Paul Myhill's Blog

Community Solutions (part four)

I fear that many Christian orphan rescue and care ministries are getting swayed by the publications of secular organizations and governmental bodies. These behemoth groups follow overly-academic paths and analyses that are devoid of God; that place culture above truth. Culture is ideed important and efforts should be taken to preserve it where it doesn't conflict with truth. But let's be clear: truth should always triumph; truth should always be the rpiority.

These secular/governmental organizations are espousing ‘holistic’ community solutions. But because man is also a spiritual being, holism has to include the spiritual needs of the individual within the community. These spiritual needs have to met with truth, not culture; the Gospel, not false religion. Only then are the holistic needs truly met.

In a very real sense, the Church is the only holistic solution in the community.

...And the Church is the family and community-based solution!

To be continued...

Community Solutions (part three)

What’s more, these children aren’t even considered part of a community in many cases. The global trend in urbanization has brought millions of people into the cities from rural areas. The "it takes a village to raise a child" mentality in Africa, and other parts of the developing world, is being shattered.

What village?

Cities are now mass agglomerations of different tribal groups and village backgrounds. When the parents die, the children often don’t know where they originally came from and there’s often no extended family around to take them in.

The presenter was right about one thing, though. Institutionalization is not the answer. We abhor it at World Orphans and I abhor it personally. I told this presenter as much afterwards.

World Orphans is involved in the full spectrum of orphan rescue and care, from prevention to integration into families to transition programs for formally institutionalized children. This is all done through local indigenous churches.

So, maybe we need to clarify and equate terms. I will argue that a church-based solution is the community-based solution.

If needed, putting children into church families is synonymous with putting them into community families. It’s the same thing. The church is either the center of the village or the new "village" that can help to raise a child.

The difference is that the Church has the infrastructure, staff and compassion, to make community-based solutions a successful reality. The church is the screening and monitoring mechanism. The church is the rescue and care mechanism. The church is part of the community, fully integrated into the community. They know the families. They know the kids.

...And the church has the moral fiber and accountability structures to ensure children aren’t being taken in to be used, abused, or exploited.

To be continued...

Community Solutions (part two)

I’ve also seen plenty of cases where the placement of orphaned children into community families brought about the same scenarios of abuse and exploitation that the presenter attributed to institutions. Children being used as sex slaves. Children being used as domestic help or as wage-earners for these families.

Without the necessary screening and monitoring structures, many ‘community solutions’ are akin to the Hail Mary pass, throwing up the ball for grabs and hoping for a successful completion. To just state that community child placement is the solution, without having all the infrastructure in place to make it work, is an oversimplified picture, an erection of an obvious straw man that damages the perception and acceptance of ‘other’ orphan care scenarios.

Who is going to screen the families according to their ability and intent? Who is going to make sure that families aren’t just leaving the children to fend on the streets? Who is going to ensure that these families aren’t trafficking the children or using them for illicit purposes?

To simply say that children are ‘in families’ or that ‘community families’ should simply absorb them is to be ignorant of or to ignore the cultural issues and fallen human nature that serve to enslave or neglect these children.

If I were to tell you that we need to solve our impending Social Security crunch by having more people paying in and less people drawing out, you’d tell me that was pretty darn obvious, right? The reality is that the numbers don’t add up and there are many other factors involved that make that suggestion an absurd one.

Likewise, to say that we simply need to see these millions of orphans placed in community families is unrealistic and unattainable. It is devoid of the cultural taboo issues concerning adoption or foster care in many countries. It is devoid of the limited capacity considerations of many countries that already have families caring for multiple children in addition to their own. And it is devoid of the understanding of sinful human nature to use others to forward your own objectives and desires.

To be continued...

Community Solutions (part one)

One presenter at the last Global Summit on AIDS and the Church offered slides that stated:

"90% of orphans in Africa are already living in families"

"It is a myth that there are not enough families for these children."

This particular presenter then launched an attack on group residential care models, not differentiating between family-style homes (our model) and institutions, and summarized that we simply need family and community-based solutions. (Duh!)

Well...

Fragmented facts and overgeneralizations can be a dangerous thing, especially when over a hundred million lives (and eternities) are at stake.

