Agape Home- Thailand -- page 7

The miracle in progress – the new home
Written By: Simon Gonzalez
Photos By: Ron Storer

Roy explains the building plans of the new facility.

The AIDS epidemic is sweeping across Thailand, and it is claiming innocent victims. About 23,000 of the one million annual births in Thailand occur to HIV-positive women. In the north, where the proportion of AIDS cases is highest, 6-10 percent of all pregnant women are HIV-positive.

When those women die, their children will become orphans. Many of the children will have AIDS themselves, and be rejected by society.

Avis is doing what she can to help, but has limited resources and space. Agape Home only has room for about 30 children. Avis began to pray that she might be able to help more children. Once again, God is answering her prayer.

Roy and Avis discovered a beautiful, four-acre tract of land outside Chiang Mai that would be perfect for a new facility. They were able to buy it at a price well below its value, and began planning for a building that would house up to 125 children.

There still were a couple of problems. The Rideouts had neither the experience nor the time to work on a major building project. And they didn’t have the money for a major building project.

“...The Lord said you know what they need, go do it,” Dominik said. “I resigned, and moved my family to Thailand. The Lord told me to do this, and I’ll stay until it’s finished.”

God took care of the first problem when he began talking to an electrical engineer from Australia named Dominik Fechner, who was in Thailand on a short-term missions trip with his wife. He heard God telling him to stay and build the new home.

“The Lord said you know what they need, go do it,” Dominik said. “I resigned, and moved my family to Thailand. The Lord told me to do this, and I’ll stay until it’s finished.”

There is no firm date for when the project will be finished, because there is no firm source of funding.

“It’s going to cost us about $1 million dollars,” Roy said. “It’s a big project. It’s a bigger need than we envisioned to start with.”

It’s a big project, a big need, but it’s not bigger than God. Once again, He is providing the means to carry out the work that He called Avis and Roy to do.

Avis greets Dominik and his wife who are giving of their time to assist Agape Home.

“Whenever we run out, we seem to get more funds,” Roy said. “It comes from everywhere. Every time we’re running to the bottom of the barrel, we get an influx from somewhere.”

The money comes from individual donors, from churches, from large ministries. Samaritan's Purse, through its Australia office, supports about half of the children in the home. After a delegation from the United States visited Agape Home last summer, the international relief and evangelism agency headed by Franklin Graham donated money to construct a dormitory.