The bulletin board is covered with pictures of children that are now in heaven.
Because Avis moved, today many AIDS orphans in Thailand no longer languish in government-run institutions. Instead, they have an oasis of Christian love and care in the city of Chiang Mai called Agape Home.
“These kids are dying of AIDS, but we’re not stressing death, AIDS, orphans,” Avis said. “We’re a family. They’re prayed with, they’re taught, they’re counseled....”
Agape Home, which receives much of its support from U.S. ministries such as Samaritan's Purse, is a lively place full of boisterous, happy children. Many of the children succumb to the deadly disease – about 40 have died since the home opened in 1996 – but it’s a place where miracles are a regular occurrence.
“These kids are dying of AIDS, but we’re not stressing death, AIDS, orphans,” Avis said. “We’re a family. They’re prayed with, they’re taught, they’re disciplined, they’re counseled with, they’re given good food, good clothes, and they’re loved.”
An assistant from Canada holds one of the children.
Nikki is still alive, and Agape Home exists, because Avis has been listening to God for the past 48 years.
“God called me to be a missionary when I was 6 years old, in a Salvation Army Sunday school, 3 o’clock in the afternoon, tears rolling down my face,” she said. “When I was 14, I made a commitment to God that I would one day have my own orphanage. When I was 16, I dedicated my life again. I was going to be a missionary, I was going to adopt kids, and I was going to have my own orphanage. It all came together. I’m 54 years old now, and I can still sense that same call. That’s what keeps me going.”
God’s call led her to leave her home in Newfoundland, Canada, and go to Thailand in 1972. She stayed for a year and half, working as a missionary, before going back to Canada to attend Bible school.
That’s where she met Roy. They married, and returned to Thailand in 1978 as full-time missionaries. They worked with churches, worked in refugee camps, worked with the poor, the sick, with people who needed to hear about Jesus. They worked wherever God led them.
When they had been in Thailand for 18 years, God led Avis to a government-run orphanage. That’s where she met the dirty, smelly girl who would become the seed that grew Agape Home.