The capacity and placement numbers are exceptionally deceptive. A surviving parent is often extremely sick and dying themselves, is impoverished as the principal wage earner has died, has been disenfranchised and kicked out on the streets, or is working multiple jobs to survive. Many turn to drugs and prostitution.

The children aren’t in school. They aren’t receiving love and attention. They are on the streets.

Where no parents survive, extended and community families often become the next alternative. However, many of these families are ill-equipped to take in additional mouths to feed. The children, although officially listed in statistics as "being in a family," are in reality left to their own devices.

They effectively went from being orphaned, to being abandoned and ignored.

The evidence is everywhere, in the form of millions of children (supposedly in families) that are living, bleeding and dying on the streets.

To be continued...

The Sum of the Parts

...In part, a portal that whisks you to exotic worlds and immerses you into the real cultures behind the curtains – the byways of life and the gritty existence of people struggling to survive against pitiful odds. Along the journey, children are found left in the wake, abandoned and orphaned by powers and principalities that seek to destroy them, to destroy communities and nations.

...In part, an exposition of the Biblical mandates of caution, judgment, justice, care and blessing regarding the "least of these." An intimate look at God’s truth and what it means for us today in the midst of millions upon millions of children that simply desire to be loved.

...In part, an acknowledgement and exploration of the mega-issues of our time and how they are all interrelated, interconnected – and addressed – through the rescue and care of parentless and discarded children. In short, a unified view of the greatest outreach opportunity of our time, an approach to shatter vicious cycles that ensnare humanity and to mobilize masses to attack the core issue of spiritual separation.

...In part, a plea to realize and engage the amazing front-line force that God has placed and mobilized for the most significant global task before us. A rebuke and encouragement to put aside personal motivations and to instead join the bride in all her radiance - to support her, cherish her and strengthen her – by "letting the little children come" to her.

...In part, a synergistic, synchronized framework of action to help bodies of believers - both near and far - to reach out in an organized holistic approach that will change the very course of history...by changing the children’s lives that will immediately and ultimately impact it.

...In part, a consideration that the One who became incarnate in poverty, thrust out immediately as a refugee, and adopted in love and obedience, would use such as these for the completion of the wondrous commission we have been given.

...In part, a treatise that puts forth the absurd idea that we, in affluence, need those, in physical and spiritual depravity, for our own sanctification...that the orphan, widow and stranger are indeed precious gifts to us.

The sum of the parts?

A literary adventure that I’m presently embarking on: a book that reflects upon my exposure to over two-hundred care contexts for the fatherless in over sixty developing-world nations; a book that draws upon lessons learned in leading a ministry that has helped to provide five hundred homes to orphaned and abandoned children; a book of transparent admission of the many mistakes along the way; a book to inform, engage and mobilize for the most powerful world evangelization and church growth strategy of our generation.

Stay tuned!

Continuum of Care (spheres of influence)

Since we first started percolating on the development of a child Continuum of Care model in Burundi last year, we’ve massaged the concept and communication quite extensively. What started out as a napkin illustration that went back and forth between Scott Vair and me (when faced with the reality of the disjointedness of non-profit organization solutions for at-risk children) has become a fully-developed representation of indigenous churches effectively employed in all facets and stages of the work.

Over the past few months we’ve had the opportunity to gauge the response to our model with various World Orphans’ stakeholders, and have also presented the model to major organizational partners to evaluate the effectiveness of the message with others in the missions community.

In addition, we’ve now been invited to share the continuum at Viva Network's Cutting Edge Conference this summer and have engaged a film crew to shoot visual elements of the continuum in various locations worldwide.

Our Continuum of Care paradigm certainly seems to be resonating with a lot of people, from organizational leaders and pastors to faithful ministry donors. The general feedback is that "It just makes plain good ol’ sense!"

The individual elements are nothing new of course. But putting them into perspective, within a framework that champions the church-centered response, is causing some "Eureka!" moments for many people involved in the rescue and care of orphans.

We’ve now boiled the Continuum of Care down into three circles of engagement, or "spheres of influence," for local indigenous churches currently engaged, or evaluating engagement, with orphaned and abandoned children.

These spheres include 1.) Orphan Prevention and Delay; 2.) Residential Care; and 3.) Self-Sustainability.

To be continued...

