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Love Children Home
'We were never hungry'
Tears tell that story for Rebecca.
Rebecca, who founded Love Children Home with her husband, Peter, in May 1995, remembers well the early years of the ministry, when she and Peter had to huddle in a bamboo hut with 20 orphans on a piece of rented land. Sitting in their new Spanish-style home on Love Children�s campus today, she recalls walking to the local market to scrounge what food she could from the vendors.
"We had no money," says Rebecca, now 35. �"Sometimes I went to the marketplace, and at that time they threw out a lot of the cabbage covers ..."
Where the lump in Rebecca's throat stops the story, Peter picks up for her.
"The cabbage covers that no one wants to eat, Rebecca and the children went there and collected them from the trash," says Peter, also 35. "They brought them back to our orphanage, and they cooked them, and we all ate. And we were healthy. We were never hungry."
God has blessed us a lot," Peter says, sitting in his new hardwood-floored office. "Even the starting point, that was good for us. We prayed to God, and God gave to us."
And He will continue to do so, says Peter, whose Biblical hero is Joshua. And like Joshua, Peter remains convinced that what God gives him to do can be done�no matter how many children need his help.
"One year I was trying to limit [the number of children]," Peter says. "But when Rebecca and I talked and prayed, the Lord told us to remember the beginning: With 20 children, we had food. Twenty-five, yes; 40, yes; 90, yes.
"We cannot say how many people will be coming this year or next year. It's up to God," he says. "We just pray that God will bring those we really need to look after. I know that Rebecca and I can do what I will say is a very big job, because we are assured that God has appointed us."
'God challenges us'
As Peter and Rebecca continue to obey that call, God has kept giving. Since the couple began their ministry in 1995, those blessings have poured in from many sources, such as the Japanese government�s Grassroots Grant Assistance Program, which built the orphanage's boys' dormitory and prayer hall in 2001. The program funds humanitarian projects all over Myanmar, including schools, wells and hospital equipment.
The blessings also have come through favor with the local village leaders, who have proffered the Love Children ministry a level of respect not enjoyed by similar operations. Peter recalls bringing in a group of people from Chicago to work with orphans at another ministry, "and I was asked to not bring them again by their village rulers," Peter says, alluding to the general leeriness of Americans by local authorities. "But here, the whole year, a lot of people come in, and it�s not a problem."
The blessings have come even through grief. Peter and Rebecca have had five children � two daughters, then three sons. But their two oldest sons died, the first of unknown causes a few hours after birth; the other at 18 months of complications from hydrocephalus.
When their first son died, Peter was out buying chicken for a celebration meal. When he got back, he heard the news from one of the orphans. "What was on my heart was, whatever God takes, God can give again; whatever God gives, God can take away," Peter says."God challenges us, even in our family life."
That family, by extension, has grown exponentially since the bamboo hut days. Love Children Home now cares for 160 orphans on its 10-acre campus.
Some of the children are brought in by government agencies, some by relatives. Some are true orphans, and some come from families too poor to care for them. They come in as young as 2 or 3 years old, and typically stay until their late teens. The country is closed to international adoptions, and most people here are too poor to consider adopting a child.
When Peter and Rebecca bought Love Children's current site with donated money in 1997, there were no buildings. Today, Love Children Home sports a library-office building, a dining hall, a boys' dormitory, a girls' dormitory and a soccer field.
There's also a loom house and a sewing house, where Rebecca teaches older girls to weave cloth and sew it into the blankets, shawls, handbags and dresses that the orphanage sells to neighbors in nearby villages.
Weaving and sewing are just two of the skills the orphanage teaches its teenagers to prepare them for the workplace. Some of the older boys are learning auto mechanics and masonry. In April, several older boys built a brick retaining wall to keep the sandy soil from washing downhill toward the soccer field during the coming rainy season.
The orphans here wake up before 6 a.m. for prayer and devotions, then household chores. Then there's school -- students through fourth grade attend classes at the orphanage; older kids walk to nearby public school -- and homework. Meals are mainly rice, with perhaps a vegetable or slice of meat on the side. Lights usually go out about 9:30 p.m.
