Asia with all of the documents, stories and hugs we'll need to keep the organization running smoothly until next summer's trip.

I'm sure that there will be hitches -- attitudes will falter, shots will be missed, phones will be stolen (as mine was last night), luggage will be lost and appointments will be unavoidably missed. But for now, despite a few minor mishaps, the McCollum family is holding up pretty well, and we're heading into the rest of the summer in good spirits and as much esprit de corps as a couple of teenagers, an old married couple and a fourth grader can be reasonably expected to possess. 

It's morning now. We leave in a few hours. But first, I'm going to head off to the stolen phone black market area of town to see if I can find and buy mine back, or at least get a good deal on one lost by some other hapless traveler.

When Kori and I first visited Hanoi, Vietnam 16 years ago to adopt Chien, the city was unlike anything we'd ever experienced. We were impressed and, at times, nearly overwhelmed by what seemed like a constant barrage of sights, smells and sounds. Hanoi seemed a blur, a blender. Everyone was honking and shouting and bustling from before sunup to way after my bed time.

After 20-some trips to Southeast Asia, this place seems to have slowed down quite a bit. Compared to, say, Phnom Penh, traffic in Hanoi is downright orderly, and commerce is positively genteel. This morning, Chien and I were walking around the Old Quarter, and a motorcycle came buzzing towards us down the middle of the sidewalk. We stepped aside without thinking and Chien observed, "A few years ago that would have freaked me out." Yeah. Me too.

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Breakfast in Hanoi

It would be easy to become jaded: "Oh. A motorcycle with four live pigs stacked on the back like firewood. Ho hum." "Guy has his arm inside a cow's rectum. Nothing to see here." "Weasel poop coffee and phở for breakfast. Again?" I'll admit that I'm not as easily scared, amazed or impressed -- I don't walk the streets, slack-jawed in a gobsmacked daze. But I've worked hard to maintain my sense of wonder.

I don't take any of this for granted, and I hope my kids don't either. Stewardship of this ministry is an awesome privilege. In just a few days, we'll be heading to India, flying into Mumbai, passing through Kolkata, driving through the Darjeeling foothills of the Himalayas and spending a few days with orphaned kids and the wonderful people who have rescued them and welcomed them into their family. I get to call them my friends. They remember me and I remember them. I'll get to watch them grow up, get married and have kids. That's my day job. 

Wow. 

I'm not sure how or why this happened, but I'm humbled and I'm still surprised that I get to represent Jesus -- and all of you -- in Cambodia, Thailand, India and beyond. 

This summer is just beginning. Soon, we'll be with the kids and staff. I'll try to keep the posts and photos interesting! Keep praying for us.

After nearly 30 hours in the air and in airports, we arrived in Hanoi at about 10pm last night. Even though it was dark, it was clear upon approach that some aspects of Hanoi, specifically Noi Bai airport, have changed  since our last visit 16 years ago. Last time, the airport was just a low-slung concrete 1960s-style box with a couple of runways and a dozen or so water buffalos lazily munching along the tarmac. 

Today's Noi Bai is a modern, glass-and-steel airport with airconditioned jetways and flat screen TVs. The intimidating middle-aged soldiers unhappily stamping huge ledger books with blood-red crests and seals have been replaced by bored twenty-something functionaries indolently scanning passports into modern PCs. It's all very efficient, but somehow disappointing from a travelogue standpoint.

We made our way through immigration and baggage claim with no trouble at all, and were greeted by a driver with "MR. JOHN MCCOLLUM" written on a placard. After a 40 minute drive on a modern interstate highway, we reached Hanoi. The outskirts of the city certainly start out a bit farther than I remember them, and I'm certain that there weren't nearly this many shiny hotels. There may or may not have been a shopping mall.

When we finally reached the Old Quarter, I smiled and sighed -- this is Hanoi as I remembered it: tightly packed buildings, each about 6 feet wide and 4 stories high; street corners filled with shirtless men sitting on red plastic stools drinking weak yellow beer and smoking white filterless cigarettes. The smells, the sounds, the signs -- some things haven't changed much at all.