Continuum of Care (hand in hand)

An attention to the child continuum of care goes hand in hand with an attention to holism.

An indigenous church that is engaged in all aspects of the continuum is inherently taking a holistic approach that seeks the integrated physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being of the child.

Jonathon’s parents, David and Sarah, are dying of AIDS in the Kibera slum of Nairobi. A local church has been visiting them for months, providing antiretroviral drugs (ARV’s), other medications and meals, as well as school fees and tutoring sessions for eight year-old Jonathon. Various church volunteers help to bathe, feed and pray for the ailing family with regular visits each week. David and Sarah really look forward to the company since the members of the church are now the only people that come by to visit. Others in the community have long since stayed away, scared by the evil ‘stigma and spirits’ of HIV/AIDS.

David and Sarah’s fragile bodies were far too damaged during a prolonged period without access to ARV’s and proper care and nutrition. Their deaths are imminent.

The church is working to preserve family stories and memories for Jonathon. A book has been compiled with narratives on how David and Sarah met, fell in love and got married. Other pages chronicle broader family and clan history and give an account of their move from the village ten years ago. Additional entries tell of how Jonathon was given his name and of a younger sister that died when he was four years old. Jonathon’s young life is described in detail and his parents include letters to him, imparting blessings and giving him instructions for a life worthy of the family name and heritage. Interspersed between the pages are the few fading photos that the family possesses.

The book is placed into a keepsake box, along with what meager items the family treasures – a small wood carving of an elephant that Jonathon chose on a visit to the Rift Valley, his first t-shirt emblazoned with Tweety Bird, Sarah’s heart-shaped locket (the only piece of precious-metal jewelry she has ever owned), and the broken spectacles of their daughter who had also succumbed to the ravages of AIDS.

As a result of all their home visits, and the thorough process of establishing a memory book for Jonathon, the church has an intimate knowledge of his past and potential. They know his parents well; know their hopes and dreams for him.

Jonathon has no extended family in the slum. Relatives in their village of origin either scattered long ago or have no desire to welcome the son of AIDS victims into their families.

For Jonathon, the church’s family-style home is his only hope.

But he knows these people, has played with them, prayed with them. They are his friends. The family that is taking him in has visited his parents on many occasions and helped him with his homework. He is comfortable with them. He watched them nurture his parents. He will watch them give his parents a decent and dignified burial.

The pain will still be initially unbearable. But most of the deep and long psychological scars will be averted.

Jonathon will never have to wonder about who his parents were and struggle with being a person without a history, dropped off on the doorstep on an institutional orphanage.

He will be more whole.

...Because the church engaged him and his family at the entry point of the continuum of care.

Continuum of Care (enablement/intake)

Let’s face the facts. Many orphanages have been started with children that have existing or remaining family.

Part of a dinnertime conversation here in Burundi concerned this reality.

In Africa, there is a broad cultural acceptance of having other people raise your children for you. It’s not uncommon for a parent to ask a more well-to-do friend to take in their child so that child might have better opportunities in life. Some of this is related to the "it takes a village to raise a child" mindset and part of it is just based on pure economics, especially in situations of polygamous marriages where dozens of children are involved.

One of the organizational workers that joined us for dinner explained how a friend of hers was brought up in an orphanage. Family and extended family were either nowhere to be found or inadequate attempts were made to find them. The child was alone and subsequently raised by the institution. She beat the odds and ended up doing quite well for herself. She became a nurse. She married a doctor.

It was at that point that family came out of the woodwork and introduced themselves to her. Her new-found professional and economic success was, no doubt, a significant draw.

It was evident that she was being watched from afar. Family that didn’t want the responsibility of raising her were tracking her life’s developments, perhaps out of curiosity and love, perhaps for opportunities of future personal gain.

Yes, this child was indeed unwanted and abandoned for whatever reason. But could there have been better intake procedures to identify her true origins and the existence of family? Could there have been ministry opportunities into that shallow or overburdened family that could have changed the whole dynamic and situational analysis?

A major ministry once established and ran multiple orphanages in East Asia. The president of this ministry recently shared with us how they eventually had to make the decision to shut down the orphanages and follow a new ministry model that was not based on institutionalization. On the day the facilities were being closed, relatives literally lined up to pick up the children, pick up the ‘orphans.’