Rice, incidentally, just got harder to come by. As in many developing countries, hyperinflation in Myanmar periodically takes a good whack out of family budgets. A recent price spike sent the cost of a 50-pound bag of medium-grade rice from 6,800 kyats (about $5.70) up to 12,000 kyats ($10). Many parents, unemployed and unable to feed mouths, send their children out to beg.
"People are very upset," Rebecca says. "But I know the Lord is good."
The name says it all
Love Children Home nurtures new generation of Myanmar's Christians
By Called and Sent staff
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself undefiled by the world. - James 1:27
YANGON, Myanmar -- It's 8:30 a.m. The sun climbs high out of the morning haze -- another 100-degree day on its way.
The hour-long ride to the orphanage for a week of painting and playing with kids barrages you with the sights of this 1,500-year-old city of almost 5 million people -- buzz-cut Buddhist monks lugging their black begging bowls; countless moping dogs; throngs of pickups crammed with people in them, on them and hanging on behind.
It's the middle of the hot season here in southern Myanmar, a nation of 47 million people surrounded by Thailand, China, India and Bangladesh. The southern lowlands give rise to mountain ranges farther north, home to the Karen and Chin peoples who comprise most of the country's Christians.
The van arrives at Love Children Home on the city's outskirts to another throng. This time a mob of smiling orphans rushes your van and all but carries you down a gravel drive to join the Sunday worship service.
From inside the green, cement-walled chapel, the thumps and chords of live worship music stream through every window and doorway. Move closer, and you see them: dozens of kinetic kids -- mostly 5 to 15 years old -- jumping, dancing, singing, praising.
Hands
are raised, feet are moving. In their worship and their smiles, the
kids here at Love Children Home share the story of a God whom they look
to as Provider, Protector and Father. Love Children Home nurtures new generation of Myanmar's Christians
By Called and Sent staff
 |
| An 11-year-old girl at Love Children Home belts out a worship song during a recent worship service at the orphanage's chapel. Click for more photos |
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself undefiled by the world. - James 1:27
YANGON, Myanmar -- It's 8:30 a.m. The sun climbs high out of the morning haze -- another 100-degree day on its way.
The hour-long ride to the orphanage for a week of painting and playing with kids barrages you with the sights of this 1,500-year-old city of almost 5 million people -- buzz-cut Buddhist monks lugging their black begging bowls; countless moping dogs; throngs of pickups crammed with people in them, on them and hanging on behind.
It's the middle of the hot season here in southern Myanmar, a nation of 47 million people surrounded by Thailand, China, India and Bangladesh. The southern lowlands give rise to mountain ranges farther north, home to the Karen and Chin peoples who comprise most of the country's Christians.
The van arrives at Love Children Home on the city's outskirts to another throng. This time a mob of smiling orphans rushes your van and all but carries you down a gravel drive to join the Sunday worship service.
From inside the green, cement-walled chapel, the thumps and chords of live worship music stream through every window and doorway. Move closer, and you see them: dozens of kinetic kids -- mostly 5 to 15 years old -- jumping, dancing, singing, praising.
|
SO WHAT NOW?
1. Pray that:
2.If you want to make a donation to Love Children
Home or are interested in learning more about ministering in Myanmar,
please e-mail us at editor@calledandsent.net. |
'We were never hungry'
Tears tell that story for Rebecca.
Rebecca, who founded Love Children Home with her husband, Peter, in May 1995, remembers well the early years of the ministry, when she and Peter had to huddle in a bamboo hut with 20 orphans on a piece of rented land. Sitting in their new Spanish-style home on Love Children�s campus today, she recalls walking to the local market to scrounge what food she could from the vendors.
"We had no money," says Rebecca, now 35. �"Sometimes I went to the marketplace, and at that time they threw out a lot of the cabbage covers ..."
Where the lump in Rebecca's throat stops the story, Peter picks up for her.
"The cabbage covers that no one wants to eat, Rebecca and the children went there and collected them from the trash," says Peter, also 35. "They brought them back to our orphanage, and they cooked them, and we all ate. And we were healthy. We were never hungry."