We checked into the Hanoi Central Hotel, which is unsurprisingly a hotel in the center of, well, Hanoi. It's cheap, but it works. There's no hot water and the bathroom smells a bit like sewage, but the internet is fast and there are a couple of English-speaking TV channels. The location makes up for the simple amenities: it's just a block from lake Hoan Kiem, and is in the heart of the city's oldest neighborhoods. When we adopted Chien, we stayed just a couple of blocks away.

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Chien and me at the Thuy Ta Cafe today.

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Chien and Kori at the Thuy Ta Cafe, June 1998.

The boys went to their room, and Kori, Xiu Dan and I tried our best to get some sleep by around 12:30 a.m. Aided by Ambien, I got a couple of hours of decent shuteye. Thanks to jetlag, I was wide awake again by 5:00. At around 6:00, I took a cold shower, got dressed and grabbed my camera. When I got down to the lobby, the desk clerk was still asleep on the floor. He quickly got up and let me out, and I hit the streets. 

I headed straight for the lake and wandered among the hundreds of Hanoians exercising in the cool of the morning. The lake is an oasis of tranquility in the heart of the busy capital city. Young men jog and lift weights, children play badminton, and old women practice Tai Chi under the boughs of ancient willow trees. A red lacquered bridge stretches from the west bank to a tiny pagoda on an island in the center of the lake where tourists snap pictures and supplicants burn incense at the shrined dedicated to the magic turtle who once returned the sword of power to King Ly Thai To.

There are fewer cyclos and bikes and more cars. Most of the motos are fizzy, late-model Honda Dreams and Yamaha 125cc jobs, rather than the Super Cub C90s that used to burble around the streets, but little else has changed in the heart of the city. Tired yet mighty worker-women still waddle the sidewalks with heavy bundles of fruit on poles over their shoulders, men still chop glistening piles of grilled meatparts on heavy wooden cutting boards and hungry Hanoians of all ages still slurp steaming bowls of phở from metal folding tables at streetside cafes.

After locating and photographing the Thuy Ta Cafe where Kori and I used to feed baby Chien stacks of Ritz crackers and the Claudia Hotel where we first became a family, I returned to the hotel, gathered the family and headed out for breakfast. We found a tiny family-run restaurant serving the city's famous beef noodle soup, phở, and reminded ourselves once again why we don't bother ordering the stuff very often in Columbus, Ohio. If Hanoi wasn't filled to the brim with other, equally-tasty treats, I could eat a bowl of at salty, spicy and slightly-oily brisket-and-broth for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

We strolled around the lake, visited the pagoda and grabbed tea and fruit smoothies at the Thuy Ta -- that was about all we had energy for, and we have returend to our hotel for a couple hours of rest before lunch. By tomorrow morning, we should be mostly adjusted to the new schedule, and will be ready for full days of fun.

I love this place. I'm more accustomed to the heat, the pace of city life and the profound Asianness of the place than I was 16 years ago, but I'm not jaded. I've worked hard to maintain my sense of wonder throughout my 20+ trips to this part of the world, and so far, it's paying off with a great visit to Hanoi. 

Pak and Xiu Dan are enjoying themselves. Kori and I are definitely a bit emotional. Chien seems to be quietly taking it all in. "It's kind of strange being here," he said. Yeah. It is. But I'm glad we're all here together.

The name "Asia's Hope" first emerged at a Denny's restaurant in Mansfield, Ohio. It was halfway between Columbus, where I live, and Wooster, where my co-founder Dave lived. Dave and I had started meeting there on a monthly basis over hash browns and eggs shortly after we returned from a short term missions trip he had led to Cambodia in the summer of 2000.

So, the organization -- at least the formal incarnation of it -- technically started about 14 years ago when we put a name and a shape to a commitment we'd made to each other and to God to move beyond intermittent involvement in God's work in Asia to an ongoing commitment to raising funds and recruiting supporters. But when I answer the question, "How did you get into this kind of work?" my answer always starts in 1997, a few years prior to the founding of Asia's Hope. 