In India, we have visited many orphan homes where there were a large number of ‘needy’ children being housed with the orphans. Well, as you can imagine, many, if not most of the children of India could be classified as disadvantaged or needy. Where does one draw the line?

The line should be drawn at orphaned or endangerment status. Period.

Any type of group residential care program, regardless of whether it is an institutional orphanage or family-style home, should never, never, never (did I emphasize that enough?) enable families to give up their children for others to care for. That is simply unacceptable. The child needs to be with their family, even if that family is struggling greatly.

As with most things there are exceptions, of course. If the family is truly abandoning the child, selling the child, abusing the child, or planning to kill the child...those situations take special consideration. The child needs to be removed while that family is being ministered to. The goal would ultimately be reconciliation and reunification, brought about through the Gospel and much counseling.

But if the family just wants to have others take the burden of raising the child, or feels that others could do it better, that is simply not acceptable under any circumstance. That family should also be ministered to and supported. But their child should always remain with them.

Institutional orphanages are indeed part of the problem and actually help to perpetuate the problem. The very existence of an institution in a community can create orphans, create abandoned children. It’s too big of a temptation. It becomes an easy ‘drop-off’ point for families that are struggling to raise their children or want better opportunities for them. In addition, as those children grow up without healthy family role models, they end up abandoning their own children. Orphanages can create, perpetuate and increase the numbers of abandoned children over generations. They can destroy communities and nations.

Residential care should never enable abandonment!

Related to this, where there is a need for residential care, there’s usually gross problems regarding intake procedures.

Churches know the families and kids in their communities. They are much better positioned and equipped than the government, NGO’s, or established institutional orphanages to assess the needs of children and to know the specific situations concerning their status, abuse or abandonment. They know who the true orphans are. They minister to the dying families and know the children before they hit the streets. They know if extended family options exist or not. Their very work and involvement in the surrounding community is the intake assessment procedure!

Since the funding of institutional orphanages is often based on the number of children they care for, there is an inherent conflict of interest involved. Even above-the-board orphanage directors are less than motivated to make sure a child is a true orphan, and they are certainly not inclined to try to keep children in families or return the children to them. They need to keep the child numbers up in order to keep income up.

Yes, churches can abuse the system also, most notably when they receive funding for children from the West. Narrowly-focused, poorly-run child sponsorship programs create these potential problems where funding is directly related to the number of children involved. Such sponsorship programs should be left to the experts (i.e. Compassion International and other dedicated sponsorship ministries) who have significant, multi-tiered, in-field accountability structures.

Provided that poor sponsorship programs aren’t in the mix, the church is clearly the better assessment and intake mechanism because they are involved in activities spanning the full continuum of care, most notably orphaning prevention and delay programs. In addition, their heart is for the community they serve, not for filling up buildings with children. They take a more integrated approach that involves multiple options.

They don’t enable abandonment.

Continuum of Care (introduction)

I wrote the following entry, and a few that follow, at 4:00 AM as a storm rained down on a tin roof overlooking a courtyard in Bujumbura, Burundi last year. I’m not sure why it took me so long to post them, perhaps because they fall more into a ministry philosophy category than one of in-field reporting. Regardless, we have developed this model considerably further since I penned these initial thoughts based on our discussions. I look forward to sharing more with you on that later...

Continuum of Care (introduction)

True holistic or ‘whole’ ministry not only means providing for all the functional needs of the individual, but possessing all the potential solutions available for that individual. It entails having all the options at your disposal to meet the needs according to a ‘continuum of care.’ Where an individual’s needs and circumstances fall on that spectrum dictates the prospective approaches and solutions. For the potential orphan, it involves first trying to prevent orphaning, second, rescuing the child after orphaning.

More specifically, the rescue and care of abandoned and orphaned children should follow a progressive continuum of options that all involve the coordination and direct involvement of the local indigenous church located in the community.

PREVENTION/DELAY

Prevention involvement should primarily focus on keeping dying families or guardians alive for as long as possible, or by supporting high-risk struggling, impoverished, or single-parent families. In other words, the goal should be to avert orphaning and abandonment, or to at least significantly delay it.

