People frequently ask me, “What’s the biggest challenge of running a large orphanage?” It’s not funding, it’s not dealing with childhood trauma, it’s not even dealing with government bureaucracy. My biggest day-to-day challenge is keeping “grown-ups” from killing each other. Think of any group you’re involved in (work, home fellowship, whatever). Now imagine living with those people seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. If you’re honest, you might want to kill someone also. Continue reading
No one knows what short-term mission will look like over the next six months or six years. Predicting the future is always a perilous task, even more so with the world changing at a faster pace each day. The only thing everyone is sure of is the needs addressed by short-term mission teams are increasing around the world at a startling rate. Poverty, hunger, lack of education, and the need for people to experience the Gospel are growing. When short-term missions do come back in any meaningful way, what might they look like? 
The world has never been more polarized. Mask or no mask, Republican or Democrat, the question of pineapple on pizza, everyone has a position. A simple Google search can find countless websites and memes to back any opinion you like. The problem is, life is a lot more complicated than black and white views; life is full of gray. 
If your child needed to be cared for long-term by someone other than yourself, who would you feel good about? The DMV? The post office? How about the local school board? This is what society, and the church in America, has decided is best for children in need of a home, turn it over to a government agency. It has now become the government’s responsibility to care for widows and orphans.*
DJ from the orphanage 