Kori and I had moved back to Columbus from Detroit, and had started the long, arduous and expensive process of adopting from Vietnam. 

Kori, Chien and I in Hanoi, Vietnam, June 1998

We didn't choose to adopt out of any distinct calling to serve orphaned kids, and we didn't select Vietnam due to any longstanding interest in the continent of Asia. We just felt like adoption was God's plan for us to start a family, and the only programs that would take a couple in our situation -- we had only been married 5 years, and had no diagnosis of infertility -- were Guatemala and Vietnam. And when we prayed about it, Vietnam seemed to be the right choice. But as soon as we started filling out the paperwork, our hearts started to shift toward a country that previously only existed to us as the site of disastrous war.

By the time we were approved to travel to Hanoi to meet our little baby son, Chiến, were were already fascinated by and drawn to Vietnam. We had read every book we could lay our hands on, had begun cooking Vietnamese recipes and had even briefly considered trying to learn Vietnamese (we gave up after we realized that we were completely unable to distinguish between the six tones, the slightest mispronunciation of which render the speaker incomprehensible).

From the moment we touched down at the Nội Bài International Airport, we were in love with the country -- the sights, the smells, the tastes, but especially the people. The chaos that other travelers found so daunting was for us invigorating -- even a painful run-in with a motorcycle on our first night in Vietnam couldn't dampen the spirits of my wife Kori, who is by nature an introvert. Both she and I relished the jet lag, the bruises, the traffic and the bewildering trappings of communist bureaucracy as fascinating components of this grand adventure. And while other adoptive families we met were stressing out over the dirt and the apparent disorganization of the city, Kori, Chien and I found the entire experience enchanting -- enchanting, but also challenging.

People on the streets of Hanoi's Old Quarter, June 2008

A guard at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, Hanoi, 2008

Beyond the thrill of engaging with a new culture and the joy of finally taking custody of our perfect, long-awaited little boy, we encountered for the first time real, grinding poverty. We saw women my wife's age begging on the streets holding emaciated children my new son's age. We witnessed firsthand the deleterious effects of even a short stay in an underfunded, institutional, state-run orphanage; our son was in good health, but many of the other babies being adopted were gaunt, listless and covered with sores. 

Before traveling to Vietnam, the plight of the world's orphaned and poor was only theoretically real to us. After only a couple of weeks in Southeast Asia, we felt as if the "brown smudge of poverty" that had previously haunted the shadows of our consciousness resolved into vivid detail and had forced their way onto our worldview's center stage. The "least and the last" now had real faces, and to us, those faces were Vietnamese.

How quickly those sharply drawn images faded when we returned home to America. We had a new baby to care for, and I had just started a business. Within a few months, we had adopted Pak, our second child (an interesting story in itself, but one that will have to wait for another time) and the people of Southeast Asia were no longer front and center in our wide array of daily concerns.

Nevertheless, something had changed. We watched the news differently. Our ears would perk up whenever we heard the word "Vietnam." We'd squeeze each others hands when we walked past an Asian kid. Our politics, or at least our political lens, started to change as well, and we realized that we were no longer comfortable advocating for things that might be good for us, but bad for poor people on the other side of the world.

We started seriously considering becoming full-time missionaries somewhere. We were only temporarily deterred when our missions pastor told us, "We've talked about this, and we don't think that this is your calling." We just couldn't stop thinking about Asia and orphans and poor people and refugees. So when our church's youth pastor said, "I know you guys really love Vietnam, but would you ever consider doing anything in Cambodia? I have a friend who takes mission trips there every summer..." it was sort of a no-brainer. "Of course I'm interested."

At any rate, I'm really excited and quite emotional about our upcoming summer trip. We're leaving on June 2. And before we visit the Asia's Hope staff and kids in Cambodia, Thailand and India, we'll be taking something of a pilgrimage back to Vietnam. It'll be our first time in the country since we adopted Chiến almost 15 years ago to the day. We're going to retracing our steps -- visiting the Claudia Hotel, strolling around Lake Hoan Kiem, noshing at the Thuy Ta café where we fed our little baby Ritz crackers and watched the city pass by -- maybe even trying to find the site of the former Tu Liem Orphanage, which has since been torn down. 