Indigenous churches, as they engage their communities, conduct home care visits and provide much-needed medicines, food and other assistance for this purpose. Naturally, they also have significant additional ministry opportunities into these families as a result.

TRANSITION/RESIDENTIAL PLACEMENT

If orphaning is still imminent, the church already has a history with and familiarity of these children due to its prevention and delay involvement. Requisite trust has been built with the families and the kids. The church prepares the family for death through counsel and practical programs that help to safeguard memories, family heritage and continuity. Meanwhile, the church looks to see what extended family options currently exist or helps to convince and support otherwise uncommitted relatives to step up and take in these children. Again, this provides further inlets for the church to reach and minister to families. The church is given witnessing avenues beyond just the interest in the children.

If these first two options don’t exist or have failed, then the church turns to its own congregation – first to see if church members can raise and care for the children as their own (adoption) or as an intermediate step until another family is found (foster care). The church therefore serves as an integral community-based solution.

If the church’s capacity has already reached its upper limits, then a church-based residential care solution is needed in order to keeps kids off of the streets, herded into institutions, preyed upon by traffickers, or being exploited as domestic slaves in other community homes.

Group residential care, however, still has to be designed to provide a family environment, albeit a large one of fifteen children or so. Church families, that may have existing kids of their own, are recruited to care for these additional children in church-based homes with full funding provided for food, clothing, education and other critical needs. It’s a long-term obligation - a lifelong commitment - to what, in essence, equates to a group adoption.

In these large family settings, widows can complement the live-in care provision. Formerly disenfranchised and ostracized, many of these ladies need a home themselves and a renewed sense of purpose and belonging. They know loss and pain and are therefore uniquely qualified to counsel and comfort children who have lost their parents.

Volunteers from the church body are also on hand to provide assistance, mentoring, and skills development for the children in the group home.

RESCUE

There exist many young children already struggling on the streets and in garbage dumps and brothels. The indigenous church still goes through the necessary steps to find and support extended families for their rescue. But, absent that, these children also need to be incorporated into families within homes overseen and run by the church.

TRANSITION/REHABILITATION

Many orphan care ministries speak in terms of ‘transition’ or ‘reintegration’ concerning children that age-out of the system. For the children in World Orphans’ church-based homes, these words carry less meaning. Under our current ministry model, our children remain fully integrated in their communities and daily experience what healthy families look like. There is no big disconnection between the environment of their upbringing and the next season of life in the ‘real world,’ only the normal anxieties typically associated with making it on your own.

What’s more, these children never graduate from a home, much like we would never graduate from our own families. The families are told that their care for the children is not a 5, 10 or 15-year commitment. It’s a 65-year commitment! These kids are now part of families, families that they will still visit; families that they will celebrate life’s achievements and milestones with; families that will gather together for reunions and holidays.

There are children we serve, however, that can be deemed as in need of transition. These are children in countries that raise their orphans in state institutions, or in countries where circumstances placed them into large privately-run orphanages. They also include latter-stage children that have been on the streets or rescued from other dire circumstances. These kids need comprehensive help through well-designed intervention programs that prepare them for the next stage of life.

In many cases, these children are immediately placed at the mercy of evil forces that prey upon them as soon as they are released from institutional care. If the church doesn’t step in at that point, the kids are soon immersed into a world of drugs, prostitution, slavery, or forced military conscription. Their lives are typically harsh...and short.

To avoid this highly-vulnerable period following institutional release, World Orphans is establishing transition homes, again owned and run by indigenous churches, that take in children before malevolent parties have a chance to grab them. This residential care format provides the necessary training (including social and skills development) to allow the children to better integrate into broader society at a later date.

SELF-SUSTAINABILITY

Whether it’s a child leaving a primary or transitional home, or directly aging out of an institutional orphanage, there is a further opportunity and responsibility for an indigenous church. Much like we would help our own children with ‘next steps’ resourcing and care, so is it with children from any type of residential care program. They need assistance to take the first strides of self sufficiency. That may come in the form of additional training or higher education, but can often mean a simple micro-loan to establish them in a trade, small business, or other income-generating scenario.

Why go this extra mile?

Because it could mean the difference between stopping or perpetuating the vicious cycle of orphaning and abandonment. It’s not just the specific child (now young adult) in question, but also their future offspring. The child needs to have every chance to be successful and self supporting so that they don’t, in turn, abandon children or fall to the ills that take and destroy lives after children are born.

