There's no party like an Asia's Hope party...

The dancing starts at dusk and ends when you're too tired to stand up.

It's 6:30 in the morning, an unreasonable time for me to be blogging, today especially, since I danced for 4 hours last night with about 350 of my favorite people. But our days here in Battambang have been so full, it's been nearly impossible for me to find any time to write. 

Between video shoots, staff and partnering org meetings and visits to our homes, we've been going something close to full speed, full time. So we're tired. But it's a good tired, and is probably the emotional and social-interaction equivalent to the exhausted, achy euphoria one feels after competing in some sort of white water rafting marathon. If I wasn't so old, I could do this more than once a year.

I have so many photos I could show you -- I think I'll make this post more pictorial and less narrative. The faces of the kids and staff say more than I could anyway. Suffice it to say, this is the closest to heaven I may ever see on earth. No, these kids don't have perfect lives. All have suffered loss, and many will continue to struggle with the resulting trauma. But there's no better place in the world to recover than a loving, supportive family. And these kids all have one.

John McCollumComment
Back home in Cambodia

Over the last 48 hours, we've driven through mountains, walked in the pouring rain, flown across both the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Thailand, ridden in buses, vans and tuk-tuks -- and we're finally unpacked and rested at our hotel in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

All of us are tired, most of us have flirted with some kind of sickness, and two of us are on the powerful antibiotic Cipro. We miss our friends and family in India, but we're thrilled to be back in Cambodia, which has become a real home-away-from-home for my family over the past few years.

We were greeted at the modest but tidy Pochentong Airport by Savorn, our National Director, his wife Sony and all of our Phnom Penh house parents. The Asia's Hope kids were all in school when we arrived, so our reunion with them will have to wait until tomorrow, but it was great to be hugged warmly and welcomed heartily by these people we've grown to love so much.

It's Addison and Jared's first time here, and I think they're just taking everything in: Cambodia can be a bit overwhelming to first time visitors, but heck, we just came from India. This place actually feels a bit serene compared to Mumbai, Kolkata and some of the other places we've passed through. 

By the time we got to our hotel, we were all ready for a nap, but I had promised Addison and Jared we'd go out to a tailor to get measured for some shirts (about 1/6th of the price we'd pay in the U.S.), so we left the girls behind and headed out via tuk-tuk to the Khmer Independent Tailor on Sihanouk Boulevard. We placed our orders, grabbed a SIM card for my phone and picked up some necessities (and a couple ice-cream bars) at Lucky Market.

Tonight we're going to have dinner with the staff, get a good night sleep and then spend the morning intoducing Addison and Jared to Phnom Penh. We'll grab a bowl of noodle soup, visit a tea shop and then spend some time at the ever-sobering Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. After lunch, I think we're heading out to Prek Eng to see the kids and visit the new campus for the first time since its completion!

The only things that could put a damper on our great times would be sickness...and traffic. I'm driving a huge van -- a mini-bus, really -- to accommodate our family, the guys and the team from Scarlet City that will be joining us next week. I've never driven anything this big anywhere, and driving in Cambodia can be zooey even in a small vehicle. Oh, and I don't have a Cambodia license. So, I'm praying for traveling mercies, and would invite you to do so as well.

I'll be keeping a few loose dollars on hand in case the coppers pull us over and trying to concentrate on the road and remembering how to drive stick. Here goes nothing!

John McCollumComment
Poised for success

We arrived at the Kalimpong Home 2 early yesterday, and got to see the kids eating their breakfast and getting ready for school. We're shooting a lot of video this year, and one of the four videos we're producing is focused on education, so we wanted to capture some of the "day in the life" kinds of images we'll need for that project.

For a home with 25 kids, two parents and "aunties," things went really quite smoothly. The children all enjoyed their breakfast together in the main living area, and then the aunties and parents helped the girls comb their hair, braiding it or putting it in ponytails. The aunties and mom, Punam, slicked back the boys' hair, and helped them straighten their ties Dad, Sunil, touched up all of the shoes with polish and a brush. The kids then piled into vans and headed off to school.

We then went with Nandu and Kumal, a driver from the church, and visited Jubilee High School, where 16 of our kids, mostly from the Kalimpong 1 home, attend. I was impressed by the school -- it's semi-public, and all of the courses are taught in English. The headmaster and the teachers seem highly qualified and treat the children firmly, but with respect. 

After hanging at Jubilee and taking videos and photos in our kids' classes, we headed to the Asia's Hope school for more footage, but also some fun and games. The school is in a rented building (we'd love to have our own building some day -- more on that later...), but is very well suited to the needs of the nearly 100 Asia's Hope elementary-age students who study there. 