As Asia's Hope heads toward its 15th year and our son into his 17th, this seemed a good time to reflect on how this all started for us. And we invite you to join us on this journey. I'll be blogging a lot over the next two months, posting a ton of pictures and stories. I hope you'll rejoice with us as we celebrate this wonderful life that God has give us. I also pray that you will feel compelled to reflect with gratitude on wherever it was that you received your calling.

And if you haven't heard God's spirit call you to a deeper, more significant role in his kingdom, I pray that this will be your year, one you'll look back upon with gratitude and joy.

God himself cares for orphans and expects his people to do so as well. This much is not particularly controversial. It’s barely debatable.

But as we move past the theological and abstract into the practical and concrete, things quickly get much more complex. How we should care for the world’s 150,000,000 orphans?

We all recoil in disgust at the notion that any child should ever be sentenced to languish—untaught and unloved—in a squalid, Dickensian, prison-like institution. This healthy aversion to the warehousing of orphaned children has led many governments and charitable organizations to emphasize family preservation and kinship adoption as alternatives to orphanages—considering these the “best-case scenario” solutions.

It has also driven many of us who do provide permanent residential orphan care to develop healthier models of service. Asia’s Hope, the organization I work for, has spent the last 14 years investing in family-style residential care, where orphaned and abandoned children are placed with full-time moms and dads, uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters. They are afforded the best possible education, counseling and life skills training available. Many of our graduates are successful university students, entrepreneurs, and professionals; their success outpaces even that of many of their non-orphaned peers.

Unfortunately, in an attempt to avoid the tragic mistakes of the past, an increasing number of orphan advocates now consider the permanent placement of a child into any kind of residential care setting an out-dated, inhumane, and ultimately harmful option. Some have even called for a moratorium on the establishment of all new orphanages and the closure of existing ones. The proposed Children in Families First Act, for example, will pressure foreign nations to limit the growth of or even eliminate orphanages and group homes as a condition of U.S. aid.

This kind of overcorrection is misguided and dangerous, and risks throwing out literal babies with the proverbial bathwater.

There is no credible scenario under which the proposed alternatives can be implemented for the vast majority of our world’s 150,000,000 orphans. According to some estimates, a child is orphaned every second of every single day, often as a result of abuse, neglect, extreme poverty or mental illness. We are already way behind in providing even the most basic resources for these children; we can hardly afford to discard, disparage or defund improved, improving and improvable care models that are working today.

The practical obstacles to global implementation of alternative care models aside, there will always be some cases in which residential orphan care will provide the best solution for an orphaned child.

Due to general scarcity of resources and lack of social service structures in many impoverished countries, the vast majority of orphaned children alive today will never benefit from the kinds of care advocated by orphanages’ most vocal opponents. As Christians who care about orphans, we certainly need to fund and advocate for organizations working to keep children in their families and communities of origins. But we also need to recognize that there will always be some cases in which residential orphan care will provide the best solution for an orphaned child.

In my experience, there are children for whom a placement with an aunt, uncle or grandparent — or adoption by a member of the community — would provide an experience inferior to placement in a well-funded, properly organized orphanage:

1) When a foster, adoptive or kinship care placement would separate siblings that could be kept together in a residential program.

 So often kinship care or adoption splits up a primary family relationship (brother to sister, for instance) to maintain a secondary or tertiary (uncle to nephew, grandmother to granddaughter). By placing an entire sibling group—intact—into a children’s home, we are actively preserving the most important remaining bonds an orphan child needs to be successful in life.

2) When the child’s status as an orphan would relegate them to an inferior or subservient role within the home

 Children placed with extended family often fall prey to the “Cinderella Syndrome,” where they are permanently relegated to an underclass within the family. The family’s birth children go to school and receive a larger portion of the family’s emotional and material support, while the orphaned children are resented and or treated as domestic servants. In an excellent residential care setting, each child can be guaranteed equal treatment, regardless of their social status or the circumstances that led them to orphanhood.

