I remember my first time. My family had only been serving as missionaries in Central Asia a few weeks when our church group decided to make weekly visits to a local orphanage. I fell in love with the children. I was overcome by their hugs and their hunger for love. I wanted to make a difference. I’ve been in many orphanages in different countries since that time, and the experience is always the same. If the decision to adopt could be made and consummated in a moment, Shawn and I would have 100 children! Whether it is Kazakhstan, Russia, Tanzania, Costa Rica, Romania, or Peru, this is the common experience of people who visit children’s outreach ministries. Children in need get to our hearts.
Yet moving from an emotional response to actually providing a long-term solution for orphaned children creates challenges. Often when people act out of emotion, the end result is limited impact at best and harmful at worst. But unless brokenhearted orphanage visitors line up to adopt these children, how can these little ones ever have hope of a family and a more promising future?
Search for solution
Recently while I was on a field visit to Costa Rica, Mission Society missionaries Doug and Brooke Burns told me about an organization with which they have connected. It’s called Casa Viva. The founders, Phil and Jill Aspegren, had formerly directed a group home. This is a fairly common arrangement, in which the orphaned or abandoned children are housed on a campus with several homes. Each home has house parents (who are paid staff).
After some years of working with this model, Phil and Jill saw some limitations, especially as they considered the millions of children in need. One was practical. The per-child cost required to operate such institutions is very high. There is no way to replicate that model in a way to impact more than a small fraction of the need. Another limitation was social. We all would agree that children are better served if they can be in a true family setting. House parents can be a wonderful alternative, but by the nature and demands of the group-home environment, their abilities to function in a true parental role are limited. Still another limitation was ecclesiological. Caring for orphans is an explicit command of God to His people, yet churches often are not involved beyond some financial support, if even that.
In forming Casa Viva, the Aspegrens would seek to address these issues. Casa Viva is licensed by the government to place children into foster care. Although a permanent family setting is most desirable, foster care is still a step up from institutional care. Casa Viva provides children a family in which to live until they can either be reunited with a restored biological family or be adopted. But Casa Viva doesn’t look for just any foster families; the families are raised up from within the Church. The local church provides some of the funding, as does the government. More importantly, the church provides a caring and supportive community for families within the congregation who receive the children into their homes. Casa Viva provides training for the church and families; it staffs social workers and psychologists who assist the families, and it interfaces with the government to negotiate the necessary legal details. The Casa Viva staff members also work with the biological family or, when that’s not possible, with potential adoptive families to advocate for the best long-term solution for the child.
The result is that children are cared for by families in their own culture; local churches are empowered to address the problem of children-at-risk in their own communities, and the funding is provided primarily by government and local sources. This avoids an unhealthy and unsustainable dependency on foreign money.
Costa Rica’s witness
The Burnses hadn’t planned to serve in Costa Rica, but after prayer and more research they have become convinced God would have them remain in Costa Rica for now, working with this ministry model. As much as the Burnses would love to be the ones interacting with the children day by day, they realize more children will be helped if Doug and Brooke dedicate energies to help local churches address the issues of children-atrisk. Casa Viva is potentially a longreaching ministry indeed. Through its witness, Costa Rica’s church communities can announce to the world God’s love for orphans.
After 10 years on the mission field in Central Asia, Jim Ramsay now serves as The Mission Society’s senior director of field ministry.
