We initially started as a girls only house. Females are more frequently abandoned than males. Their ability to work or become educated in this country is severely limited, so they are considered a burden to the family. Boys are seen to have more value because they can become laborers at a young age and contribute to the income of the family. However, we quickly realized that many orphaned and abandoned girls have brothers in need of a home and care as well. As we don’t want to introduce more trauma into the lives of these girls, we keep sibling groups together when bringing them into the orphanage.

Although the house is set up to care for 10 children, due to overwhelming need we are at 18 children. We plan to open more houses as our support grows. The need in this country is tremendous as there are literally tens of thousands of orphaned and abandoned girls in just the city in which the orphanage is located.

100% of your donation goes towards meeting the needs of the children. All US board members and officers are volunteers, so there is no administrative overhead. Your donation will provide quality food, excellent living conditions, security, a quality education, and most of all, adults that will love the children every day. Our goal is to ensure donors know that every penny they give is accounted for. Financial decisions are made by the board of directors, so no one person has spending authority. If you ever have questions about our finances, please reach out to Dave via our Contact page. Transparency is always our goal.

Agape House Asia works with a network of in country Christian pastors to identify potential candidates. We then perform a background check to ensure that the potential candidates are either true orphans (no living parents) or abandoned children (parents no longer want legal custody and have left them on the streets). We then work through our lawyer to gain legal guardianship of the child. At that point, the child is under our guardianship.

Our most important need is prayer. We are a Christian organization operating in a 98% Muslim country. Discrimination against Christians is commonplace and discrimination against Christian orphan girls is rampant. There is no social safety net for these girls – once they are on the street, they are on their own. Many won’t survive to adulthood. This is as hostile an environment as can be imagined and we are utterly dependent on the grace of God and our reliance on His guidance. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive monthly prayer requests. Additionally, you can donate or sponsor a specific expense monthly. We strive to make the organization work as efficiently as possible. Our goal is to ensure these children are cared for and loved, so that when they reach age 18 they are well prepared to be successful and true ambassadors of the love of Christ. Check out our Donate page for more information on this.Third, you can tell others about us. We can provide you with literature and slides if you want to do a presentation at your church, small group, community clubs, or business. We may even be able to present with you if desired. Fourth, we may have other unique and specific needs that you can help with. Share your gifts and talents with us so that we can find an avenue for you to leverage those in helping the organization.

In this country, a person’s religious identity is stated on their national ID card. Given the very real religious discrimination that occurs, this identity pretty much determines the fate of every child. We would like to care for as many children as possible and in no way want to discriminate against who we intake based on the religion of the parent of the child. However, the laws of this country strictly prohibit a Christian organization from interacting with any child of a different stated religion – especially Muslims. The fact that the Muslim child may be living on the street has no bearing on whether or not we can help them. Therefore, we can only intake children identified to have biological Christian parents.

The economics of the country in which we operate are very complicated. Because of taxes, import tariffs, and a general lack of local manufacturing, products cost the same as or more than they do in the US despite the median income being significantly lower than in the US. This means our monthly expenses run much higher than what one would typically expect for a third world country. Additionally, there is almost no infrastructure in this country. Water has to be trucked in, which is expensive. Corruption is rampant and bribes are required to conduct business such as making house repairs, etc.. Import tariffs push prices very high. A used car that may cost $3,500 in the US will typically sell for $14,000.

We are committed to keeping house sizes to around 10 children and no more than 14 children at a maximum. One of our goals is to create a sense of family in each house. We have already seen this work very well. At Agape House it is impossible to tell which of the children are from the same birth family. The kids treat each other and refer to each other as brother and sister with no difference between biological siblings and other kids. Additionally, for security purposes, we want to keep the houses small. In this way we attract little attention as compared to a facility with a lot of children. It is our belief that large facilities will make for easier targets for radicals that oppose Christianity. As we gain supporters we plan to open additional houses of the same size scattered across the city.