Called a “runner,” a young girl scurries through the labyrinth of streets, narrow staircases, and dingy rooms to solicit clients for her mother. If it is daytime, she can play in the brothel’s corridors with the rest of the children. If it is nighttime, however, she must lay quietly under the bed while her mother works.

Although graphic—and appalling—this is the reality for thousands of children in the Red Light District of Pune, India. But with the help of Orphan Outreach, two girls—and many others—are finding a way out.
[continue reading]

Last year—during the peak of the world’s economic crisis—283 people were leaving their homes in the US to help orphans around the world.
[continue reading]

Right now a 15-year-old teenager is wondering how she will survive on the streets of St. Petersburg alone. Twenty more of her friends, ages 15 to 18, are “aging out” of the orphanage system in Russia without basic life skills and vital resources to survive on their own.
[continue reading]

Florida Baptist Children’s Home (FBCH) has been helping orphans for more than 100 years, with 13 locations across the state. The home’s services range from residential care, fostering, and emergency shelter to maternity care and counseling, adult developmental assistance, and adoption.
[continue reading]

Patricia Arzú, wife of Guatemala City’s mayor, Alvaro Arzú, has teamed up with Orphan Outreach to provide education to hundreds of homeless children. The children now attending Arzú’s three schools were once uneducated and living on the streets.
[continue reading]

Maureen Hodge drove up a winding road, slick with mud from a recent rain. She and her five passengers were headed to one of Honduras’s city dumps—home to teen prostitutes who work for 50 cents, drug addicts, and ex-prisoners. But when they arrived, Hodge could not get out of the car.
[continue reading]

Orphan Outreach ended 2008 with Christmas celebrations for the children they serve in Guatemala, Honduras, India and Russia. OO staff were able to visit projects sites throughout each country and pass out new toys, clothes and candy. Most important, OO staff was able to share the story of Christ’s birth and let the children know they are not forgotten. Over 1,000 orphans and at risk children were blessed with the Christmas celebrations.
[continue reading]

It is the goal of Orphan Outreach to make sure that every backpack we distribute to a child contains a Bible. Thanks to our partnership with Lone Sheep Ministries, Orphan Outreach is closer to making this goal a reality.
[continue reading]

I had the distinct honor of embarking upon a journey to Honduras with a group of remarkable people last week. The Bible speaks about their being twelve disciples from whom Jesus personally set aside and taught and who would later become mouthpieces to the world proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. I had no doubt that these dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ that I had the privilege of working alongside in labor for Christ, were a true reflection of these same disciples that walked alongside Jesus for several years. Each one had a special and unique gift that God tapped into in order to serve those in need. The love and service that they displayed toward others could only come from the Holy Spirit that dwells within them.  We had eleven ordinary people with a heart and passion to serve and share with those far less fortunate than ourselves. We had everything from an auto body repairman to a real estate agent… from a graphic designer to a flight attendant… from a car salesman to a stay-at-home Mom. And yet each one served in ways not of their own, but in ways that would only benefit those that they were serving. As one of the people that helped serve on this team, I wish to share with you what I witnessed and never thought I would ever see in my entire life. I pray that my words will be of encouragement and help spur you, dear Christian, to action.
[continue reading]

“I know now what it means to bring a little bit of heaven to earth, to try to take away someone’s ‘hell’ on earth, by just being with them and letting them know that they are not alone,” said Jessica Sabatini, one of thirteen students who served as summer interns in Honduras, Guatemala, and Russia. Their jobs included everything from teaching English, science, math, and physical education to children in a city dump to telling Bible stories and making crafts with children in Guatemalan and Russian orphanages.
[continue reading]

Seventeen members of Westport Church in Hillsboro, Oregon (www.westportchurch.org), traveled to India this past summer and spent their time teaching at Morning Star Covenant School in the Shahabad Dairy, home to many poor families. “Part of the community [live] in thatched huts and have no access to any electricity, water, or drainage facilities,” Umashankar (Uma) Shankardas, India director for Orphan Outreach, said.
[continue reading]

The classroom buzzed with the sounds of children learning subtraction. “Ten minus five is five.” But six-year-old David seemed oblivious. His clothes sagged on his small frame and his head, covered with a short crop of hair, remained down. Outside—in the city trash dump of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where David’s school is—trucks roared up to offload waste while buzzards circled overhead.
[continue reading]

In the Boy Scouts, “Scout Law” includes being helpful. Brady Jackson, an 11-year-old Scout, proved that it only takes one person to help change the life of another.
[continue reading]

Every day 11-year-old Kevin, weighing only 50 pounds, digs through a trash dump in Nueva Suyapa, one of Honduras’ most dangerous and impoverished communities, looking for food. His mother, two brothers, and sister rely on him to salvage something they can eat.
[continue reading]

Each year the girls who live in Elwyn Parekh Home in Anand seem to say about their month-long vacation: “I do not want to go home for the holiday. I want to stay behind with Uncle and Aunty.” These 16 girls, ranging in age from 6 to 16 years, have been brought to the home primarily because of the extreme poverty conditions of their families.
[continue reading]

The little girl's eyes lit up and she clapped her hands with excitement when she saw what the woman brought into the classroom.  She could hardly stay in her seat as she waited for the announcement to be made. Mrs. Patty Arzu, wife of the mayor of Guatemala City, shared with the children in the classroom that they were receiving a very special gift. That gift had come from hundreds of people in the United States who wanted them to each have their own school supplies.
[continue reading]

