Asia’s Hope, a cooperating ministry in the Charis Fellowship, has released its report for 2017. It begins with a letter from one of the founders and the current executive director, John McCollum. A portion of that letter appears below. Click here to read the complete letter and review the exciting report.
Seventeen years ago, I stepped off the plane in Phnom Penh, Cambodia having no idea what God had in store for me, my family and my friends. The company I had started was just beginning to pick up steam — we were finally turning a profit and winning some respect in the marketplace. My two boys, Pak and Chien, were just toddlers. (Today they’re in college. My daughter, Xiu Dan, now in middle school, hadn’t even been born.)
But that first visit — a short-term missions trip with a bunch of people I’d never even met — changed my life. It’s since changed the lives of hundreds of Christian leaders in Cambodia, Thailand and India, and it’s changing the lives of more than a thousand orphaned and vulnerable kids who today are living in one of Asia’s Hope’s 34 family-style children’s homes, are attending one of our schools, or have graduated and are receiving scholarships to attend university or vocational training courses.
And, I’m hoping, it’s changed your life as well.
That first trip led me and my wife to re-evaluate our priorities. It opened our eyes, minds and hearts to the plight of orphaned kids, and it led us and a handful of other faithful believers to start Asia’s Hope. In 2017, we celebrated Asia’s Hope’s fifteenth birthday. Fifteen years. A decade and a half of stepping out in faith, leading courageously on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable kids — and in guiding others to do the same.
We’ve learned a lot over the past fifteen years, and we’re convinced that God is calling us not only to expand the scale of our existing projects, but to extend our model of family-style residential care far beyond Cambodia, Thailand and India by encouraging and equipping other leaders and other ministries around the globe.
We’re already talking with colleagues in Mexico, Guatemala, Haiti, Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire, Tanzania, Uganda, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. We lack the money and the administrative capacity (and, frankly, the mandate) to provide financial support, but we’re eagerly sharing our perspectives, policies and procedures with anyone who believes that orphanages can and should be more like families.
Our 100+ graduates — young adults who are succeeding in academics, in the workplace, and in family life — prove the transforming power of our model: indigenous-led, community-based, family-style care for orphaned kids. And we’re trusting God for the resources and the platform to see dozens — maybe hundreds — of other ministries adopt, adapt and improve our model, rescuing and raising countless thousands of children for the good of our world and the glory of our God.
Click here to read the complete letter and review the exciting report.