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Making a Dent in Despair
Making a dent in despair
Orphanage’s vision illustrates big task in Philippines
By Called and Sent Staff
LIPA CITY, Philippines—A band of 16 orphans stands in formation on a concrete basketball court, thumping out a marching tune under cover from the tropical sun.
They’re banging drums and twirling batons and tapping out notes on xylophones as their instructor plays melody on his trumpet.
Some of the kids look out of step, even a little bored. But in a country shouldering 2.1 million orphans (according to UNICEF), the kids here at Redemption Ranch have it pretty good.
‘God, send somebody …’
Redemption Ranch started as nothing more than a horrified twinge in founder Steve Deal’s conscience.
Eating breakfast at a local McDonald’s one morning in 1998, Deal read a newspaper article about a homeless girl named Grace, one of the estimated 75,000 street kids living in Metro Manila. The 9-year-old lived in a cemetery with about 50 other children. An aid worker found Grace doubled over on a tombstone, the victim of repeated rape by an 18-year-old man also living there.
The article shook Deal.
“I just prayed, ‘God please send someone to help these kids,’” says Deal, 58, who ran an open-air evangelism training center at his home here at the time. “I didn’t know He was saying, ‘How about you, buddy?’”
A gifted puppeteer and ventriloquist, Deal came to the Philippines in 1990 with his now-former wife and two of their children after doing children’s ministry for many years in the U.S. After settling in Lipa City, he opened the Open-Air Ambassadors Training Center to teach Filipinos how to evangelize with street presentations using sketch boards and paint.
Deal didn’t know how it would ever happen, but taking care of kids full-time was never far from his mind. Grace’s story just gave him the push he needed to make it happen.
“Even when God first called me, I really wanted to have a children’s home,” he says. “But He never really did open a door, even with all the open-air ministry we did.
“I’ve always had a children’s ministry – when I started in the streets, the most receptive ones were children.”
Living the dream
Unable to shake the thoughts of Grace and homeless kids in general, Deal traveled to the U.S. in September 1999 with the goal of raising $30,000 in two months for a children’s home. His efforts drew a tepid response—or so he thought, until he returned and discovered $100,000 in donations in his bank account.
Deal and a construction crew with his Asia Children’s Foundation Inc. went to work immediately. The House of Grace opened in April 2000 with space for 30 orphans and abandoned street children—just months after Grace died in a public hospital from an STD-related infection.
ACFI today cares for 48 kids, 12 at House of Grace and 36 at Redemption Ranch, the children’s village it opened in 2005 – CHECK IT. All 36 kids at the ranch live in one concrete dormitory-style building, boys on one end, girls on the other. Deal hopes to expand soon to accommodate up to 200 children in a quad of residential buildings around a common courtyard.
For all of Redemption Ranch’s remoteness—it stands in the middle of an old coffee plantation and coconut grove—it doesn’t lack for things to do. When the kids aren’t in school they’re participating in marching bands, choirs, dance troupes, volleyball games, basketball games and other activities.
“The DSWD calls it an institution, but I want it to be a fun place to live, not a prison,” Deal says.
Working mainly with the Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development, ACFI takes in orphans of varying ages—birth up to 8 years old for boys and birth to10 years old for girls (older street boys often pick up dangerous sexual behaviors as they approach puberty, Deal says).
The kids come from situations ranging from the simply heart-rending—the baby left at a church with a note reading, “Please take care of my sweet little boy”—to the terrifying: a brother and sister rescued by neighbors from a house fire set by their own mother.
Caring for a child costs ACFI about $100 a month. That includes food, clothing, medical care, dental care, housing and education at its publicly accredited Asian Christian Academy. ACFI has enjoyed generous giving since its inception.
“Somebody would send me five dollars here, 10 dollars there,” Deal says. “Everything you see around you, somebody just sent something in on a whim—the children’s home, the ranch. God just somehow blessed me.”
That gives Deal all the more impetus to be a blessing to the kids. One of them, 14-year-old Lolita, turns away when asked to recount her past but brightens up when talking about her present and future.
Lolita came to Redemption Ranch six years ago from the Samar-Leyte region of the Philippines (see map). She likes math. She likes to sing and play volleyball. She had her sights on becoming a nurse, a popular career goal in the Philippines. But blood makes her squeamish, so she’s turned her attention to photography.
Her friend, 15-year-old Jing Jing, smiles when she talks about liking her studies, but admits to sometimes slacking off a bit. Jing Jing says she would like to become a missionary, perhaps in Myanmar.
“I know God will help me go,” she says. Had she not come to Redemption Ranch, she probably wouldn’t be aspiring to missions work, or much of anything else.
“Before, I didn’t know about Jesus,” she says. “I’m happy, because I got saved here.”
© 2007Called and Sent Magazine. All rights reserved.