Christian recording artist Carmen D’Arcy traveled on the Midday Connection mother/daughter trip as a worship leader for the team and the children they ministered to. D'Arcy, a talented singer/songwriter, leads worship and directs the choir at the 6,000-member Grace Community Church near Indianapolis. She recently released a new worship album, A Place Called Grace. In 2006, her song "I Want to Sing" was selected as the GMA Academy Worship Song of the Year.
[continue reading]

Thirty WaYfm listeners and staff traveled to Honduras in June and returned utterly changed by what God allowed them to be a part of in Tegucigalpa. The delivery and installation of a playground at a school in the slum of Nueva Suyapa was a huge undertaking for a 10 day mission trip but it was also just part of the blessing the team brought to the country.
[continue reading]

The little girl's eyes lit up and she clapped her hands with excitement when she saw what the woman brought into the classroom.  She could hardly stay in her seat as she waited for the announcement to be made. Mrs. Patty Arzu, wife of the mayor of Guatemala City, shared with the children in the classroom that they were receiving a very special gift. That gift had come from hundreds of people in the United States who wanted them to each have their own school supplies.
[continue reading]

"We love when the pastor from the church prays with us at the end of the lesson," said the assistant director of the orphanage in Luga, Russia. This caregiver and others like her, are joining the children in the orphanages at Luga and Nikolsky for Orphan Outreach's weekly small group Bible studies led by Orphan Outreach staff and members of the local church.
[continue reading]

Underlying each initiative of Orphan Outreach—as depicted in its logo—is the visible hand of God. No more did this small team of professionals, who have more than 50 years of combined experience, see God’s hand than in the months following April 2007, when they first opened their doors in Dallas. Their mission—to provide “a voyage of hope” to more than 140 million orphans (by UNICEF estimates) worldwide.
[continue reading]

On Thursday, January 3, 2008, our team arrived at the Baptist Daycare Center in Guatemala City, a preschool where mothers leave their children as they go to work at the city dump. They are the lowest paying jobs in the worst part of the city. Many of the jobs involved recycling trash from the dump for resale to big, ugly, filthy trucks that drove up to buy the plastic and cardboard and etc. by the pound from the poor people who sold it.
[continue reading]

More than 650 children living in orphanages in Russia and India received Christmas gifts this year. For many of the children, it was the first Christmas gift they had ever received.
[continue reading]

When guests come to visit Dr. Lalita Edwards’s home in Pune, India, seventeen children line up in rows—tall girls in the back, short boys in the front—to sing a chorus of hallelujahs. They stand in their bare feet on a woven rug, beside metal bunk beds. As they sing, caregivers spring up to straighten the children’s shirts like any parent would at a child’s recital.
[continue reading]

What is the cost of ministry? Jesus said we are to take up our cross and follow Him. Paul said he counted all things worthless for the privilege of knowing Christ. When the Lord asked the rich young ruler to give up all he owned to follow Him, he walked away in sorrow because he knew at that instant how much he valued his material possessions.
[continue reading]

[continue reading]

One of my favorite verses of the bible is Hebrews 11:35 -38. The writer of Hebrews has finished his list of men and women who showed extraordinary faith and then with a sense of exhaustion says in verse 32, “And what more shall I say?” He then lists others he had not mentioned and then begins describing acts of faith by those who no one will ever know their names.
[continue reading]

The trucks do not bring enough water to India’s Shahbad dairy village. Isolated on Delhi’s west side, in an area known more for its cattle than thriving commerce, Shahbad lacks so much water that villagers must travel six miles to get the amount necessary for drinking and sanitation.
[continue reading]

Orphan Outreach has received its Internal Revenue Service (IRS) 501(c)(3) not-for-profit tax exempt status. As a recognized charitable organization, Orphan Outreach is now able to accept charitable contributions and offer donors a tax deduction for their gifts.
[continue reading]

"There are a few that cannot come out to play today. They are sick," the nurse informs us at a Vladivostok orphanage for HIV/AIDS orphans associated with the children's hospital No.3. Indeed many of the orphanage's children become too ill to play. Though looking down the hall as three of the children run to tackle another volunteer with hugs singing, "Swing me! Swing me!" it is hard to imagine that these children will ever lack in youthful energy.
[continue reading]

If good ideas were all that mattered, everybody who has heard of Jeffrey Sachs would have heard of James Tooley as well—but they aren’t, and you almost certainly haven’t. In fact, even if you are keenly interested in education, aid, or Third World development, which are Tooley’s areas of research, you still probably haven’t heard of him.
[continue reading]

We walked up a narrow dark hallway past a Eunuch with a vacant stare sitting on a ledge and turning his head slowly as we passed as if warning us of what we were entering. The feeling of being smothered by evil was pervasive. One of our group said as we entered the area, “We are entering into the lions den.”  I felt we were entering into Satan’s lair as we hesitantly made our way up the stairs. A fleeting thought of fear – a feeling of dread sent a shiver through me and caused me to pause as I slowly walked up the dark dirty steps.  It was as if a voice was telling us – “You are in my domain and you are not welcome – get out.”
[continue reading]

I walked up a narrow stairwell to a small two room office which was formerly a bordello and now housed a ministry giving light to an area full of darkness.  As I entered the room, my eyes were immediately drawn to a very ill woman sitting under the sink wearing a surgical mask.  Her eyes told her story – she was dying of aids.
[continue reading]

As the AIDS epidemic alone claims the lives of millions of parents in impoverished nations, Orphan Outreach, a new social service charity, is debuting in Dallas to reach out to children in need around the world. The non-denominational Christian-based organization is launching its Web site www.orphanoutreach.org today, providing a virtual link between volunteers, churches, overseas staff and donors meeting the spiritual, physical, emotional and educational needs of orphaned children.
[continue reading]