We have a large concrete playground, about the size of a basketball court. This is extremely unusual in this part of India, where everything is built into the side of a mountain, and flat land is at a premium. We enter the campus as road-level, and then descend along a steep, curving driveway. The property consists of the playground, two wooden outbuildings and a large, three-story brick building. The school occupies the ground floor of the large building and one of the smaller wooden structures. Our Kalimpong 2 home occupies the second story, and the landlord's family lives on the top floor. (Whereas all of our homes in Cambodia and Thailand are single-family structures, I think that in Kalimpong's land-scarce and expensive real estate mountainside real estate market, building in this town will mean stacking our homes in the fashion of the locals.)

Even though Asia's Hope is primarily dedicated  to providing family-style homes for orphaned children, I really love this school. Our headmistress, Mrs. Wang Lamu, is an experienced educational administrator whose firm, yet grandmotherly bearing earns the respect and affection of our kids and staff alike. Our teachers are young and energetic, and so patient with our kids. 

And patience is definitely required in this job. As Mrs. Wang Lamu told us yesterday, when these kids first come to Asia's Hope, they come in as orphans. Some have lived on the street, some have been abused. Some have lived in bus stations, others have lived in brothels. Many of the children have no idea how to sit in a chair on their first day of school, some have only received their first-ever pair of shoes only days before. At first, reading, writing and 'rithmatic are simply out of the question. In some cases, they don't even know how to use a toilet -- they'll just wander outside to go potty; sometimes they'll even do it in the classroom.

But in a matter of months, the new kids learn from their peers, and from loving teachers and parents, and before long, they're actually learning. Our kids stay at the Asia's Hope school until they're ready to transition into local schools. And when they do, they're poised for success. Some of our kids at Jubilee High School are among the top in their class! It's amazing what progress a child can make when they're in a school and a home that is designed around their needs. 

So while politicians in the States claim to leave no child behind, that's a reality at Asia's Hope. Rather than forcing our kids into a learning environment in which they cannot succeed, we work hard to create and maintain one that ensures each child gets the care they need to learn and grow and thrive.

Like our elementary school in Prek Eng, Cambodia -- and unlike each of our children's home -- the Asia's Hope school in Kalimpong, India has no permanent sponsorships. We fund this school out of our general budget, the same budget we rely on for medical emergencies, home repairs, staff salaries and other recurring needs. Please pray for our two schools. And if you want to participate financially in the operation of these schools on a one-time or long-time basis, I'd love to hear from you!

John McCollum Comment
tick-tick-tick...

As our days have gotten zooier, and my time alone for introspection scarcer, I've gotten a little behind on my blogging. I may be able to rectify that, but I can't make any promises.

Right now I'm running on the proverbial fumes. One of the only things I don't love about Northeastern India is the 4:00 a.m. sunrises at this time of year. It's been playing havoc with me sleep, and I'm almost always tired. Wah. Okay. I'm almost finished complaining: our hotel also lacks light-blocking curtains, so if I wake up at 4:00 am as I did this morning, there's no chance of me getting back to sleep.

Okay. 

At any rate, the first part of our trip was really about maintaining and deepening my family's and my relationship with Nandu, his wife and two kids. With more than 150 staff, it's impossible for me to have deep personal frienships with all of them, my affection for each of them notwithstanding. But it's essential that I stay close with my top guys in each country.

As you may know, relational equity and social capital are of infinitely greater value in Asian business and ministry than in Western. In the U.S., for example, you can fly into Boise, walk into a conference room at a Holiday Inn, be introduced to your new regional manager at 8:00 in the morning and launch into a frank and open S.W.O.T. analysis before you've finished you first cream cheese danish. Not so in Asia, where interconnected --  and to me often-incomprehensible -- systems of personal and quasi-familial relationships underly every interaction, business, ministry or otherwise. So for me, sharing a meal is a part of my job whether or not we "talk shop" or explain to each other the differences between cricket and baseball.

Nevertheless, there's quite a lot of work work that we need to get done in the remaining time in India. And that time is slipping by, tick-tick-tick. Addison Smith, my colleage and project manager, and Jared Heveron, a videographer from Scarlet City, one of our partnering churches in Columbus, Ohio, arrived on Monday, and Nandu and I spent the day driving from Kalimpong to Siliguri, and then after we picked them up at Bagdogra Airport, from Siliguri to Darjeeling to Kalimpong. 

Yesterday, Tuesday, we spent the entire morning and most of the afternoon at a dance and music recital that our kids had been preparing for the last few weeks. It was wonderful -- we have some unbelievably cute and talented kids -- but it was very long. Five hours long if you include the lunch. Jared got some great video, and I got a couple good photos as well. In the evening, we met with our Indian lawyer, who is helping us navigate India's byzantine bureaucracy.

We leave India next Monday, so we've still got a lot to do. We have four videos to produce. Thankfully, Jared's sticking around for our Cambodia trip as well and then returning to India with another shooter and some storytellers afterwards. I'm sure we'll get them all "in the can," but right now I don't see how. So today we're meeting with Nandu to go over the shot list and make a plan to get rolling.