Orphanage’s vision illustrates big task in Philippines
By Called and Sent Staff
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Steve Deal, founder of ACFI and Redemption Ranch, holds one of the 48 orphans his organization cares for.
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LIPA CITY, Philippines—A band of 16 orphans stands in formation on a concrete basketball court, thumping out a marching tune under cover from the tropical sun.
They’re banging drums and twirling batons and tapping out notes on xylophones as their instructor plays melody on his trumpet.
Some of the kids look out of step, even a little bored. But in a country shouldering 2.1 million orphans (according to UNICEF), the kids here at Redemption Ranch have it pretty good.
‘God, send somebody …’
Redemption Ranch started as nothing more than a horrified twinge in founder Steve Deal’s conscience.
Eating breakfast at a local McDonald’s one morning in 1998, Deal read a newspaper article about a homeless girl named Grace, one of the estimated 75,000 street kids living in Metro Manila. The 9-year-old lived in a cemetery with about 50 other children. An aid worker found Grace doubled over on a tombstone, the victim of repeated rape by an 18-year-old man also living there.
The article shook Deal.
“I just prayed, ‘God please send someone to help these kids,’” says Deal, 58, who ran an open-air evangelism training center at his home here at the time. “I didn’t know He was saying, ‘How about you, buddy?’”
A gifted puppeteer and ventriloquist, Deal came to the Philippines in 1990 with his now-former wife and two of their children after doing children’s ministry for many years in the U.S. After settling in Lipa City, he opened the Open-Air Ambassadors Training Center to teach Filipinos how to evangelize with street presentations using sketch boards and paint.
Deal didn’t know how it would ever happen, but taking care of kids full-time was never far from his mind. Grace’s story just gave him the push he needed to make it happen.
“Even when God first called me, I really wanted to have a children’s home,” he says. “But He never really did open a door, even with all the open-air ministry we did.
“I’ve always had a children’s ministry – when I started in the streets, the most receptive ones were children.”
Living the dream
Unable to shake the thoughts of Grace and homeless kids in general, Deal traveled to the U.S. in September 1999 with the goal of raising $30,000 in two months for a children’s home. His efforts drew a tepid response—or so he thought, until he returned and discovered $100,000 in donations in his bank account.
Deal and a construction crew with his Asia Children’s Foundation Inc. went to work immediately. The House of Grace opened in April 2000 with space for 30 orphans and abandoned street children—just months after Grace died in a public hospital from an STD-related infection.
ACFI today cares for 48 kids, 12 at House of Grace and 36 at Redemption Ranch, the children’s village it opened in 2005 – CHECK IT. All 36 kids at the ranch live in one concrete dormitory-style building, boys on one end, girls on the other. Deal hopes to expand soon to accommodate up to 200 children in a quad of residential buildings around a common courtyard.
For all of Redemption Ranch’s remoteness—it stands in the middle of an old coffee plantation and coconut grove—it doesn’t lack for things to do. When the kids aren’t in school they’re participating in marching bands, choirs, dance troupes, volleyball games, basketball games and other activities.
“The DSWD calls it an institution, but I want it to be a fun place to live, not a prison,” Deal says.
Working mainly with the Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development, ACFI takes in orphans of varying ages—birth up to 8 years old for boys and birth to10 years old for girls (older street boys often pick up dangerous sexual behaviors as they approach puberty, Deal says).
The kids come from situations ranging from the simply heart-rending—the baby left at a church with a note reading, “Please take care of my sweet little boy”—to the terrifying: a brother and sister rescued by neighbors from a house fire set by their own mother.
Caring for a child costs ACFI about $100 a month. That includes food, clothing, medical care, dental care, housing and education at its publicly accredited Asian Christian Academy. ACFI has enjoyed generous giving since its inception.
“Somebody would send me five dollars here, 10 dollars there,” Deal says. “Everything you see around you, somebody just sent something in on a whim—the children’s home, the ranch. God just somehow blessed me.”
That gives Deal all the more impetus to be a blessing to the kids. One of them, 14-year-old Lolita, turns away when asked to recount her past but brightens up when talking about her present and future.
Lolita came to Redemption Ranch six years ago from the Samar-Leyte region of the Philippines (see map). She likes math. She likes to sing and play volleyball. She had her sights on becoming a nurse, a popular career goal in the Philippines. But blood makes her squeamish, so she’s turned her attention to photography.
Her friend, 15-year-old Jing Jing, smiles when she talks about liking her studies, but admits to sometimes slacking off a bit. Jing Jing says she would like to become a missionary, perhaps in Myanmar.
“I know God will help me go,” she says. Had she not come to Redemption Ranch, she probably wouldn’t be aspiring to missions work, or much of anything else.
“Before, I didn’t know about Jesus,” she says. “I’m happy, because I got saved here.”
© 2007Called and Sent Magazine. All rights reserved.