Agape Home- Thailand -- page 3

Home Kids Stories Go Give Pray About Us

Agape Home Thailand

• Chapter 1

• Chapter 2

• Chapter 3

• Chapter 4

• Sign up for our photo contest

• Sign up for our Newsletter

• Behind the Lens

• Did you Know?

• Extra Pics

Agape Home - The first miracle – Nikki comes home
Written By: Simon Gonzalez
Photos By: Ron Storer

Avis is resolute as she speaks about where God is leading them.

Avis Rideout’s work as a missionary in Thailand fulfilled one of the promises she had made to God. She remembered her other vow, that one day she would have her own orphanage, but that door was not yet opened. So she did the next best thing.

...“It was a dirty, stinky place. It was awful. When the AIDS epidemic started, they started getting kids who had been abandoned....”

“Avis was going out and helping in the government orphanage,” said Roy, her husband. “It was a dirty, stinky place. It was awful. When the AIDS epidemic started, they started getting kids who had been abandoned because mothers couldn’t look after them. They had set up a separate building, and the kids were looked after by a skeleton crew that wore rubber gloves. The kids were never getting any kind of human touch. They were getting no love and affection.”

Avis vividly remembers the moment when she felt God telling her that she had to give the children what they were missing.

“I walked up the stairs on a Monday morning,” she said. “On the floor there was a mat, and there were eight kids dying. God showed me instantly that they were not dying of AIDS, they were dying from lack of love and rejection. I said God, give me one seed, and I will open a home for these children.”

She felt especially drawn to one very sick girl. She knew that God was telling her to take the girl home. She could have argued. No God, not this one. She’s too sick. She

Children are loved deeply here.

smells. She’s dying.

“She had full-blown AIDS,” Avis said. “When you have full-blown AIDS, you don’t go back. These kids usually die by the time they’re two. If they live to five, that’s a very good age.”

Instead, Avis obeyed. This was the one she would adopt. This was the one who would be the cornerstone of an orphanage for AIDS babies and infants, operated by God’s principles.

There were two problems. The government didn’t allow foreigners to adopt Thai children, and even if they did, Nikki was close to death.

Go to page 4