They did manage to laugh sometimes, too. Peter recalls one rainy night
in the bamboo house when water was leaking through the roof, right onto
him. Rebecca told him to fix the roof, but Peter jokingly said to let
the rain soak him so that he would remember to pray for God to provide
a good house for them.
God has blessed us a lot," Peter says, sitting in his new hardwood-floored office. "Even the starting point, that was good for us. We prayed to God, and God gave to us."
And He will continue to do so, says Peter, whose Biblical hero is Joshua. And like Joshua, Peter remains convinced that what God gives him to do can be done�no matter how many children need his help.
"One year I was trying to limit [the number of children]," Peter says. "But when Rebecca and I talked and prayed, the Lord told us to remember the beginning: With 20 children, we had food. Twenty-five, yes; 40, yes; 90, yes.
"We cannot say how many people will be coming this year or next year. It's up to God," he says. "We just pray that God will bring those we really need to look after. I know that Rebecca and I can do what I will say is a very big job, because we are assured that God has appointed us."
'God challenges us'
As Peter and Rebecca continue to obey that call, God has kept giving. Since the couple began their ministry in 1995, those blessings have poured in from many sources, such as the Japanese government�s Grassroots Grant Assistance Program, which built the orphanage's boys' dormitory and prayer hall in 2001. The program funds humanitarian projects all over Myanmar, including schools, wells and hospital equipment.
The blessings also have come through favor with the local village leaders, who have proffered the Love Children ministry a level of respect not enjoyed by similar operations. Peter recalls bringing in a group of people from Chicago to work with orphans at another ministry, "and I was asked to not bring them again by their village rulers," Peter says, alluding to the general leeriness of Americans by local authorities. "But here, the whole year, a lot of people come in, and it�s not a problem."
The blessings have come even through grief. Peter and Rebecca have had five children � two daughters, then three sons. But their two oldest sons died, the first of unknown causes a few hours after birth; the other at 18 months of complications from hydrocephalus.
When their first son died, Peter was out buying chicken for a celebration meal. When he got back, he heard the news from one of the orphans. "What was on my heart was, whatever God takes, God can give again; whatever God gives, God can take away," Peter says."God challenges us, even in our family life."
That family, by extension, has grown exponentially since the bamboo hut days. Love Children Home now cares for 160 orphans on its 10-acre campus.
Some of the children are brought in by government agencies, some by relatives. Some are true orphans, and some come from families too poor to care for them. They come in as young as 2 or 3 years old, and typically stay until their late teens. The country is closed to international adoptions, and most people here are too poor to consider adopting a child.
When Peter and Rebecca bought Love Children's current site with donated money in 1997, there were no buildings. Today, Love Children Home sports a library-office building, a dining hall, a boys' dormitory, a girls' dormitory and a soccer field.
There's also a loom house and a sewing house, where Rebecca teaches older girls to weave cloth and sew it into the blankets, shawls, handbags and dresses that the orphanage sells to neighbors in nearby villages.
Weaving and sewing are just two of the skills the orphanage teaches its teenagers to prepare them for the workplace. Some of the older boys are learning auto mechanics and masonry. In April, several older boys built a brick retaining wall to keep the sandy soil from washing downhill toward the soccer field during the coming rainy season.
The orphans here wake up before 6 a.m. for prayer and devotions, then household chores. Then there's school -- students through fourth grade attend classes at the orphanage; older kids walk to nearby public school -- and homework. Meals are mainly rice, with perhaps a vegetable or slice of meat on the side. Lights usually go out about 9:30 p.m.
Rice, incidentally, just got harder to come by. As in many developing countries, hyperinflation in Myanmar periodically takes a good whack out of family budgets. A recent price spike sent the cost of a 50-pound bag of medium-grade rice from 6,800 kyats (about $5.70) up to 12,000 kyats ($10). Many parents, unemployed and unable to feed mouths, send their children out to beg.
"People are very upset," Rebecca says. "But I know the Lord is good."
© 2006 Called and Sent Magazine. All rights reserved.