We also have at least one more meeting with our lawyer, budget and fundraising discussions, photos of all our staff and kids, various documentation projects and other miscellanea. Not only that, I want to spend more time playing with the kids, chatting with the staff and hanging out at each of our 4 homes. Oh, and we need to look at land for a future capital campaign. So, yeah.

But things are going well. I really do believe not only in Asia's Hope's overall philosophy and strategy, but in Asia's Hope India specifically. Our location is fascinating, complex and of extreme strategic importance. We border China, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh, and are not far at all from Myanmar. We are at one of the world's great crossroads for migration, a dubious distinction given the illicit and exploitative nature of much of that transnational travel. We are in the nation with the world's greatest number of slaves, the most orphans, and much of the worst labor and sex trafficking. I could spend the rest of my life just focusing on India, expand Asia's Hope to 100 times its current size and impact and still have only scratched the surface. 

But God and his people are on the move in India, this vast, diverse country, home to five times as many people as were alive on the planet in the time of Christ. Our ministry is a tiny one, only a bubble on a great sea of need. But we're willing. And we're trying to move ahead with purpose and integrity. And that's what we've been called to do. And I'm so grateful to have all of you along for emotional, moral and financial support. This is all very good.

John McCollum Comment
On Somaly Mam, the New York Times and Cambodian Orphanages

At Asia's Hope, each home is organized and run as a family -- real moms and dads -- supported by teachers, tutors, coaches, nurses and counselors.

Last month, prominent Cambodian activist Somaly Mam resigned from her foundation amid allegations that she had embellished or fabricated the most dramatic details of her widely-repeated life story as a victim of child sex trafficking.

The New York Times, whose columnist Nick Kristoff had been one of Somaly Mam's biggest boosters, is in damage control mode. Yesterday they published an article that draws attention to widespread fraud in other Cambodian aid sectors, and they focused on very real problems of misrepresentation and profiteering among some orphanages.

We at Asia's Hope deplore fraud and corruption, especially when it involves the most vulnerable in society -- poor, orphaned or otherwise disadvantaged children. I join the Times in decrying the worst of the worst kinds of deceptions, those that further victimize children and mislead foreign donors to earn a buck for some "orphanage owner" somewhere.

In fact, the term "orphanage owner" is deeply disturbing to me. Asia's Hope operates as a transparent, accountable, not-for-profit charitable initiative in our support and our operation countries alike, and we work hard to ensure that there is never any financial incentive to admit any child into any of our homes. 

In Cambodia, for instance, we have actually slowed down our expansion over the past few years as the country's social services infrastructure and economy have developed, and we have continually tightened our admission standards to ensure that only the most needy orphaned children -- those have been permanently relinquished or abandoned by their remaining family members -- are brought to live in our homes.

We've also worked to provide truly comprehensive, holistic care for the children already living with us. We remain committed to grow deeper faster than we grow wider, better before getting bigger. 

Whereas the lousy orphanages that receive most news coverage barely provide "three hots and a cot," Asia's Hope provides a real family environment for each child in our care. Our staff receives ongoing training in child protection, childhood development, leadership and management. 

Our kids enjoy art classes, intermural sports, music and dance training, and have access to a wide array of tutors, enrichment courses and activities. And when they graduate, every child at Asia's Hope is entitled to a university education or vocational training.

Unfortunately, the stories of abuse and neglect at some orphanages make great copy, and provide for journalists and activists an easy hook. Bad news often travels a lot faster than good, and so we too seldom see the media profile organizations that we would consider our peers.

In the same way, it would easy to focus only on the tragic sins and shortcomings of abusive churches and draw the tragically simplistic conclusion that religion itself, rather than bad religion, is the source of the world's problems. But as James 1:27 reminds us, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress."

So, as Bruce Cockburn would put it, we'll continue to "kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight." For every story you'll read of a child being treated poorly in an awful institution somewhere, we'll tell stories of kids whose lives have been transformed by the love of a family and the awesome power of hope. And we'll continue to set a high standard that other residential orphan care providers can aspire to. Together, we'll engage suffering and unleash hope in Cambodia, in Thailand, in India and beyond.

At the Prek Eng 3 children's home, as at all of our 29 homes in Cambodia, Thailand and India, orphaned children receive the kind of care we'd want for our own chldren if they were suddenly alone and unable to receive loving support from extended family members.

John McCollumComment
Ice Cream on the mountain

We took the kids from Kalimpong 2 to the top of Delo mountain (a hill, practically, considering we're in the Himalayan foothills). We had ice cream, games and an all around great time. Here are some pics for the day. Special thanks to NorthChurch in Lewis Center, Ohio for sponsoring these wonderful kids! 

By the way, the kids all caught chicken pox a few weeks back -- you'll notice that some of the kids haven't quite healed yet...

John McCollumComment
"I Am Asia's Hope."

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...

John McCollumComment
Darjeeling (visibility) Limited

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.

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.

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.

John McCollum Comment