Gas Chambers or Homes?

One of the presents that Caleb received for his Birthday this past January was an ant farm. The instructions called for sending in a postcard to receive a tube of ants by mail. "That’s silly," I said, "We’ve got plenty of ants that will infiltrate our garden come springtime."

For the past three months, Caleb has been patiently asking, "Is it springtime yet, daddy?"

The type of ants that tunnel and mound on our property are also the type that burrow into our trees, cutting off circulation and causing the death of limbs and branches. I love trees more than ants, so the action path is pretty clear to me. Pre-ban Diazinon crystals are my weapon of choice.

After stirring up the first spring ant nest this past weekend, I assembled a couple of Tupperware tubs to start catching those that would be saved and immersed into a world composed of nutrient-rich gel. These will be happy ants, I thought to myself. No more working for food. Their entire habitat will be edible!

I put the tubs into the refrigerator for fifteen minutes in order to slow down the six-legged creatures darting around therein. As these carpenter ants were cooling, I applied the Diazinon onto various areas of the garden, most notably around the trees that they like to consume. A blanket of death soon covered all of our prized planting areas and future shade tree grounds.

My role of exterminator finished, I took on the role of rescuer.

Having retrieved the now-lethargic ants from the refrigerator, I spread them, and the dirt that was scooped up with them, over our concrete front porch. With a bug vacuum in hand (another one of Caleb’s interesting past presents), I began to suck up a few dozen ants to release into their new home of wonder and plenty.

I felt good about myself. A remnant had been saved. They would be spoiled - free from the harsh acts of nature and man, and able to gorge themselves as they tunnel and thrive before our eyes. Lucky ants!

Almost immediately, there was an escape plan in motion. Ants formed a ladder and chosen ones scurried to the top to find potential exits. All activity was focused on finding freedom, not on exploiting the abundant food source below.

"Don’t these ants realize how good they’ve got it?" I said.

The buzz of motion started to slow. Ants started to drop...to die.

Soon all of them were on their backs in rapid death throes.

Huh?

I peered into their clear plastic world to try to figure out what was going on.

In the far corner, almost indiscernible to the naked eye, were two very small fragments...

...of Diazinon.

Presumably some errant particles had been blown onto my concrete porch before I freed the 'lucky ones' from their temporary Tupperware holding cells. Unseen, a couple of splinters of the deadly crystals journeyed into the ants’ new habitat.

What was supposed to be a new haven of peace and prosperity, became a gas chamber of agony...with all my kids looking on with saucer-wide eyes.

Certainly not recommended as a good parenting technique.

But so it is also with orphaned and abandoned children that are ‘rescued’ into typical institutional orphanages.

The bleakness of the environment causes the initial desire to escape. Imprisoned into a dismal place, the cracks and crevices are searched for opportunities to find freedom.

Oftentimes, with poorly-trained staff in painfully-low numbers, the Diazinon crystal dust gets overlooked. Intake procedures are poor. General care is poor. The poison gets in. Staff become exploiters. Abused kids become abusers. Addicted children find new substances and a captive audience to addict others. Bullies stake out their territory. Depression feeds on common traumas.

Many of these kids will leave these institutions without ever knowing the love of a family, without ever receiving personalized care and attention. After being raised in a poisonous environment, they then become the exterminator’s crystals placed into their society. They infect and destroy, causing the next cycle of orphans.

Herding kids by the hundreds into miserable concrete boxes with low caregiver ratios of inadequately-trained staff is not the solution!

Well-meaning supporters (‘rescuers’) of these institutions need to know that they are unintentionally setting up gas chambers; chambers that will eventually leak their poison into the broader community.

Family-style homes run by churches, on the other hand, have a naturally-good intake procedure – the church knows the kids of the community, knows the issues they are dealing with. Staff are live-in families that will become foster parents to the children. They are complemented by widows from the church, widows who understand trauma and loss and can counsel children accordingly. Additional church members are on hand with a plethora of skills and giftings to meet individual child requirements.

...And the whole environment is bathed in love and a desire for these children to know their Heavenly Father.

Your choice – gas chambers or homes?