3) When foster-care or kinship placement is likely to be temporary

Stability and permanence plays a greater role in predicting long-term success for a child than familial proximity or even family size. We see this clearly in American children’s services structures, where kids are bounced back and forth between unsafe and unstable birth families and temporary foster families. On the other hand, when an organization like Asia’s Hope admits a child or a sibling group, we can guarantee permanent, uninterrupted care for the remainder of their childhood.

4) When legal or social factors make adoption or kinship care placement illegal, unsafe or infeasible

In China, the “one-child policy” renders the legal adoption of hundreds of thousands of “extra” children by extended family members unthinkable. To report a birth that violates the strictly-enforced law would put the entire family—and the birth mother most directly—in grave danger of fines, penalties, even prison. In other parts of the world, orphaned children are believed to be cursed, the object of a powerful spirit’s wrath, and are neither worthy of nor entitled to dignity and protection.

A significant, long-term investment is needed in these types of societies, and requires not just NGO generosity, but the commitment of local governments to support, foster and oversee competent social service mechanisms. It also requires the dismantling of deeply entrenched systems of power that lead to injustice and oppression of the poor. As Jesus said, “The poor will always be with you.” Until the Kingdom comes in its fullness, we will always struggle against powerful forces that orphan and exploit children.

We need to reject both overcorrection and utopianism, recognizing that systems of injustice are inter-connected and multi-faceted. There can never be a “silver bullet” or a single solution to the world’s orphan crisis. We should support organizations and individuals doing good work across the entire spectrum of care, advocating for excellence in both new and existing models. We must commit to working together, valuing unity rather than uniformity.

At each of Asia's Hope's 29 children's homes, orphaned kids enjoy all of the benefits of a real, permanent family.

I read today -- and I don't know if this is true -- that construction on an average new church building costs about $6,000,000. That's for 9,000 square feet, seating 288 people and a parking lot for 72 cars. 

That's a lot of money! And based on my experience with church capital campaigns (I did the marketing for a few of them when I was in that business), it can be pretty difficult to raise those funds. Aside from the fact that people tend to be strapped for cash, church building projects tend to tap into a reservoir of cynicism that can cause people's wallets to snap shut and go into hiding.

"Do we really need a new building? Are there better things we could be doing with this money? Should we really be spending millions on fancy buildings and expensive sound equipment when there are people starving to death all over the world?" 

I've heard all of those before, and I'm guessing most pastors have too.

And wait -- full stop -- before I go any further, I should say that I'm not here to criticize churches for building things. On the contrary, I'd like to *help* churches raise those funds. And, perhaps, help orphaned kids in the process.

What if every church embarking on a capital campaign took proactive steps to inoculate themselves against cynicism and enthusiasm-sapping congregational self doubt by building into every fundraising project for themselves a gift for orphaned kids?

Think about it. It costs an organization like Asia's Hope around $75,000 to build a beautiful new home for 25 orphaned children. That's an unthinkable amount of money to a poor child in, say, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. But that's really nothing in church construction costs.

I mean, when putting up a new building, most churches will make $75,000 decisions about carpet. Or AV equipment. Maybe even signage.

What if that $6 million campaign became a $6.1 million campaign, and what if pastors and elders added a new home for orphans into their plans for a new home for their congregation? If church members knew that the money they were giving was also transforming a community of orphaned kids half way around the world, they might be a lot less likely to dismiss the overall campaign as frivolous or unnecessary. 

If you're a leader in a church that's thinking of embarking on a capital campaign in the next few years, I'd love to talk with you about how we can work together to help Asia's Hope provide homes for orphaned kids and help your church raise the funds you need to build or expand your facilities.

If you attend a church that's doing a feasibility study or starting a capital campaign, ask your leaders to contact me. I think this just might work.

Email me or call me at 614.804.6233.